About Salt Lake City and salt water taffy. It is obvious why people mentally associate salt water taffy with Salt Lake City. Salt water taffy is the top selling souvenir at Brigham Young University’s campus store and at tourist hotel gift shops all over the area. Not only do they sell a lot of salt water taffy in Salt Lake City; they also make a lot of salt water taffy in Salt Lake City. The 2 biggest manufacturers of salt water taffy in the U.S. are both located in Salt Lake City: Taffy Town and Sweet’s Candies. Each of these companies make tons of salt water taffy every day. They make very good salt water taffy in Salt Lake City, but it isn’t made with water from the Great Salt Lake. I know a sales rep for Taffy Town, and he tells me that many of the people who visit his company’s factory store assume that their salt water taffy is made with water from the Great Salt Lake and are shocked when employees at the store tell them the truth, which is that you can’t make candy (or any other edible product) with water from the Great Salt Lake. The water in the Great Salt Lake is not potable (safe to drink.) The Great Salt Lake is a terminal lake; that is, the lake is a dead end. It has no outlet to the sea. Like the Dead Sea and most other desert terminal lakes, the water in the Great Salt Lake contains a lot of toxic materials, like mercury. I understand why tourists assume that the salt water taffy that they sell in Salt Lake City is made with water from the Great Salt Lake, but it isn’t true, and it never was. Besides, as I said, there is no salt water in salt water taffy anyway.