Chocolate-coated Danish licorice balls beside black salmiak licorice, Swedish licorice skulls and a piece of dried licorice root.

Licorice: The Complete Guide

Published 9 Sep 20268 min read

Filed under Licorice BUBS Godis Lakrids by Bülow Denmark

Salty Nordic licorice is usually seasoned with ammonium chloride rather than table salt, and the taste can come as a surprise to anyone raised on the sweet kind. Licorice is a root, an extract and a candy tradition that runs from Calabria to Finland, with a Danish chocolate-coated branch added this century.

What licorice actually is

Licorice comes from the root of Glycyrrhiza glabra, a perennial in the legume family, Fabaceae. Its native range runs from southern and eastern Europe across western and central Asia to Mongolia and northwest China. The name comes from the Greek for "sweet root," joining glykys, sweet, and rhiza, root. The root contains glycyrrhizin, which the Swedish Food Agency rates at 50 to 200 times sweeter than table sugar, with a sharp sweetness that lingers.

To get at that flavor, the roots are crushed, boiled in water and strained, and the liquid is evaporated until a hard black extract remains. U.S. food regulations define licorice extract the same way, as the part of the root drawn out by boiling water, sold as a liquid, as a paste or "block," or as a spray-dried powder. Block extract is the raw material for licorice candy, which adds sugars, syrups and flour. The label of Lakrids by Bülow's passion fruit licorice, for example, lists sugar, rice flour, invert sugar, molasses, glucose syrup and spray-dried licorice alongside its white chocolate.

Licorice and anise come from different plants. PubChem, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's chemical database, lists anethole as the chief constituent of anise, star anise and fennel oils. Licorice root carries a little of it too: the Swedish Food Agency's review counts more than 80 compounds in the root's small fraction of volatile oils, anethole among them, which may help explain why people confuse the two flavors. A piece of pure Calabrian licorice, root extract with no added sugar, shows what licorice tastes like without other seasoning, and it is a different flavor from anise.

Sweet licorice and the Danish style

Soft, sweet, chewy licorice belongs to a broad northern European tradition. The Netherlands eats more licorice per person than any other country, and about three quarters of the Dutch population eats it.

Denmark added chocolate. Johan Bülow started Lakrids by Bülow in 2007 in a kitchen on the island of Bornholm, and the company's first shop was in the town of Svaneke. Two of its pieces show the style: B pairs passion fruit with white chocolate (shop Lakrids B passion fruit), and C, sour strawberry (shop Lakrids C sour strawberry), wraps a chewy red licorice center in white chocolate with sour strawberry and a green sugar shell. The Lakrids by Bülow producer guide tells the company's story in full.

Salmiak: why the Nordics salt their licorice

Salty licorice, called salmiakki in Finnish, salmiak or saltlakrits in Swedish and saltlakrids in Danish, is usually seasoned with ammonium chloride. That compound has long been used as an expectorant. Finland's public broadcaster Yle reports that salmiak was used for decades, even centuries, in pharmacies as a flavoring and medicine, including to mask the bad taste of cough medicine. Jukka Annala, author of a Finnish book on salmiakki, describes pharmacies making salmiak pastilles of their own and selling them in large quantities. He suggests that long run of pharmacy sales may partly explain why the flavor took root in Finland.

Ammonium chloride registers differently from table salt. In 2023 researchers at the University of Southern California reported that it activates OTOP1, the channel in taste cells that detects sour, about as effectively as acid does. USC's account of the study notes that in some northern European countries salt licorice has been a popular candy since at least the early twentieth century.

Sweden's contribution is a weekly ritual: candy kept for Saturdays, lördagsgodis, a habit traced to a late-1950s Swedish health-board recommendation on tooth decay that followed the Vipeholm studies. Swedish maker Bubs, known for its skull-shaped foam gummies, sells its range as loose pick-and-mix and in bags. The Bubs Godis producer guide covers the maker, and the Swedish candy guide covers the Saturday tradition (shop Swedish candy).

Italy's pure licorice

The Amarelli family has been extracting licorice near Rossano, on Calabria's Ionian coast, since 1731, when the family's concio, a works for turning licorice roots into juice, was founded. Their signature product is not a candy in the northern sense: it is pure root extract, shaped into small black pieces, with no added sugar.

Salmiak, Dutch drop and the Danish chocolate-coated style all start from the same root extract. The pure Calabrian style is a useful way to taste the root on its own, before sugar, chocolate or salt are added.

Three traditions, one root

Style	Where it is anchored	What is added to the extract	What the sources say about the taste
Pure extract	Rossano, Calabria; Amarelli since 1731	Nothing; no added sugar	Glycyrrhizin's sharp, lingering sweetness on its own
Sweet, chocolate-coated	Bornholm, Denmark; Lakrids by Bülow since 2007	Sugars, syrups and rice flour, then white chocolate, fruit and a sugar shell	The producer describes fruit acidity and chocolate sweetness held together by the licorice
Salty (salmiakki, saltlakrits, saltlakrids)	Finland, Sweden, Denmark; popular in some northern European countries since at least the early 1900s	Usually ammonium chloride	Activates OTOP1, the sour-taste channel, about as strongly as acid

Read across the table and the three styles are three answers to one question: what to set against the root's lingering sweetness. Calabria sets nothing against it, Denmark uses fruit acid and fat, and the Nordic salty style uses a salt the tongue partly reads as sour.

How to taste and pair licorice

Because glycyrrhizin's sweetness lingers, licorice rewards the attention given to dark chocolate. Let a piece warm in the mouth for a moment before chewing.

The useful pairings work by contrast. Lakrids by Bülow describes its passion fruit version as a balance of the fruit's acidity and the chocolate's sweetness, with the licorice tying the two together. Salt is the other route. In 1997 Paul Breslin and Gary Beauchamp reported in Nature that sodium salts suppress bitterness more than sweetness, which lets the sweet taste come forward. A few flakes of finishing salt on soft sweet licorice make an easy home test (the flaky finishing salt guide covers the salt), and the salted licorice ice cream recipe takes the idea into a custard. Bitterness from espresso or a square of dark chocolate (shop dark chocolate bars) is a third contrast.

How much is too much

Licorice has a real dosage question, and the cause is glycyrrhizin rather than sugar. Eaten in large amounts over a sustained period, glycyrrhizin may lower potassium levels, which in some people can lead to abnormal heart rhythms and high blood pressure. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has advised that people over 40 who eat multiple two-ounce bags of black licorice a day for at least two weeks could be at risk of heart arrhythmias.

The European Union's Scientific Committee on Food concluded in 2003 that regular intake of up to 100 mg of glycyrrhizic acid a day protects most people. In candy terms, 100 mg is about 50 grams a day of licorice containing 0.2 percent glycyrrhizic acid. The European Union requires foods with high glycyrrhizin levels to carry a label noting that people with high blood pressure should avoid excessive consumption.

The practical reading is to treat licorice like strong coffee, something to enjoy in measured amounts rather than eat by the pound. People with high blood pressure or heart or kidney conditions, and anyone taking medicine, should talk with a health care provider before making licorice a daily habit.

How to read the label and store it

The ingredient list tells most of the story. Licorice extract, raw licorice or licorice root on the label means the root is in the candy. Ammonium chloride means salty licorice. On chocolate-coated pieces, the list shows what the coating is made of.

Plain licorice wants an airtight container away from humidity. Chocolate-coated licorice wants the same storage as chocolate: cool, dry and out of the refrigerator, where condensation can dissolve surface sugar and leave a gritty white film, as the chocolate bloom and storage guide explains.

Where to start

For someone new to licorice, Lakrids C (shop Lakrids C sour strawberry) puts red licorice under white chocolate and sour strawberry. For someone who already likes it, the passion fruit B (shop Lakrids B passion fruit) sets passion fruit acidity against the licorice. The licorice collection (shop licorice) is the place to browse by style.

The Ambrosian Pantry is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and products ship across the continental U.S. from theambrosianpantry.com.