Licorice liqueur is the exception among Italian homemade liqueurs. Limoncello, nocino, mirto and génépy are all born from steeping: you put something in alcohol and wait. Here you do not wait for anything, because pure licorice dissolves in hot water: with the powder, the liqueur is in the bottle in an afternoon.
That changes two things. First, there are no steeping times to respect, and anyone looking for them will not find them. Second, and more interesting: since the licorice dissolves completely, you can work out precisely how much ends up in each glass. It is worth doing, because licorice is the only homemade liqueur ingredient with a published daily intake limit.
What is the “pure licorice” the liqueur is made with?
Pure licorice is not the root: it is the juice of the root, extracted with hot water and concentrated by evaporation until it becomes that black, very hard block sold in sticks, small pellets, flakes or powder. It is the same process the Amarelli family industrialized in Rossano, Calabria, in 1731, and the Ionian coast of Calabria is still where this raw material is produced. That is how licorice liqueur became Calabria’s entry among Italy’s traditional liqueurs. In the United States you find it as pure licorice extract or block licorice, often imported from Calabria.
The difference between root and extract weighs on the recipe, and the production rules for the protected “Liquirizia di Calabria” PDO put it in numbers. They cover Glycyrrhiza glabra in the variety called “Cordara” in Calabria, in three forms:
| Form | Moisture | Glycyrrhizin |
|---|---|---|
| Fresh root | 48 to 52% | 0.60 to 1.40% |
| Dried root | 6 to 12% | 1.2 to 2.4% |
| Root extract | 9 to 15% | 3 to 6% |
The extract, the pure licorice sold by herb shops, reaches 6% glycyrrhizin, while fresh root does not go above 1.4%. That is why a few tens of grams are enough to flavor liters of liqueur, and also why it is worth knowing how many grams you are putting in.
One clarification that saves you a wrong purchase: “pure licorice” and “licorice powder” are the same product in two formats. Powder dissolves in a few minutes, whole sticks can take a day. Licorice candy, on the other hand, is something else: it contains sugar, gelatin and often molasses, and in a liqueur it brings its sweetness without bringing the aroma.
The licorice liqueur recipe: amounts for 1 liter of alcohol
These amounts give about 3.1 liters of liqueur at 30.4% ABV, and are set so that a 30 ml (1 fl oz) glass stays under the daily glycyrrhizin limit discussed below.
| Ingredient | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Pure licorice extract | 150 g (5.3 oz) | powder, flakes or broken sticks |
| Water | 1.4 liters (47.3 fl oz) | |
| Granulated sugar | 1 kg (about 5 cups) | |
| 95% alcohol (190 proof) | 1 liter (33.8 fl oz) | food-grade alcohol |
- Dissolve the licorice. Heat the water without boiling, turn off the heat and add the licorice a little at a time, stirring. With powder it is worth sifting it: dumped in all at once it makes lumps that never dissolve. With sticks you need patience, even a whole day, stirring now and then.
- Add the sugar when the licorice has fully dissolved, still off the heat, stirring until the syrup is clear and even.
- Let it cool completely. This is the step the result depends on: cool means room temperature to the touch, not lukewarm.
- Add the alcohol to the cold syrup and stir well. The color turns opaque black almost at once.
- Bottle it and let it rest for at least a week in the dark. A month is better: the alcohol blends in and the burning edge fades.
You do not need any special equipment: a large saucepan, a funnel, dark glass bottles.
The amounts scale in a straight line and the ABV stays the same.
| 95% alcohol | Pure licorice | Water | Sugar | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5 L | 75 g | 0.7 L | 500 g | about 1.56 L |
| 1 L | 150 g | 1.4 L | 1 kg | about 3.12 L |
| 2 L | 300 g | 2.8 L | 2 kg | about 6.25 L |
If you want a less sweet liqueur you can go down to 800 g of sugar per liter of alcohol: you get 31.7% ABV and 267 g/L of sugar, and the licorice comes through more. Going lower, the bitterness of the extract, which the sugar masks, comes forward fast, so take sugar out a little at a time and taste.
How strong is licorice liqueur?
Recipes out there give liqueurs anywhere from 26% to 46% ABV. That range holds quite different drinks, and none of the pages that publish them states the number. You get the ABV by dividing the pure alcohol by the final volume, and the final volume also includes the space taken by the dissolved sugar, about 0.63 ml per gram.
With the recipe above: 950 ml of pure alcohol in a volume of 1400 + 1000 + 630 + 95 = 3125 ml, that is 30.4%.
Running the same math on the most widespread Italian recipes online gives this table. The amounts are the published ones; the numbers in the last three columns are calculated.
| Recipe | Published amounts | ABV | Sugar | Licorice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| This article | 1 L alcohol · 1.4 L water · 1 kg sugar · 150 g | 30.4% | 320 g/L | 48 g/L |
| Amarelli | 1 L alcohol · 1.5 L water · 1.2 kg sugar · 200 g | 28.1% | 355 g/L | 59 g/L |
| Cure-Naturali | 400 ml alcohol · 600 ml water · 500 g sugar · 200 g | 26.4% | 347 g/L | 139 g/L |
| Cookist | 1 L alcohol · 600 ml water + unstated water · 600 g sugar · 100 g | 38.9 to 46.5% | 246 to 294 g/L | 41 to 49 g/L |
The last row deserves a note. In that recipe the licorice is dissolved separately, covered with water, and that water is not quantified: without that number the ABV is undetermined and hangs on how much you use. With no extra water you get 46.5%, stronger than a grappa; with 400 ml it drops to 38.9%. The yield stated on the same page, two half-liter bottles, does not match its ingredients, which make about two liters.
A rough idea of the calories, using 7 kcal per gram of alcohol and 4 per gram of sugar: a 30 ml glass of this article’s recipe brings about 50 kcal from alcohol and 38 from sugar, that is about 89 kcal.
How much licorice is really in a small glass?
Glycyrrhizin is the substance that makes licorice sweet, and it is also the one that raises blood pressure. The European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Food, in its opinion of April 4, 2003 on glycyrrhizic acid, gives 100 mg a day as the upper limit for regular intake, noting that the limit includes glycyrrhizin from every source: candy, herbal teas, supplements and liqueurs together.
The math works for the liqueur because the extract dissolves completely. Applying the PDO range, 3% to 6% glycyrrhizin in the extract, to each recipe gives a span, and the span is wide because no package of pure licorice states its glycyrrhizin content on the label.
| Recipe | Glycyrrhizin in the liqueur | In a 30 ml glass |
|---|---|---|
| This article | 1,440 to 2,880 mg/L | 43 to 86 mg |
| Amarelli | 1,774 to 3,548 mg/L | 53 to 106 mg |
| Cookist | 1,229 to 2,940 mg/L | 37 to 88 mg |
| Cure-Naturali | 4,164 to 8,328 mg/L | 125 to 250 mg |
The number that matters is in the last column, compared with the 100 mg a day. Three recipes out of four keep a glass under that threshold, or just above in the worst case. The fourth always goes over, even at the low end of the range: with 139 grams of licorice per liter of liqueur, a single glass brings 125 to 250 mg.
There is a second reference, of a different kind. In the European Union, Annex III of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, which lists the mandatory label statements for particular categories of food, sets in point 3.3 that drinks with glycyrrhizic acid at or above 300 mg/l, the threshold for drinks with more than 1.2% alcohol by volume, must carry the statement “contains liquorice: people suffering from hypertension should avoid excessive consumption”.
All the liqueurs in the table are four to twenty-eight times above that threshold. That is not an alarm: 300 mg/l is the level above which a bottle on sale must warn the consumer, not a dangerous amount. But it says clearly what category of product this is, and why this liqueur is drunk by the small glass and not by the tumbler.
There are three practical points. People with high blood pressure, people taking diuretics or corticosteroids and anyone pregnant would do well to avoid this liqueur. If you eat licorice regularly, count that too, because the limit applies to the total. And what matters is regular intake: a small glass at Christmas is not the same as one every night.
Can you make it with the root instead of pure licorice?
Yes, and then you are back to classic steeping: dried root broken into pieces in the alcohol, two or three weeks in the dark, then straining and syrup, like any other herbal liqueur.
The result is a different liqueur: lighter in color, woodier, much less sweet, without the opaque black people expect when they hear “licorice liqueur”. It has its point, and some people like it better.
What you lose is the ability to do the math. Dried root contains 1.2% to 2.4% glycyrrhizin, but in steeping not all of it passes into the liqueur: how much comes out depends on the size of the pieces, the strength of the alcohol, the time and the temperature, and the extraction yield is not a number you can know at home. If you steep the root, you do not know how much glycyrrhizin is in the bottle. The cautious advice is to stay around 30 to 40 grams of dried root per liter of alcohol and not push steeping beyond three weeks, which is also when the woody notes start covering everything.
Why does licorice liqueur leave sediment at the bottom?
Because licorice extract is not only glycyrrhizin and sugars: it also contains starches and gums that stay suspended in water and drop out in alcohol. When you pour the alcohol onto the syrup, the part that is not alcohol-soluble separates and settles over the following days.
It is normal and not a flaw. Shake the bottle before serving, as the producers also advise. If after a few weeks there is a lot of sediment, there are two usual causes: licorice not fully dissolved, that is the lumps from powder dumped in all at once, or alcohol poured onto syrup that was still warm, which makes more material drop out.
A cloudy liqueur can be filtered, but you lose something: filtering also takes away part of the color and body. Better to dissolve the licorice well at the start. At 30% ABV and 320 g/L of sugar this is one of the most stable homemade liqueurs, and in a sealed bottle in the dark it keeps for years.
The mistakes that ruin licorice liqueur
- Alcohol on warm syrup. You lose alcohol to evaporation and get more sediment. Wait until it is really cold.
- Powder dumped in all at once. It makes lumps that stay lumps. Sift it and sprinkle it in, stirring.
- Boiling the water with the licorice in it. Documented recipes call for hot water and the heat off, and there is no reason to force it: it dissolves anyway.
- Using licorice candy. It brings sugar and gelatin, not aroma. You need pure licorice, that is extract.
- Doubling the licorice “to taste it more”. Glycyrrhizin rises in exact proportion to the grams added, and the strongest recipe going around puts a single glass over the daily limit on its own. Do not go above 60 grams per liter of finished liqueur.
- Drinking it the next day. In the first week the alcohol tastes separate from the rest. A month changes the liqueur more than any change in the amounts.
Frequently asked questions
How much pure licorice do you need per liter of alcohol? About 150 grams per liter of 95% alcohol, which in this article’s recipe becomes 48 grams per liter of finished liqueur. Recipes going around range from 41 to 139 grams per liter of product: above 60 the bitter side of the extract shows and the glycyrrhizin load rises in proportion.
Is licorice liqueur bad for you? The substance to watch is glycyrrhizin, which raises blood pressure and lowers potassium. The limit given by the EU Scientific Committee on Food is 100 mg a day from all sources together, and a 30 ml glass of this recipe brings between 43 and 86. Avoid it if you have high blood pressure, take diuretics or are pregnant.
How long does licorice liqueur need to steep? It does not steep. Pure licorice is a ready-made extract that dissolves in hot water, so the liqueur is complete the same day. The rest it needs, at least a week and better a month, is not for extracting aroma but for blending alcohol and syrup.
Why is there sediment at the bottom of my licorice liqueur? The starches and gums in licorice extract are not soluble in alcohol and drop out when the alcohol meets the syrup. It is normal: shake the bottle before serving. A lot of sediment usually means the licorice was badly dissolved or the alcohol went onto syrup that was still warm.
Can you use vodka instead of 95% alcohol? Yes, but the water has to be recalculated, and with a 40% base almost all of it goes. A version that works: 1 liter of vodka, 75 g of pure licorice dissolved in 250 ml of hot water and 350 g of sugar, for about 1.5 liters at 26.4% and 231 g/L of sugar. Always dissolve the licorice in the hot water first, not in the vodka.
Before you pour
This is the fastest homemade liqueur to make and the one whose contents you can know most precisely, for the same reason: licorice extract dissolves completely, and what dissolves completely can be weighed and counted. Just write down the grams that went in. It is the figure missing for anyone who buys a bottle in a shop.
This liqueur contains alcohol. Drink in moderation, never before driving, and only if you are 21 or over. The information on glycyrrhizin and blood pressure is general and does not replace a doctor’s advice.