anisette

Anise (Pimpinella anisum) gets its name from Latin anisum, from Greek anison, which may ultimately derive from Egyptian. The plant is native to the eastern Mediterranean and has been cultivated since at least 1500 BCE. Egyptian medical papyri mention it. Theophrastus described it. Pliny recommended it for freshening the breath. Romans hung anise plants near their beds to prevent nightmares and served anise-flavored cakes — mustacei — at the end of feasts.

Anisette — French diminutive meaning 'little anise' — is a sweet liqueur made by distilling anise seed with neutral spirit and adding sugar. Marie Brizard, a Bordeaux woman, is credited with creating the most famous anisette in 1755 after receiving an anise liqueur recipe from a Caribbean man she had nursed back to health. Her company, Marie Brizard & Roger, still produces it. The recipe has not fundamentally changed in 270 years.

Anisette spread across the Mediterranean wherever anise culture already existed. In Spain, anís del Mono. In Italy, sambuca and anisetta. In Greece, ouzo. In Turkey, rakı. In Lebanon, arak. The base flavor — anethole, the compound responsible for the anise taste — is the same in all of them. What varies is the sweetness, the strength, and the local tradition of consumption. Anisette is the sweetest and gentlest of the family.

In Algeria and Morocco, anisette was the colonial drink — French settlers drank it in Algiers cafés before independence in 1962. The pieds-noirs (French Algerians) brought their anisette habit back to France, reinforcing the southern French love of anise-flavored drinks. The word anisette carries colonial history in North Africa and café culture in southern France. Same bottle, different memories.