Botanical Origin—Glycyrrhiza glabra L., [see preceding article, p. 179].
History—Inspissated liquorice juice was known in the time of Dioscorides, and may be traced in the writings of Oribasius and Marcellus Empiricus in the latter half of the 4th century, and in those of Paulus Ægineta in the 7th. It appears to have been in common use in Europe during the middle ages. In a.d. 1264, “Liquorice” is charged in the Wardrobe Accounts of Henry III.;[728] and as the article cost 3d. per lb., or the same price as grains of paradise and one-third that of cinnamon, we are warranted in supposing the extract and not the mere root is intended. Again, in the Patent of Pontage granted by Edward I., a.d. 1305, to aid in repairing the London Bridge, permission is given to lay toll on various foreign commodities including Liquorice.[729] A political song written in 1436[730] makes mention of Liquorice as a production of Spain, but the plant is not named as an object of cultivation by Herrera, the author of a work on Spanish agriculture in 1513.
Saladinus,[731] who wrote about the middle of the 15th century, names it among the wares kept by the Italian apothecaries; and it is enumerated in a list of drugs of the city of Frankfort written about the year 1450.[732]
Dorsten,[733] in the first half of the 16th century, mentions the liquorice plant as abundant in many parts of Italy, and describes the method of making the Succus by crushing and boiling the fresh root. Mattioli[734] states that the juice made into pastilli was brought every year from Apulia, and especially from the neighbourhood of Monte Gargano. Extract of liquorice was made at Bamberg in Germany, where the plant is still largely cultivated, as early as 1560.[735]
Manufacture—This is conducted on a large scale in Spain, Southern France, Sicily, Calabria, Austria, Southern Russia (Astracan and Kasan), Greece (Patras) and Asia Minor (Sokia and Nazli, near Smyrna); but the extract with which England is supplied is almost exclusively the produce of Calabria, Sicily and Spain.
The process of manufacture varies only by reason of the amount of intelligence with which it is performed, and the greater or less perfection of the apparatus employed. As witnessed by one of us (H.) at Rossano in Calabria in May, 1872, it may be thus described from notes made at the time. The factory employs about 60 persons, male and female. The root having been taken from the ground the previous winter, is stacked in the yard around the factory; it is mostly of the thickness of the fingers, with here and there a piece of larger size up to a diameter of nearly 2 inches; some of it sprouting.
As required, the root is taken within the building and crushed under a heavy millstone to a pulp, water-power being employed. It is then transferred to boilers and boiled with water over a naked fire. The decoction is run off and the residual root pressed in circular bags like those used in the olive-mills. The liquor which is received into cisterns below the floor is then pumped up into copper pans, in which the evaporation is conducted also over the naked fire—even to the very last, care being taken by constant stirring to avoid burning the extract. The extract or pasta is removed from the pan while warm, and taken in small quantities to an adjoining apartment where a number of women are employed in rolling it into sticks. It is first weighed into portions, each of which the woman seated at the end of a long table tears with her hand into about a dozen pieces. These are passed to the women sitting next who roll them with their hands into cylindrical sticks, the table on which the rolling is done being of wood, and the pasta moistened with oil to prevent its adhesion to the hands. Near the further end of the table are some frames made of marble or metal, clean and bright, so arranged as to bring the sticks when rolled in them to the proper length and thickness. When thus adjusted, they are carefully ranged on a board, and a woman then stamps them with the name of the manufacturer. Lastly the sticks laid on boards are stacked up in a room to dry.
In some establishments the vacuum-pan has been introduced for the inspissation of the decoction. At the great manufactory of Mr. A. O. Clarke at Sokia near Smyrna, all the processes are performed by steam power.
Description—Liquorice juice of good quality is met with in cylindrical sticks stamped at one end with the maker’s name or mark. They are of various sizes, but generally not larger than 6 to 7 inches long by about an inch in diameter. They are black, when new or warm slightly flexible, but breaking when struck, and then displaying a sharp-edged fracture, and shining conchoidal surface on which a few air bubbles are perceptible; thin splinters are translucent. The extract has a special odour and dissolves in the mouth with a peculiar strong sweet taste. By complete drying, it loses from 11 to 17 per cent. of water.
Several varieties of Stick Liquorice are met with in English commerce, and command widely different prices. The most famous is the Solazzi Juice, manufactured at Corigliano, a small town of Calabria in the gulf of Taranto, at an establishment belonging to the sons of Don Onorato Gaetani, duke of Laurenzano and prince of Piedimonte d’Alife, who inherited the manufacture from his father-in-law, the Cavaliere Domenico Solazzi Castriota. The Solazzi Juice destined for the English market is usually shipped at Naples; it has for many years been wholly consigned to two firms in London, and in quantity not always equal to the demand. Of the other varieties we may mention Barracco, manufactured at the establishment of Messieurs Barracco at Cotrone on the eastern coast of Calabria; Corigliano, produced at a factory at Corigliano, belonging to Baron Compagna. The sticks stamped Pignatelli are from the works of Vincenzo Pignatelli, prince of Strongoli, at Torre Cerchiora, where 300 to 400 workmen are employed.