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With a combination of peanuts, caramel and marshmallow nougat all covered with milk chocolate, it is no wonder Tennessee’s own Goo Goo Cluster is as popular now as when it was first invented in downtown Nashville in 1912.

Known as the first combination candy bar, the chocolatey treat is still made in its hometown of Nashville, Tennessee.

“It was the first time there was a combination of different ingredients that were all put together and covered in chocolate,” Beth Sachan, vice president of sales and marketing said.

Since 2014, the company has had a flagship store located at 116 3rd Ave S. in the heart of downtown Nashville. While the majority of the candies are made at an offsite facility, Goo Goo Cluster’s Nashville store is home to some innovative candy making.

“What we make here are our premium Goo Goos,” Sachan said.

More than twice the size of an original Goo Goo Cluster, the Premium Goo Cluster comes in flavors like Fluffer Crunch, featuring marshmallow cream, salted pretzels, caramel, and house made triple chocolate chip cookies covered in milk chocolate, as well as its PB&P, made up of peanut butter, caramel, pretzels and dark chocolate.

“They are individually boxed and they are four ounces and it is one big piece of candy inside of there,” Sachan said. “It looks sort of like a hockey puck”

The downtown store also allows for Goo Goo Cluster to experiment a little with new ideas, as well as partnerships with other iconic Nashville-based brands for limited-run Premium Goo Goo Clusters.

“Last year we released a Premium Goo Goo called the Loveless Café Biscuits and Jam Goo Goo,” Sachan said. “We used their biscuit mix to do a biscuit shortbread that went into one of the interior ingredients. We used their strawberry preserves to make a strawberry jam component that is a layer inside of it too.”

“It was hugely popular, people loved it,” she said.

The most recent of these partnerships resulted in the The Elliston Place Soda Shop Premium Goo Goo, which will be a chocolate cherry malt inspired Goo Goo officially launching in April.

Visitors to Nashville’s Goo Goo Cluster store can also design their own Goo Goo Cluster through digital kiosks. After selecting all the ingredients, customers can watch as their specially designed candy is handmade before their eyes.

“They put all the fillings in right there and cap it off with chocolate and there is a blast chiller behind there it then goes in,” Sachan said. “The entire process from start to finish can be done in five minutes and you are walking out the door with your own custom candy bar.”

In an age of large conglomerates, Goo Goo Cluster is still a family-owned candy company, purchased by the Spradley family during the 1980s from the family of founder Howell Campbell.

“Now we are on the third-generation Spradley that is in the business,” Sachan said. “It is pretty neat that it is still family owned after all these years, because that is pretty unusual for candy companies our size that are out in the marketplace still.”

While Goo Goo Cluster now has a national reach, the company still focuses the majority of its efforts on Tennessee and the southeast.

Sachan said despite the growth of the company, some people still come into the Nashville store having never heard of the classic southern treat.

“It surprises me still but we do,” she said. “Most of the people from the south have heard of them and some pockets around the country have heard of them.”

One interesting story about the candy is how it got its name, and it involves another Nashville icon—The Grand Ole Opry.

Sachan said there is a longstanding but untrue rumor that the G-O-O in Goo Goo stands for Grand Ole Opry.

“We were a big sponsor of the Grand Ole Opry for many years, so I think in its heyday of the 1960s and 1970s, when that partnership that were strong, people that were listening to the Opry in other areas, they started to think that Goo Goo and Grand Ole Opry were part of the same company,” Sachan said. “People come in here and they say, oh yeah we know where it got its name and we know exactly what they are going to say, and we are like it is not true, but it is not a bad association to have.”

While the Goo Goo Cluster lineup has expanded beyond the original candy to include a pecan version, peanut butter version and even Mini Goo Goo Clusters, the original Goo Goo Cluster from 1912 is still the company’s best seller.

“The original is always the best seller, it is the one most people know about,” Sachan said. “For people like me it was my grandmother’s favorite candy, my mom’s favorite candy, so it has been passed down through the generations.”

For more information about Goo Goo Cluster, visit www.googoo.com.