Does licorice have numbing properties?
November 7, 2010 6:04 PM   Subscribe

Does licorice have numbing properties?

Drinking Black Sambuca this weekend, a friend and I noticed that after drinking it, our tongues and palates felt numb. This doesn't happen with White Sambuca or other spirits. This felt familiar to me from previous experiences drinking teas with licorice in them, and while I mostly don't eat licorice candies, he does and thinks those have not had the same effect.

Does licorice have numbing properties? How do they work?
posted by rosa to Food & Drink (12 answers total)
 
In this Wikipedia article, there's nothing about analgesic affects; however licorice is often an ingredient in soothing teas (like ThroatCoat) and things of that nature.
posted by purpletangerine at 6:30 PM on November 7, 2010


I thought sambuca was made with anise, not licorice. A lot of licorice candies probably have very little licorice in them. I've chewed real licorice roots on and off all my life, have never had any numbness from them. And I've drunk my fair share of anisette and sambuca without numbness. I wonder if it's something that people react to differently based on PH of saliva or some other factor
posted by mareli at 6:34 PM on November 7, 2010


It seems you're not alone in your experience. Googling licorice + numb gives a lot of results.
posted by amyms at 6:43 PM on November 7, 2010


This happens to me when I eat too much Good-n-Plenty or drink licorice tea. I don't like any other black licorice products, so I'm not sure about their effects.
posted by easy, lucky, free at 6:52 PM on November 7, 2010


Are you sure the Black Sambuca you drank contained licorice? Sambuca is normally made with anise.
posted by ssg at 7:04 PM on November 7, 2010


And here are some more links that will help, if anise really is the culprit. Anise oil is apparently found in various "licorice" flavoured things.
posted by lollusc at 7:12 PM on November 7, 2010


I wouldn't be surprised. I just drank some "Throat Coat" tea by Traditional Medicinals, and it was overwhelmingly licorice-flavored.
posted by aniola at 7:33 PM on November 7, 2010


Oh. Jinx with purpletangerine.
posted by aniola at 7:34 PM on November 7, 2010


According to this .pdf, licorice is a demulcent.
posted by aniola at 7:38 PM on November 7, 2010


Response by poster: Black Sambuca is licorice, whereas White Sambuca is just anise.
posted by rosa at 8:13 PM on November 7, 2010


We Dutch consume a lot of licorice of all kinds. I've eaten a lot of licorice. I have never heard of a numbing effect of eating licorice.
posted by joost de vries at 8:48 PM on November 7, 2010


Anecdotal, but when I eat Good-n-Plenties or Snaps, my tongue gets dumb.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:52 AM on November 8, 2010


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