Licorice
Dark, sugary root with anise-like sweetness, soft spice, and a faint medicinal bitterness.
You may know it from black licorice candy
Where it comes from
From licorice root extracts and synthetic aroma materials.
Botanical name: Glycyrrhiza glabra
Worth knowing
It smells like black licorice, not necessarily the red candy.
About licorice
Licorice is the sweet, aromatic root of Glycyrrhiza glabra, a flowering plant in the bean family. The plant is harvested in autumn, two to three years after planting. Turkey, Greece, Iran and Iraq are among the countries that produce it.
Two different sweet things sit in the root. Glycyrrhizin, taken out by maceration and boiling in water, is 30 to 50 times as sweet as sucrose, and its sweetness lasts longer than sugar's. The herbal, peppery, slightly bitter taste of licorice candy is put down to anethole by the critic at Bois de Jasmin, and anethole is itself about 13 times sweeter than sugar.
In perfumery the line between licorice and anise often blurs. Bois de Jasmin writes that the classical licorice reading is slightly darker and warmer, and describes one licorice-led perfume that opens on intense black pepper, moves into a textbook licorice accord and ends in a patchouli-vanilla drydown. The same critic lists pairings: Lolita Lempicka sets anise against green violet, Dior Eau Noire combines rooty, unsweetened licorice with lavender and dried herbs, and Hermès Brin de Réglisse puts lavender beside licorice.
Licorice mixed with sugar began to be used as a sweet in Pontefract, Yorkshire. Chronic consumption of black licorice, even in moderate amounts, is associated with an increase in blood pressure, and some jurisdictions suggest no more than 100 to 200 mg of glycyrrhizin per day.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Licorice in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Licorice most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Licorice
Fragrances that list it in their notes, most-rated first.
Houses that use it most
Ranked by how many of their well-known fragrances list Licorice.