liquorice [ME] Contrary to appearances, liquorice has no connection with liquor [ME] which comes directly from Latin. The word goes back to a Greek compound formed from glukus ‘sweet’ (source of glucose [M19th]), and rhiza ‘root’ (as in rhizome [M19th]). Liquorice is made by evaporating the juice of the root of certain members of the pea family. Liquorice allsorts were introduced in 1899. The story behind their invention is that a salesman from the company, Bassett’s, was visiting a client and showing him samples of the various liquorice sweets that the company made. The client was unimpressed by any of them until the salesman gathered up his samples to leave and in doing so dropped them all, creating a mix of sweets that the client liked.