Sweet Premium Licorice

Sweet liquorice from Sweden, mild and without salmiak

Premium Sweet Liquorice from Lakritsfabriken is mild Swedish liquorice made with 6% liquorice powder, anise oil, and cane sugar. No salmiak, no wheat flour, no gelatin – this is the original form of liquorice as it tasted before the Nordic salmiak trend.

Premium Sweet Liquorice is the mild side of Swedish liquorice and the best introduction for anyone who has previously found salty liquorice too harsh. No salmiak, just pure liquorice root, cane sugar, and a drop of anise oil. In Helsingborg, Martin Jörgensen casts the rolls soft, making them easy to chew and suck on. 150g in a flat black folding box.

Soft, warm, with a long liquorice note

This Premium Sweet Liquorice smells of anise before you even put it in your mouth. The bite is yielding, the taste round and warming.

Without salmiak, the liquorice root shows its friendly side: earthy, spicy, aromatic. There is a sweetness that doesn't feel sticky because the anise oil balances it out immediately, and beneath that is the herbaceous base note that only real liquorice root provides. Nothing scratches, nothing puckers.

Sweet liquorice is, by the way, the older of the two. Salmiak was only added later from the pharmacy and conquered the North from there – here you can taste what liquorice was like before that, and understand why the root is called "sweet wood" (Süßholz) in the first place.

The rolls rest on lime-green paper in the black box, deep black and matte. They stay soft until the last piece, as long as you keep the box in a cool, dry place.

With black tea, with red wine, for children's hands

One roll with a strong black tea, and both improve. The anise takes the tannins by the hand and makes the tea smoother.

In the afternoon, Assam or Ceylon is a perfect pairing; let a roll slowly dissolve in your mouth and drink the tea afterward. The liquorice note remains on the tongue and colors the first sip.

In the evening, a warm red wine goes well with it, a Primitivo or a Zinfandel – the wine's dark fruit and the liquorice root get along exceptionally well. For anyone just getting to know liquorice, this variety is the right door: mild enough for children's palates, aromatic enough for adults. Soft, spicy, anise-fresh.

The box fits well in a coat pocket for long walks, because a single roll lasts surprisingly long. And on the cake table, the black box looks good next to light-colored ceramics.

If you want the Nordic kick afterward, the salty version with salmiak is waiting. And those who prefer their liquorice dipped in chocolate will find what they are looking for with the liquorice sticks in milk chocolate.

From the root to the roll

Liquorice begins as a root. Liquorice root is boiled until a tough, almost black juice remains – raw liquorice, hard as pitch once it cools down.

Heated and mixed with cane sugar and rice flour, it becomes the mass that is pressed through long tubes while still warm. This creates endless strands that are cut into bite-sized pieces after cooling. No wheat flour is added, nor any gelatin.

Since 2019, Martin has been growing his own liquorice root on 8 hectares in the south of Sweden, where hardly anyone else would think to do so. Glycyrrhiza glabra is the botanical name of the plant; it grows to a good meter in height, and its root needs years in the ground before it develops its aroma.

From the field to the box in one hand – almost no one else in Europe is attempting this. Sweden's first premium liquorice, as Martin says about what he introduced at the liquorice festival in Stockholm in 2011.

We tell the story of how it came about in our portrait of Lakritsfabriken from Helsingborg.