Not to be confused with Lycoris, a green licorice group of plants, some toxic. Glycyrrhiza glabra, a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring can be extracted. The liquorice plant is an herbaceous perennial legume native to Western Asia, North Africa, and Southern Europe.
Liquorice extracts have been used in herbalism and traditional medicine. As of 2021, its English common name is spelled “liquorice” in most of the Commonwealth, but “licorice” in the United States. 50 times the sweetness of sugar. The isoflavene glabrene and the isoflavane glabridin, found in the roots of liquorice, are phytoestrogens. Liquorice grows best in well-drained soils in deep valleys with full sun. It is harvested in the autumn two to three years after planting. Countries producing liquorice include India, Iran, Italy, Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey.
Liquorice is used as a flavouring agent for tobacco, for flavour-enhancing and moistening agents in the manufacture of American blend cigarettes, moist snuff, chewing tobacco, and pipe tobacco. Liquorice flavour is found in a wide variety of candies or sweets. In most of these candies, the taste is reinforced by aniseed oil so the actual content of liquorice is very low. Liquorice confections are primarily purchased by consumers in Europe, but are also popular in other countries such as Australia and New Zealand. It is sold in many forms. Mixing it with mint, menthol, aniseed, or laurel is quite popular. Dried sticks of the liquorice root are also a traditional confectionery in their own right in the Netherlands as were they once in Britain although their popularity has waned in recent decades.