anisado

Anisado is the Spanish past participle of anisar, to flavor with anise, applied as a noun to the drink itself. The Spanish brought anise (Pimpinella anisum) to their colonial territories as both a culinary and medicinal herb. In the Philippines, which Spain controlled from 1565 to 1898, colonial administrators and Augustinian friars encouraged production of locally distilled spirits as an alternative to imported wine. Sugarcane, abundantly grown in the islands, provided the base.

Philippine anisado was made by redistilling basi or other native cane spirits with anise seeds, following the same logic that produced araq in Lebanon and pastis in France: a local fermented base, redistilled with anise for flavor and strength. The drink circulated through the islands under Spanish governance, produced by small local operations and later by Chinese mestizo entrepreneurs who dominated the colonial liquor trade. By the eighteenth century, anisado was the common spirit of the Philippine lowlands.

After American annexation in 1898, the Philippine liquor market changed dramatically. American administrators taxed and regulated distilled spirits differently, and gin became increasingly popular under American commercial influence. But anisado persisted in the Visayas and in rural Luzon, produced by small distilleries and sold cheaply. The drink became associated with provincial life and traditional fiestas, the bottle passed around after the roast pig was carved.

Today anisado in the Philippines is made by a handful of producers, most notably in the Visayas and Bicol regions. The Spanish word for anise-flavored never disappeared from the label. It is cheap, clear, sharply anise-scented, and drunk without ceremony: poured into a shot glass, swallowed before the chaser arrives.