The Strange Story Of The Lickable Lift

The modern passenger lift has what can only be described as an eclectic history, but one of its strangest chapters was when a PR company made a lift that tastes like Jaffa Cakes when you lick it.

In one sense, this is not necessarily surprising, as lifts and Jaffa Cakes seem to be attracted to bizarre events. One of the lift’s most defining moments, after all, was when inventor Elisha Otis took an axe to the safety rope of his lift prototype and highlighted how safe it was.

Meanwhile, the famous tangy cake had to prove it was not a biscuit in court in a case that somehow actually happened to the shock of people over three decades later.

Somehow, to celebrate the 85th birthday of the famous cake brand (as determined in court), a London-based marketing company was conscripted to celebrate the occasion by giving a perfectly ordinary office lift at the offices of Engine a tangy twist.

Called the Lickable Lift, the wallpaper has 1325 individual Jaffa cakes, each featuring the chocolate, cake or orange zest flavour the brand is known for that could literally be licked off of the walls, although exactly how hygienic that would be beyond that initial run of office workers should not be thought about.

It was inspired in no small part by the lickable wallpaper from the popular children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which in itself has its own interesting connection to lifts through its sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

The eponymous lift has somewhat strange capabilities, with it being able to travel sideways, through the roof of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory and even into outer space, where the book suddenly turns from childish whimsy into a science fiction tale.

Such is the uniqueness of the story of lifts that somehow the concept of lickable wallpaper can be connected to the elevator twice.