Nature Bulletin No. 735   December 7, 1963
Forest Preserve District of Cook County 
Seymour Simon, President
Roberts Mann, Conservation Editor

****:LICORICE

For as long as any of us now alive can remember, children have been 
able to buy "lickrish" candy with their pennies. In old-time country 
stores, the general stores in towns and, later, in ice cream parlors, we 
could buy it in sticks, long flexible whips, jelly beans, gum drops, and 
hard round jawbreakers. The first chewing gum was spruce gum but in 
1850 the Curtis brothers made paraffin wax gums at Portland, Maine, 
and one of those was named Licorice Lulu.

In those days a great many men chewed tobacco. Youngsters are apt to 
imitate their elders -- including, surreptitiously, some of the bad 
habits. Consequently, licorice candies were popular not only because 
of their distinctive flavor and chewing qualities but also because they 
made a lot of spit and it was black. There were even square plugs o£ 
licorice, with a red disc at the center, imitating two popular brands of 
plug tobacco identified, respectively, by a tin horseshoe and a tin star.

Nowadays, in addition to the traditional kinds, several other licorice 
candies are sold in markets, dime stores, candy stores and 
neighborhood stores near schools: novelties such as licorice pipes, 
cigars, Halloween mustaches, toffee, et c., etc. Blackjack chewing 
gum, flavored with licorice, is one of the oldest brands still sold. Smith 
Brothers Black Cough Drops, containing licorice and anise, are still 
available in a box with pictures of the two bearded brothers on the 
cover.

Commercial licorice is obtained from the roots of a plant, Glycyrrhiza 
glabra, native in Mediterranean regions but also grown in Turkey, Iraq 
and southern Russia. The best grades are imported from plantations in 
Spain and Italy after being cured several months. There are a dozen or 
more species of licorice plants but glabra, meaning smooth, is most 
important. In this country, widespread, we have G. lepidota or wild 
licorice. Glycyrrhiza is the Latin version of two Greek words: glykys 
(sweet) and rhiza (root). According to Webster, the name "Licorice: 
was derived from Liquirita, a Late Latin corruption of Glycyrrhiza. If 
you are confused, so are we!

The licorice plant is a perennial herb, a member of the Pea Family and 
a legume, with compound fernlike leaves and pealike flowers usually 
pale violet. Its long pliant fleshy roots extend into the soil for a yard or 
more. Manufacturers of drugs and others such as the American 
Licorice Co, in Chicago, import big bales of licorice roots. About as 
thick as one of your fingers and from 6 to 30 inches long, they are 
good chewing and sweet.

The roots are ground and steeped in hot water to extract a brownish 
liquor which is cooked by steam in a double boiler until it becomes 
thick, black as coal, and bittersweet Mixed with a gum flour, it is 
poured into molds and dried in a kiln until brittle. About 95 percent of 
it is used in chewing tobaccos, snuff, and confectionery. A further 
extract is used in certain types of fire extinguishers and by some 
brewers as a foaming agent. It is a carminative or mild laxative used 
by pharmacists to disguise disagreeable tastes in medicines or, mixed 
with syrups, in cough medicines.

Formerly, cough drops and some licorice candies also contained oil of 
anise, which has a similar flavor, obtained from the seeds of star anise 
-- a plant native and cultivated in southeastern Asia -- no longer 
obtainable from Red China. A synthetic, anisole, is now used with 
blackstrap molasses and artificial coloring. An anise plant native in 
Egypt and cultivated in Europe is also widely used. A wild anise, 
called Sweet Cicely, is one of the most common plants in our forest 
preserve woodlands.


Since the birth in New Orleans of jazz bands and blue music, the 
clarinet has been called a licorice stick.