If you want to know how to make licorice syrup, here is the direct answer: simmer dried licorice root in water for 15 to 20 minutes to draw the flavour out of the woody root, strain the root out through a fine sieve, then dissolve sugar into that warm licorice infusion. What you get is a glossy, almost black, sweet-savoury syrup with a cooling anise edge, ready for coffee, iced tea and sparkling water.
This guide stays on licorice root specifically. For the plain sugar-and-water base and the ratios behind every syrup, see how to make simple syrup, and for where flavoured syrups fit into a drink generally, see coffee syrups explained.
What licorice syrup is, and what it tastes like
Licorice syrup is a root infusion sweetened into a pourable syrup. The flavour is deep and layered: sweet up front, then earthy and woody, with a cooling anise note that lingers. It is not a one-dimensional candy flavour. Made well, it tastes closer to the dark, salted-sweet licorice of Northern Europe than to a soft candy stick, and a small amount reads as warm spice rather than licorice outright.
The important quirk, and the reason a licorice syrup recipe is not just a flavoured simple syrup, is that licorice root is intensely sweet on its own. Its sweetness comes from glycyrrhizin, a compound most sources place somewhere around 30 to 50 times sweeter than table sugar, though published figures vary widely depending on how the measurement is made. What is consistent is the character of that sweetness: it arrives slowly, builds, and then hangs around far longer than sugar does. So the infusion reaches your saucepan already sweet. If you follow a standard 1:1 syrup ratio, you will overshoot and end up with something cloying. Start with less sugar, about 3/4 part sugar to 1 part infusion, and adjust from there.
Licorice root, star anise and aniseed are unrelated plants
These three taste like cousins and are not even distant relatives. Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) is a legume, in the bean family. Star anise (Illicium verum) is a fruit from a small evergreen tree in a completely separate family. Aniseed (Pimpinella anisum) is a seed from the carrot and parsley family. Three families, no shared ancestry.
The chemistry is separate too, and this is the part most write-ups get wrong. Star anise and aniseed both owe their scent to anethole, the compound behind that familiar sweet-anise smell. Licorice root is the odd one out: it is generally described as containing little to no anethole, and its flavour and sweetness are credited instead to glycyrrhizin alongside its own mix of aroma compounds. The family resemblance is largely a quirk of perception, because anethole simply reads to most of us as licorice. It is also why a great deal of licorice-flavoured candy is flavoured with anise oil rather than with the root at all.
That difference matters at the saucepan. Anethole smells sweet but is not especially sweet on the tongue, so a star anise or aniseed syrup takes a normal sugar load. Glycyrrhizin genuinely is sweet, so a licorice root syrup does not. If you want the fragrant, warm spice version instead, that is a different build, covered in how to make star anise syrup.
How to make licorice syrup, step by step
The technique that matters most: simmer the root, do not just steep it. Delicate fruit, citrus and flowers are ruined by a hard boil and should be infused off the heat. Licorice is the opposite case. The flavour is locked inside a dense, woody root, and a lazy steep in hot water gives you faintly sweet, brownish water. It needs 15 to 20 minutes of gentle simmering to give anything up.
What you need
- About 2 to 3 tbsp dried licorice root, chopped or sliced (culinary grade, see the note further down)
- 1.5 cups (about 360 ml) water
- About 3/4 to 1 cup (150 to 200 g) sugar, added to taste
- A pinch of salt, optional, to sharpen the sweet-savoury edge
The method
- Simmer. Combine the chopped licorice root and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a bare simmer, then lower the heat so it barely bubbles. Simmer gently, partly covered, for 15 to 20 minutes. The water will turn a deep amber-brown and smell unmistakably of licorice.
- Taste early and often. This is the step people skip. Start tasting at around 10 minutes and check every few minutes after that. Licorice goes from fragrant to overpowering and faintly bitter quickly, and there is no undoing it. Pull it the moment it tastes good rather than pushing for more.
- Strain. Pour the infusion through a fine mesh sieve, ideally lined with a cloth or a coffee filter. Root fibre and grit come along otherwise, and they leave the finished syrup dusty and cloudy. Press the root gently, then discard it. You should have roughly a cup of infusion left after simmering.
- Dissolve. Return the strained infusion to the pan over low heat. Add about three quarters of the sugar and stir just until it dissolves. No boiling is needed; the syrup is made once the sugar is in solution. Taste, then add the rest of the sugar only if it needs it, along with the pinch of salt.
- Cool and bottle. Let it cool completely, then pour into a clean, airtight jar or bottle. It thickens a little as it cools.
Light vs strong: an infusion table
How long you simmer changes both the flavour and how much sugar the syrup can carry. Because the root brings its own sweetness, a longer simmer means less added sugar, not more. Treat these as starting points and taste as you go, since root varies a lot in strength from batch to batch.
| Strength | Root and simmer | Flavour | Sugar per 1 cup infusion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light | 2 tbsp, 10 to 12 minutes | Gently sweet, faintly woody, an easy anise lift. Good in iced tea and sparkling water. | About 1 cup |
| Standard | 2 to 3 tbsp, 15 to 20 minutes | Deep, sweet-savoury, a clear anise edge. The all-rounder for coffee. | About 3/4 cup |
| Strong | 3 tbsp, 25 minutes or more | Dark, assertive, verging on bitter. Use a bar spoon at a time. | About 1/2 to 2/3 cup |
Where it goes wrong
Four failure modes account for almost every disappointing batch:
- Oversweetening on autopilot. Pouring in a full 1:1 sugar load because that is what syrup recipes say. The root has already done part of the job.
- Judging sweetness too fast. Glycyrrhizin is slow off the mark. Taste, wait a good few seconds, then decide, or you will keep adding sugar to a syrup that was already there.
- Over-simmering. Past the 25 minute mark the woody, bitter side takes over and no amount of sugar hides it.
- A lazy strain. Fine root dust slips through a coarse sieve and settles out later as sludge. Line the sieve.
Storage
Bottle licorice root syrup in a clean, airtight jar and keep it in the refrigerator, where it is best used within roughly 2 to 3 weeks. Because it is a botanical infusion rather than pure sugar and water, it is perishable, and a lighter, less sugary batch will not last as long as a heavier one. Watch for cloudiness, fizzing, any film on the surface, or an off, sour smell, and discard it if you see any of those. Always pour rather than dipping a used spoon into the jar, which is the fastest way to shorten its life. Freezing the syrup in an ice cube tray is a reasonable option if you make more than you will drink.
How to use it
Licorice syrup is more versatile than its reputation suggests. Start with a small spoonful. Its sweetness builds late, so a pour that tastes right immediately will often taste too sweet a minute later.
- Coffee. A spoonful in cold brew or iced coffee is where it shines. The earthy-woody note sits naturally under coffee's roast, in the same register as molasses or dark caramel. It works hot too, in an espresso-based drink.
- Iced tea. Especially good with black tea or rooibos, where it does the sweetening and adds an aromatic layer at the same time.
- Sparkling water. A splash over ice and soda makes a dark, dry, grown-up soda. This is the use that converts people.
- Over vanilla ice cream. The salted-licorice-and-cream combination is a Northern European favourite for good reason.
- In a mixed drink. It is a long-standing sweetener alongside dark spirits and amaro, and it plays well with citrus and mint.
A word on the root itself
Use culinary or food-grade licorice root (Glycyrrhiza glabra), the ordinary dried root sold for cooking and tea by grocers and spice merchants. Not a concentrated supplement extract, which is a different product at a different strength and is not intended for this. Buy it chopped or sliced rather than powdered, since powder is almost impossible to strain cleanly.
Licorice root is also one of the few botanicals worth being straightforward about. It is not an ordinary spice you can use freely: a lot of it, consumed regularly over time, is widely flagged as not suiting everyone. People who are pregnant, and people who have been advised to take care with their heart or circulation, are commonly told to be cautious with licorice. The sensible approach is to treat this syrup as an occasional flavouring rather than a daily habit, and to check with a health professional if you are unsure whether it suits you. Responses vary from person to person, and this is not medical advice.
On the practical side: use clean jars, keep the syrup refrigerated, and if you are sweetening a drink for a child, remember that honey should never be given to infants under 12 months, though with licorice syrup the caution above is the more relevant one.