Drop is the Dutch name for licorice confectionery. In English it is simply licorice (British liquorice); the salted kinds are usually called salty licorice or salmiak licorice. The Netherlands is one of the largest licorice-eating countries in the world: the figure most often cited is about 32 million kilograms a year, roughly two kilograms per person, and around four in five Dutch people say they eat drop at least occasionally. What makes the category interesting is less the volume than the range. A Dutch candy shelf carries dozens of distinct kinds, and each signals something — sweet or salted, soft or hard, for children or for adults — that a Dutch shopper reads at a glance.
What drop is made of
Every drop starts from an extract of the root of Glycyrrhiza glabra, the licorice plant. The extract supplies the characteristic flavour and contains glycyrrhizin, a compound many times sweeter than sugar (Dutch sources commonly put it at around fifty times). The extract is only a small part of the finished sweet: ingredient lists on Dutch packs typically declare a few percent of licorice extract. The bulk is sugar and glucose syrup, held together by a binder. Historically that binder was gum arabic; today most drop uses starch, modified starch or gelatine, which is why whether a particular drop is vegetarian has to be checked on the label.
To this base the maker adds the flavour that defines the variety: salmiak (ammonium chloride) and table salt for the salted kinds, honey for honingdrop, bay laurel for laurierdrop, anise or mint for others. A gloss agent such as beeswax or carnauba wax gives the familiar shine. The manufacturing steps — cooking, depositing into starch moulds, drying and glazing — are described in how drop is made.
Sweet, salted, double-salted
The most useful way to sort drop is along the line from sweet to salted. Dutch packaging uses a handful of words — zoet (sweet), zout (salted) and dubbelzout (double-salted), sometimes with licht zout or extra in between — and they are reliable guides to what is inside, even though they are trade terms rather than legally defined grades.
| Label | What it means | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| Zoet | Sweet licorice with little or no salmiak; often soft | Zoete drop |
| Zout | Noticeable salmiak, usually with some table salt | Zoute drop |
| Dubbelzout | A heavy dose of salmiak; sharp and drying | Dubbelzoute |
The "salt" in Dutch salted drop is mostly not table salt. It is ammonium chloride, known in the trade as salmiak, which tastes sharper and drier than sodium chloride and has no real equivalent in British or American sweets. Its taste is now known to work partly through the same receptor that detects sour taste, which helps explain why newcomers find it so unfamiliar. The full story is in the salmiak entry.
Soft and hard
The second axis is texture. Zachte drop is soft and chewy, closer to a wine gum; harde drop is firm and slow to dissolve, closer to a pastille. Most families of drop come in both versions — Venco, for example, labels its packs "hard" or "zacht" alongside "zoet" or "zout" — and Dutch eaters tend to hold firm preferences between them.
Shapes and names
Drop is sold in a large vocabulary of shapes: coins (muntdrop), diamonds, cats (katjesdrop), the beehive of honingdrop, laces, white-coated schoolkrijt, farmyard animals and cars. Shape is a useful hint to flavour but not a rule; the visual guide to drop types and shapes sets out what each usually signals.
A short history
Licorice root was a medicine long before it was a sweet; it appears in classical and medieval pharmacy as a remedy for coughs and sore throats, and apothecaries sold pressed licorice pastilles for centuries. Industrial drop making in the Netherlands took off in the late nineteenth century. Klene traces its origins to 1876 in Rotterdam; Venco was founded in Amsterdam in 1878 by Gerrit van Voornveld as Van Voornveld & Co.; Red Band followed in Roosendaal in 1928. Salted licorice with ammonium chloride was being made in the Netherlands and the Nordic countries by the 1930s. A fuller account is in the history of Dutch drop.
Who makes it
Most branded Dutch drop comes from a handful of companies. Venco and Red Band are brands of the Swedish group Cloetta, which makes them in Roosendaal; Klene belongs to Perfetti Van Melle; Katja (katjesdrop, Kokindjes) is made by the family firm Royal Fassin; and Autodrop, the car-shaped drop, is a brand of Concorp in Friesland. Supermarkets also sell drop under their own labels.
A note on health
Glycyrrhizin is not inert. Eaten in large amounts over weeks it can raise blood pressure and lower potassium levels. The EU Scientific Committee on Food concluded in 2003 that a regular intake of up to 100 mg of glycyrrhizinic acid a day should protect most adults. EU labelling law requires confectionery with 100 mg/kg or more of glycyrrhizinic acid to state "contains liquorice", and products with 4 g/kg or more to add that people with hypertension should avoid excessive consumption. Dutch sources estimate that only a small minority of drop eaters regularly eat more than 100 grams a day. Details are in the chemistry of licorice; anyone with high blood pressure should ask a doctor rather than rely on an encyclopedia.
Drop outside the Netherlands
Salted licorice is also at home in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and northern Germany, where it is called salmiakki, saltlakrits, lakrids or Salzlakritz. In Britain and North America licorice usually means sweet black or red twists, and Dutch salted drop is mostly found in specialist shops. The buying guide covers where to look abroad, and dropwater describes the old Dutch habit of dissolving drop in water.