These hard candies filled with licorice extract and propolis extract are almost a balsamic medicine, but they are so good that it is difficult to think of them as a remedy for ailments.

The properties of licorice and propolis in a candy

Both licorice and propolis boast numerous properties, licorice is a plant extract obtained from the "root" of a plant commonly known as licorice and whose scientific name is Glycyrrhiza glabra (we put root in quotation marks root because in reality what is known as licorice root is not really the root but the rhizome, that is, a modified part of the stem that grows underground), propolis on the other hand is produced by bees, just like honey, but using other plant substances and with completely different purposes.
The main ingredient of propolis is resin, the pollen that is used to produce honey, among the ingredients of propolis it represents only the 5%. Bees use propolis essentially as a building material to seal the hive and to defend it, in fact propolis has antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral (but also healing) properties, one of the uses that bees make of it is to mummify bodies of bees and predators that die in the hive and that they are unable to expel, thus protecting the hive from the risk of disease.
Man, having recognized these properties, began to use it in medicinal sweets and in an alcoholic solution as a remedy for sore throats. A curiosity about propolis: it is thought that the resins that the Egyptians used for mummification were actually propolis.
One of the main properties recognized in licorice is that of being an expectorant, so much so that it is used in remedies against coughs. This combination makes these propolis drops balsamic sweets with a double action, disinfectant thanks to the propolis, expectorant thanks to the licorice extract. A curiosity about sweets: did you know that this healing aspect of certain sweets is certainly not a recent invention and that if we look at the history of sweets, at least in the West, we find that they were packaged specifically to contain remedies against common ailments?
The above because sweets were certainly not common and affordable for everyone like today, they were a rarity destined for a few until the mid-1800s. Why? Sweet means sugar and sugar until the end of the 1700s was produced only from sugar cane which is a tropical plant native to the Indo-Malaysian region.
Previously sweets were produced with the little sugar that arrived and in an artisanal way, therefore they were intended for the tables of the rich, they were packaged to contain substances against common ailments such as sore throats and heartburn and were probably offered to guests.

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