Help/ Questions About Licorice

[HornBuckler]

Is There Such A Thing As "Red Licorice"? I Know That Licorice Is A Candy Derived From Some Crazy Herb - I Have A Bet With My Friends. Red Vines Are NOT Licorice In The Technical Sense Is My Stand Point. They Swear It's REAL Licorice With Flavor Added. Can Somebody Prove Them (Or Me, Heaven Forbid) Wrong?

[jpgray]

1. I know that only black jelly beans are licorice flavored

That, however, is the limit of my licorice pigmentation expertise.

[HornBuckler]

3. doesn't It Make Sense

That If It's Licorice Flavored (and Generally Black In color) That The Sweet Red Colored Variety Is Not Licorice?

[wtmusic]

2. Google 'red licorice'

and you'll find the answer in under a minute

[HornBuckler]

4. Not Really, It's Not That Clear And Dry

[HornBuckler]

5. No Offense

But Every time You Post A Question, Some Ass Has To Tell You To "Google It" You Don't Always Find The Answers That Way - I Am Looking For Some Intelligent Commentary About Licorice Damnit.

Sorry To Rant :)

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Well, googling is often a good first course of action

Also helps not to capitalize the first letter of every word.

But I won't fault you for not googling, since I often ask questions without doing it first, figuring someone will have the knowledge off the top of their heads, or perhaps be bored as hell at work and want a diversion. :-)

I did a little cruising on google, and definitely the black licorice is the original and true thing - been used since the time of Pharaohs, if not before.

So that part was easy.

Tracking down red licorice - that's more difficult. All the recipes I found for it used cherry (or strawberry) flavorings (usually a mix of Jell-O and/or flavored soda) and used anise flavorings. But these are recipes for home-making, and thus aren't going to include real licorice, since it's damned hard to get.

So, I don't know what the large scale candy makers use - I couldn't find that, even after looking at a bunch of site. They may very well use anise flavoring for their colored licorices. Seems it would be way cheaper. And of course, nowadays, it wouldn't surprise me if they went the cheap way and use anise for the black licorice as well.

[Spinzonner]

7. Might try

http://www.licorice.org/

[gold_bug]

8. whenever I look at the ingredients

of red licorice there's no licorice in it. I'm talking about grocery store candy. Sometimes even the black licorice doesn't have any licorice in it. But in a strict technical sense, as you say, probably no candy is licorice, though some candy has licorice in it.

[AlGore-08.com]

9. According to the Red Vines site, Red Vines are licorice & raspberry

http://www.redvines.com/about_redvines.asp

Red Vines were originally called Raspberry Vines, and they were first produced in 1920