Licorice sticks with chili

Licorice with chocolate and a pinch of fire

Chili licorice sticks from Lakritsfabriken are soft salty licorice sticks from Helsingborg, dipped in dark chocolate and sprinkled with chili flakes and sea salt. The heat arrives late and lingers. 45g for those who find standard licorice a bit too tame.

Chili licorice sticks are the hottest variety in Martin Jörgensen's Swedish licorice range. Soft sticks of salty licorice with salmiak are coated in dark chocolate couverture and, while still moist, sprinkled with orange-red chili flakes and white salt flakes. Anise, cocoa, salt, and heat in a finger-length bar.

The heat only hits at the end

First you taste the chocolate, then the soft licorice with its hint of salmiak. The chili doesn't make itself known until you're almost finished.

This late timing is what makes them so appealing. The dark chocolate forms a protective layer over the chili flakes, and as it melts in your mouth, the heat is slowly released. Then it rises, lingers in the throat, and meets the anise oil, which provides a cooling sensation at the same moment.

Salty, spicy, cocoa-bitter—and in the middle of it all, that fresh burst of anise. The bar isn't burning hot, but rather warming. Those who eat spicy food regularly will find them pleasant. Those who don't should start with half a stick.

On the dark chocolate, you can see both: the orange-red chili flakes and the coarse white salt crystals. Salt and heat work together; one paves the way for the other. The chili licorice sticks are therefore not a gimmick, but thoughtfully crafted.

With robust red wine, with dark rum

This stick needs a companion with substance. A dark rum pairs brilliantly; its vanilla and caramel notes catch the heat and round it out.

A robust red from the south also works, a Primitivo or a Syrah with a peppery note—the chili likes these particularly well because pepper and chili enhance each other without overpowering one another. An aged Tawny port also works.

And if guests are coming and you want to put something on the table that gets people talking: a bowl of these sticks next to the cheese, ideally alongside a sharp blue cheese. The bowl is almost guaranteed to be a conversation starter—spicy, salty, cocoa-bitter, and entirely unexpected.

The sticks with sea salt come without heat, but with salt crystals. For something completely mild and without chocolate, there is the sweet licorice without salmiak.

Soft-pressed instead of hard-molded

The typical shape is created by pressing. The still-warm licorice mass is pushed through long tubes and cools into an endless strand.

Only then is it cut, dipped, and sprinkled—and because the mass is bound with rice flour rather than wheat flour, it remains soft instead of brittle. Anise oil instead of flavoring, cane sugar instead of cheap sweeteners, no hydrogenated fats, and no gelatin. That was Martin's condition when he started in Ramlösa near Helsingborg in 2011.

The sprinkling has to happen quickly while the couverture is still moist. Later, nothing will stick—which is why the chili and salt are distributed a little differently on every stick, sometimes densely, sometimes sparsely.

Martin has been growing his own licorice root since 2019 on 8 hectares in the south of Sweden. Sweden's first premium licorice, says Martin of the product he introduced in Stockholm in 2011—today it is exported to London, Paris, and the USA.

Anyone traveling to Helsingborg can visit the factory on Ängelholmsvägen. The shop is open on weekdays until 6 p.m. and on Saturdays until 2 p.m. Until then, our Lakritsfabriken selection brings Sweden to your home.