What is sambuca?

Sambuca must meet three measurable requirements: at least 38 percent alcohol, at least 350 grams of sugar per litre expressed as invert sugar, and a natural anethole content between 1 and 2 grams per litre.

Those requirements are in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2019/787, under category 36. There, the regulation describes sambuca as a colourless liqueur with an aniseed flavour, made with distillates of anise (Pimpinella anisum L.), star anise (Illicium verum L.) or other aromatic herbs.

If a bottle does not meet one of those three figures, the word sambuca may not appear on the label. That is the difference between a legal category and a flavour designation.

Sambuca must contain at least 350 grams of sugar per litre, pastis must stay below 100 grams per litre and anis has no sugar requirement.

The alcohol minimum also varies. Sambuca starts at 38 percent, pastis at 40 percent and anis at 35 percent. An aniseed drink without its own category falls under the collective name aniseed-flavoured spirit drink, with a minimum of 15 percent.

Pastis also has a requirement that the other two do not have: liquorice root, with between 0.05 and 0.5 grams of glycyrrhizic acid per litre. Anis takes its flavour exclusively from aniseed, star anise or fennel.

Anethole dissolves well in alcohol and hardly at all in water. If you dilute sambuca with water or ice, the anethole separates out as tiny droplets that scatter the light.

That phenomenon is called the ouzo effect. No emulsifier is needed and no stirring is required. The droplets form on their own as soon as the alcohol content, through dilution, becomes too low to keep the anethole dissolved.

Because the regulation prescribes 1 to 2 grams of anethole per litre for sambuca, the effect occurs with every sambuca. It is therefore not a sign of a fault or of spoilage.

No. Annex I of regulation (EU) 2019/787 stipulates under category 36 that sambuca is colourless and may not be coloured.

An aniseed liqueur that is black or red therefore does not meet the legal definition of sambuca, however the bottle otherwise looks and however the flavour is built up.

If you are looking for a dark or coloured aniseed liqueur, step into the shop at Brink 2 or give us a call. We will look with you at what is in the bottle and under which designation it is sold.

A small glass of 2 centilitres of sambuca at 38 percent contains about 6 grams of pure alcohol. A standard glass in the Netherlands contains about 10 grams of pure alcohol.

The sum is simple: 20 millilitres times 38 percent gives 7.6 millilitres of alcohol, and alcohol weighs about 0.79 grams per millilitre. A shot glass of sambuca therefore counts for roughly six tenths of a standard drink.

We do not sell spirits to people under 18.