This article is adapted from the January 4, 2025, edition of Gastro Obscura’s Favorite Things newsletter. You can sign up here.
Just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, a crowd gathered on the streets of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the evening’s main attraction dangling above. Anyone expecting a glittering ball drop would’ve been in for a surprise. Dropping shiny orbs to mark the last 10 seconds of the year is so, well, last year. In Lebanon, they drop 250 pounds of sausage.
Since 1997, the city has lowered Lebanon bologna, a local smoked delicacy, every December 31. The food’s name is a bit of a misnomer: The sliced beef sausage resembles a cured, sweet-and-sour salami more so than jiggly sandwich meat. And if you forget that point, the people of Lebanon will be the first to correct you. The small city takes great pride in its bologna, with a museum, specialty shops and smokehouses, and of course the New Year’s Eve Bologna Drop.
LebTown
This week, the city attached four giant pieces of encased bologna to a disco ball and lowered them, via crane, in the city center as the crowd counted down to midnight. It might seem odd to replace the usual ball drop with a beloved food, but Pennsylvania is home to many quirky food-based alternatives for ringing in the New Year. Towns and cities across the Keystone State use the holiday to celebrate some of their most popular exports, from beer to potato rolls to Hershey’s Kisses.
Beyond the glitz and gimmickry, these unusual alternatives to ball drops are a nice reminder of how many of your favorite snacks hail from Pennsylvania, a juggernaut of candy, ice cream, pretzel, and potato chip production. This week, we’re looking at some of the local delicacies that help ring in the New Year and deliciously hinder resolution diets.
Hotchee Dog, Carlisle
In 1938, Greek immigrant Charles Kollas served a hot dog topped with chili, mustard, a slice of cheese, and a heap of onions at Hamilton’s Restaurant in Carlisle. He named it the “Hotchee Dog,” and a local icon was born. Hamilton’s has been slinging the town favorite ever since.
As the saying goes, “If you love something, create a giant foam effigy of it and lower that from a theater’s roof on New Year’s Eve.” In 2023, a Carlisle high school student created the six-foot replica of the loaded dog and the town held its inaugural Hotchee Dog Drop. They repeated the tradition this week, complete with free Hotchees, a hot dog eating contest, and the celebratory cry of “Hotchee New Year!” when the clock struck 12.
Peeps, Bethlehem
No child’s Easter basket is complete without a neon yellow Peep. But few people know that these little marshmallow chicks hatch at the Just Born candy company in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Just Born is home to a few other classic candies, like Mike & Ikes, Hot Tamales, and Peanut Chews. But the marshmallow chicks are their most recognizable creation, and they take center stage at PeepsFest every New Year’s Eve, where locals and Peeps superfans mingle with chick mascots, dine on candy, and dance to live music. When midnight rolls around, a glowing 400-pound replica Peep gets lowered against a background of confetti cannons and fireworks.
Martin’s Potato Rolls, Chambersburg
If you live in Pennsylvania, you’ve most certainly had a sandwich or burger housed in a sweet, pillowy Martin’s potato roll. You can thank the town of Chambersburg for the beloved bread; Martin’s has been baking there since 1955.
To commemorate this history, the town drops a replica bag of potato rolls every New Year’s Eve. For those who struggle staying up till midnight, this is the event for you: The potato rolls get dropped at 9 p.m.
Mushroom, Kennett Square
In September 2022, Atlas Obscura cofounder Dylan Thuras visited Kennett Square to explore its annual Mushroom Festival. The town and surrounding Chester County produce half the United States’ mushroom crop, earning it the moniker “Mushroom Capital of the World.”
It’s fitting, then, that Kennett Square lowered a 700-pound stainless-steel mushroom to ring in 2025. The event marked the 12th year the town has used the giant, glittering shroom. “I think it kind of emotionally attaches us to each other,” Rich Nichols, the crane operator who lowered the shroom this week, told WHYY. “One of our … point[s] of pride is that you can go to pretty much any state and pick out a mushroom, and you’ll see it’s packaged and grown in Kennett Square.”
Yuengling Beer, Pottsville
Not only is Pennsylvania home to mushrooms and marshmallow chicks, it’s also home to the oldest brewery in the United States. In 1829, German immigrant David Gottlieb Yuengling chose the town of Pottsville to build his brewery. The area’s draws included fresh spring water and caves, perfect for crafting and cooling his beers in the era before refrigeration.
You can still explore Yuengling’s caves at their flagship brewery in Pottsville. And if you visit the area on the evening of December 31, you’ll see the town raise a massive replica Yuengling bottle as they count down to midnight. You read that right: The town raises its glass rather than the more traditional “drop.” It’s a fitting way for beer lovers to toast the New Year.
Hershey’s Kiss, Hershey
Few foods are as synonymous with Pennsylvania as Hershey’s candies, which include classics like Reese’s peanut butter cups, KitKats, and Twizzlers. But when it comes to bidding farewell to the previous year, the town of Hershey (aka “the Town That Chocolate Built”) always does it with a Kiss.
Now in its 19th year, the Hershey’s Kiss Raise (like Pottsville, the folks of Hershey also like being contrarians) calls for a gargantuan version of the foil-wrapped sweet. To make a 300-pound Kiss replica for Tuesday’s event, artists coated an aluminum skeleton in wire mesh, fiberglass resin, and aluminum foil—topping it with a 12-foot version of the signature Kisses-emblazoned paper strip. For anyone looking to join the festivities next year, they’re always at the same intersection between Chocolate and Cocoa Avenues.
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