Believe it or not, this is the only picture I can find of Cadbury’s “Old Jamaica.” This product doesn’t even appear on Cadbury’s own website. Are they ashamed? Have they forgotten about Old Jamaica? Is Old Jamaica….discontinued?! And if so, HOW OLD ARE THE BARS OF OLD JAMAICA ON SALE TODAY AT THE SAFEWAYS ON LONDON ROAD IN BATH, NORTH EAST SOMERSET?!
In fairness, I was a bit stunned to see Cadbury’s Old Jamaica on sale anywhere; had I fallen into some bizarre time-warp known only in the realms of science-fiction when I spotted some Old Jamaica nestled between a Fruit n’ Nut and a Dairy Milk at my local Safeway? Had I slipped into a wormhole, transporting me back to the early ‘70s, those heady, childhood days of Slade, I.R.A bombings, Crackerjack and…Cadbury’s Old Jamaica? I actually had to pick it up and hold it in my hand before accepting the fact that, yes, this was a Cadbury’s Old Jamaica, last eaten by me (and probably everyone else) when Heath was in government and Mud topped the charts. Proof again that Safeways on London Road in Bath is the Retro Product capital of the world. (And I salute it!)
Okay, now that we’ve established the archaeological significance of this find, let’s focus on the bar itself. Never before has a name – a title – been so pregnant with suggestion, so full of evocation.
“Old Jamaica”.
You just have to say the name and suddenly – suddenly, you see it all. Pirate galleons, sails aloft, bobbing on tropical, moonlit seas. Palm trees swaying on golden sands as men with big hats swig rum and sing shanties. Treasure chests brimming with 17th century booty (strings of pearls, pewter goblets, that sort of thing). Skull and Crossbones, ‘Oo-ar, Jim Lad’ and ‘X marks the spot.’
And the spot is “Old Jamaica”…by Cadbury.
The Dream
The Reality.
Cadbury’s Old Jamaica carries the legend; Plain and Milk Chocolate with Rum Flavoured Raisins.
What does this mean? Surely, plain and milk chocolate - mixed together – just make…um…chocolate? The ‘plain’ would cancel out the taste of the milk, and the milk would stop the plain from being plain. It makes no sense. ‘Milk and Plain Chocolate’? But that’s not the most worrying aspect; it’s those ‘Rum Flavoured Raisins’ which give pause for thought.
Actually, you can see what Cadbury’s were driving at; you can even put yourself there in the board room (at Bournville), as the ‘think tank’ type marketing men (big ties, big lapels, early ‘70s) came up with their new bar.
“We’ve got this new chocolate bar coming out. What are we gonna call it?”
“What’s it got?”
“Well, there’s plain and milk chocolate.”
“Ya wot?”
“And rum flavoured raisins.”
“Don’t we already have some chocolate bars with raisins?”
“Yeah, but they’re not rum flavoured.”
“So we’re focussing on the rum bit, right?”
“Yes. So, let’s form a ‘think tank’. What do people associate with rum?”
“Bacardi and Coke drunk by fat slags at a Sheffield disco, their knicker elastic
showing through their skirts and cutting into their massive, flabby arses as they
thrust their tongues down the throats of spotty youths.”
(Pause)
“Anything else?”
“Um….pirates?”
I vaguely remember television commercials for Cadbury’s Old Jamaica; they were (perhaps, not surprisingly) of the brigands-on-a-beach variety, a treasure chest discovered, prised open, brimming with (durr) Cadbury’s Old Jamaica. Whether or not this advert existed I know not; maybe it did, maybe it didn’t, or maybe it did but I never saw it. Either way, it doesn’t really matter, ‘cause you know that this was what the commercial was like. And did anyone buy Cadbury’s Old Jamaica? Was anyone drawn into the swashbuckling mystique of the bar? YES, THEY WERE! And who was it? Well, who else – me. I was obsessed with Old Jamaica, believing myself to be quite the sophisticate to be eating a chocolate bar with booze flavoured raisins. Whilst most of my peers were enjoying babyish Milky Bars, I was living the jet-set high-life with my plain and milk chocolate and rum flavoured raisins. Precocious? Perhaps – just a little. But then again, my parents were trendy-posh, and allowed little Amanda such adult pleasures creme de menthe, olives with the red bits in the middle, Bouquet of Barbed Wire and…well….and Cadbury’s Old Jamaica.
Did anyone else ever touch it? I never actually saw anyone else eating C’s O.J, but surely, they must. ‘Rum n’ Raisin’ was a taste combo favoured in the early ‘70s, restaurants with red upholstery, latticed windows and real candles offering rum n’ raisin ice-cream as the new desert of choice (replacing as it did the Raspberry Ripple enjoyed by Sixties swingers.) With this in mind, it isn’t difficult to imagine an adulterous couple – late 30s – upper middle class – driving to a beauty spot somewhere on the Devon coast, the guy stopping off at the village shop in Stoke Fleming whilst his bird touches up her frosted lipstick in the rear-view mirror. He returns with two tins of Fresca and ‘a little something to keep us going, darling.’ He hands her a Cadbury’s Old Jamaica. What else could he possibly do? Present her with a Finger of Fudge or a tube of Smarties?! Cadbury’s Old Jamaica was clearly designed for adulterers; it was too big for just one person to consume, too mature for younger couples (they went for the innocent pleasures of a Fruit n’ Nut), and yet – with those rum flavoured raisins – a little too urbane for married people (family-size packs of Revels for that lot, methinks.)
DEVON: Hotbed of adultery.
So what happened? Why did Cadbury’s Old Jamaica fall out of favour when adultery continued to thrive? Simple. The answer (the culprit, in this case) was Cadbury itself. They brought out……..The Aztec Bar! Aztec bars were a bit like Old Jamaica but without the rum flavour. They were also a more convenient shape (long and thin as opposed to brick-like wedge). The commercial for the Aztec bar showed an fully-feathered warrior running up one of those Mexican pyramids to the sound of frenzied drumming and soaring pan pipes. Once at the top, instead of ripping someone’s heart out, he triumphantly eats an Aztec bar. Maybe he ripped it out the chest of a living human – I can’t remember. But that’s not the point. The point is that Aztec – with its pagan connotations of human sacrifice – was somehow sexier than Old Jamaica. It went with the times, with the zeitgeist of the mid-late ‘70s. Sexual exploration, swingers parties, discos; you couldn’t be gyrating to Donna Summer and/or The Village People and whip out a bar of Old Jamaica! But an Aztec bar…Well! Now you’re talking!
VOULEZ-VOUS COUCHEZ AVEC MOI CE SOIR? Aztec Bar = Seventies Sex.
After the Aztec (which was but a short-lived phenomenon), Cadbury’s turned their raisin attentions to the Amazin’ Raisin bar. This was sort of the chocolate equivalent to Cheggers Plays Pop; aimed exclusively at the younger end of the market, Amazin’ Raisin had ‘fab’ sort of packaging and – I believe – a hint of rum (get ya pissed whilst watching Swap Shop). Don’t know what happened to Amazin’ Raisin; it went the way of Aztec, Grand Seville (‘bit like Old Jamaica but with orange) and the ill-fated Mint Cracknel – it just disappeared. Even the Safeways on London Road, Bath doesn’t stock Amazin’ Raisin.
OUTASITE: The Amazin’ Raisin bar – and only five British pence!
But they do stock Cadbury’s Old Jamaica! So the other day, I bought some.
I was sorely disappointed, chiefly due to the fact that it was shit. It tasted horrible – and sort of stale.
I checked out the Cadbury website. No mention of Old Jamaica. So, I wrote to Cadbury’s to check things out. “Dear Cadbury’s, Do you still make Old Jamaica? Thank you, and keep up the good work – Amanda.” Two days later, I got this response:
“Dear Amanda,
Thank you for your query. To my knowledge, Cadbury no longer manufacture Old Jamaica. However, I have forwarded your enquiry to our international division.”
EY?!
What does this mean?! It can only mean one of two things; either the Old Jamaica I ate the other day was imported from Beirut or somewhere, or….Or I’ve just eaten THIRTY YEAR OLD CHOCOLATE?
HELICOBATER PYLORI: Deadly stomach bacteria produced by the digestion of aged foodstuffs.
I am left with the worrying thought that – digesting in my stomach as I type – is chocolate so old that it could only be identified by carbon dating.
This leaves us with a questions: AM I GOING TO DIE?
And if I am – was it worth it?
Answer: NO!
Why? Because Cadbury’s Old Jamaica – be it thirty years old or manufactured in a Taiwanese sweat shop last week - just doesn’t make the grade. It’s a misconceived confection, a sorry excuse to get rid of chocolate ‘off-cuts’ (the milk chocolate from Dairy Box, the plain from damaged bars of Bournville), those ‘rum flavoured raisins’ a lame attempt to tap into the zeitgeist of the Heath years.
Furthermore, Cadbury’s Old Jamaica encouraged adultery, was blatantly racist (Jamaica = Slave Trade), and made kids like me feel sick.
It also made grown-ups like me feel sick.
This week’s Retro Product gets a bit of a thumbs-down, yet I still salute it; Cadbury’s Old Jamaica may be many things – most of them unpleasant – but you’ve got to face it ; it’s a survivor.
(Or is it?!)
