Zoute drop ("salted drop") is the Dutch name for salted licorice candy. It covers everything from a mildly salted sweet with a faint salmiak edge to firm lozenges in which the sharp, dry salmiak taste dominates. It sits between zoete drop (sweet) on one side and dubbelzoute (double-salted) on the other, and it is the kind most Dutch adults have in mind when they offer someone "a piece of drop".
Two different salts
The Dutch word zout on a bag of drop does two jobs. It can mean ordinary table salt (sodium chloride), but in drop it chiefly means salmiak, ammonium chloride. Ingredient lists on salted drop usually name both. Sodium chloride gives a familiar salty taste; ammonium chloride adds the sharp, slightly sour, drying sensation that defines salted licorice in the Netherlands and the Nordic countries. Research published in 2023 found that ammonium chloride activates OTOP1, the same proton channel the tongue uses to detect sour taste — one reason the flavour is hard to compare with anything in an English sweet shop.
How salty is "zout"?
The words on the pack — licht zout, zout, dubbelzout, extra — are trade conventions, not legal categories, and makers do not use them identically. Ingredient lists are the best guide. As an example, a Venco muntendrop pack lists licorice extract at 3.5% and ammonium chloride at 2.2%, while some double-salted products list salmiak in the high single figures. The percentages often quoted online as Dutch legal thresholds (2%, 4.49% and 7.99%) in fact come from former German labelling rules for Salzlakritz; we have found no equivalent Dutch rule.
What the EU does require is a liquorice warning based on glycyrrhizinic acid, not on salt: "contains liquorice" from 100 mg/kg, and an additional warning for people with high blood pressure from 4 g/kg. That warning can therefore appear on sweet drop as well as salted.
Common forms
Salted drop is sold in most of the classic shapes: coins, diamonds (ruitjes), small rounds, bricks (briketten) and soft blocks. Shape alone does not tell you the salt level, but brand ranges are consistent: the same maker's "zout" coin and "zoet" coin will look alike and be labelled differently. The shapes guide lists the main forms. Salted drop also comes in hard and soft versions; hard drop releases its salmiak slowly, soft drop more quickly.
Brands
Most salted drop on Dutch shelves is made by a few firms: Venco and Red Band (both Cloetta brands), Klene (Perfetti Van Melle), Katja (Royal Fassin), and supermarket own-label lines. Each has its own house style, and Dutch eaters are often loyal to one.
For first-time eaters
If you are new to it, start with something labelled licht zout or a mixed bag, and leave dubbelzout for later. Expect the first impression to be sweet licorice, followed by a building sharpness. Many people who dislike the first piece come round by the third; others never do, which is also a perfectly Dutch outcome.