Wine & spirits: For the love of licorice

Licorice is one of those love-it-or-hate-it flavours. My own love affair with the taste began at about age three, when a bigger kid made me eat an entire fat licorice "cigar." He hated the bizarre black chewing sticks, so he thought he could hurt me by making me eat "tar." Little did he know he opened up my palate to a world of new gustatory sensations.

Licorice is actually the collective descriptor for a whole family of flavours that includes mild and delicate fennel, aromatic and bitter licorice root, and sweet and pungent anise. It's a flavour that has a long and impressive past. It appears in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Greek literature and Roman art -- it was a favourite of many ancient leaders, including King Tut, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Over the centuries, warriors have quenched their thirst with it while marching, and venerable Chinese Buddhist sages have valued it for its healing properties.
   
My own reasons for enjoying licorice have always been strictly hedonistic. Licorice has a flavour that really has genuine oomph, whether savoured in one of its plentiful solid forms, slipped into an adventurous recipe or sipped as an exotic beverage.

Most old-world drinkers prefer the classic aperitif, wherein an amber, green or yellow liqueur (pastis/Pernod) turns milky when water and ice are added. A few will brave the clear, viscous, hard-core tipple (arak/ouzo/raki) in straight sips with plenty of food. North Americans, with their insatiable sweet tooth, flock to the sugary postprandial liqueur (sambuca) that comes in different versions: it's common in clear, bold in basic black, and absolutely ravishing in ruby red.

So love it or hate it, prepare to meet your gustatory nirvana -- or not!