About 55 kms south of Thoothukudi main town, in a sleepy little hamlet called Mudalur, Muscoth halwa is prepared every day. This year, the unique halwa, turns 50. As the weekend begins, the village barely shows signs of activity, other than outside the family-owned AJJ and SJ sweet shops, where original muscoth halwa is made and sold. A Joseph, who passed away in 2002, at the age of 78, is credited for bringing this halwa to Mudalur from Ceylon where it was a popular sweet over 100 years ago. In Sinhalese, muscoth is coconut milk. He discovered it during his trips to Sri Lanka in the 1950s and liked the taste so much that he got the recipe from shops there — and satiated his craving by making it himself at home once he returned. However, he replaced wheat with maida (refined flour) and added coconut milk, sugar and cashew nut powder for a distinct flavour. But Joseph’s son, J Jeyaseelan, sensed a business opportunity in the sweet his father excelled in preparing. So, in 1969, he set up a small production unit and a shop called AJJ Sweets. In the beginning, the halwa was made manually but as its popularity and demand grew, production was gradually mechanised in 2001. Sam remembers eating the halwa from the shop as a child. The second, smaller SJ sweet shop was established in 2000 and is managed by Jeyaseelan’s nephews, Simon and Johnson, who run their own production unit. “We have no branches,” says Simon Joseph, who started working in this business two decades ago.