The purest liquorice, without added sugar, is certainly the most appreciated product by true liquorice lovers, those who love liquorice do not need to tone down its strong flavor or cover the typical aftertaste. However, it can be interesting to try new flavors by combining pure liquorice with natural flavourings, such as the very widespread aniseed pure liquorice.
The natural red fruit flavouring provides a fresher and sweeter alternative to anise flavouring, as red fruits are known to mean berries, even when they are not red, therefore: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc.
Licorice is the plant extract obtained from the "roots" of the plant with the same name, it is a herbaceous perennial plant whose scientific name is Glycyrrhiza glabra, it belongs to the large family of the Fabaceae and the subfamily of the Faboideae, therefore it is related to beans and peas. A botanical curiosity: we put roots in quotation marks because the famous liquorice roots, which are also found on the market natural (they look like twigs) are in reality not really roots, that is, the organ of the plant which has the function of absorb water and nutrients from the soil, it is instead the rhizome, i.e. a part of the stem of the plant that has changed by swelling and acquiring the function of storing nutrients.
An etymological curiosity: the name liquorice comes from Greek and means sweet root; and licorice really is sweet, it has a sweetening power superior to that of sucrose, but it also has a very strong flavor and a sour, almost bitter aftertaste. Before being used as a sweet, it was used as a medicinal remedy by the Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Egyptians, Assyrians... first of all as a remedy for coughs, then as a digestive, but also as an energizer and for a variety of other ailments. Certainly the balsamic properties are best confirmed by modern science, which has also confirmed that licorice can raise blood pressure. This last characteristic must be kept in mind especially when consuming pure licorice which will obviously have a greater content of glycyrrhizin, the main active ingredient of the plant.
Let's be clear: occasional consumption does not involve risks, but only the many benefits of liquorice, but those who prefer pure liquorice are likely to be true enthusiasts and are inclined to overdo it with large and continuous use over time, and if you take drugs to control high blood pressure you should know that licorice can influence their effect.