ANY DRINK with which you can, reasonably and tastefully, both begin your morning and end your evening, is my kind of drink. Granted, depending on your grasp of reason, bounds on taste, and internal clock, you may doubt I'm ruling much out with that statement, excepting maybe Night Train. But I actually am thinking of one drink in particular: sambuca, the Italian liqueur distilled from elderberries and flavored with anise. In Italy (and even at some coffeehouses in the North End, like Caffe dello Sport), asking your barista for a caffe corretto to start the day will get you not a look of pity or disapproval but a steaming shot of sambuca-spiked espresso. And ordering sambuca con mosca (sambuca with flies) after dinner garners you a glass garnished not with dead bugs but with three coffee beans, often ignited to release their aromatic - if not downright aromatherapeutic - oils.
These bookend customs strike me as eminently civilized. True, that may partly be a function of the flavors themselves: after all, both coffee in its bitterness and anise in its intriguing, salty-earthy spin on sweetness are acquired, rather adult tastes. But it's also a matter of the cheekiness implicit in their names - their injection of a little humor into daily routine. Interesting, then, that we Americans - an increasingly mechanical bunch of round-the-clock workers without the time or patience to cultivate the habits of living well - are about the only folks who haven't developed a nationwide appreciation for licorice-like liquor. Sambuca has siblings all over the world, many of which possess their own constellation of rituals - often involving whiling away hot afternoons in style. Isn't it time we, too, took a siesta - or several, all summer long - over something worth savoring (as opposed to guzzling)? Following are just a few to tickle your fancy for fennel-esque flavors.
Aguardiente. Okay, perhaps I waxed a bit poetic about the inherent sophistication of anise spirits. Colombian aguardiente is your basic firewater, a sugar-cane distillate best knocked back, shot after shot, in some ramshackle Andean dive. Barring that option, you can pick some up at Blanchard's (103 Harvard Avenue, Allston, 617.782.5588) and transform your living room into a rough-and-tumble lean-to full of hooligans swigging Antioqueño ($16.99) straight from the bottle.
Anisette. Not to be confused with pastis (see below), anisette is even sweeter than most sippers of its ilk, with a lower proof - which may be why it's more likely to serve as a soothing nightcap than as a refreshing aperitif. Widely recognized French producer Marie Brizard has been making the stuff with the seeds of green anise - a parsley relative - since the mid-18th century; you'll find the brand at Bouchée (159 Newbury Street, Boston, 617.450.4343) for $6.25 a nip - a cool complement to the brasserie's super-crispy, tarragon-perfumed flatbread with crumbled sausage, blue cheese, and green grapes ($13).
Arak. Drunk all over the Middle East (er, by non-Muslims, of course), this unsweetened grape distillate is raki's twin (see below). Straight outta Beirut, Arak Razzouk ($20.99), sold at Blanchard's, is as hardcore as its hometown at 100 proof, so be sure to serve it with shock absorbers like tabbouleh, olives, or goat's-milk cheese.
Ouzo. In a nutshell (make that star-anise pod), ouzo is Greek arak. Drunk straight or mixed with water or even cola, the colorless aperitif traditionally accompanies meze. Avila (1 Charles Street South, Boston, 617.267.4810) saves you a step by actually incorporating ouzo into the meze - specifically the superbly pungent small plate that is halloumi with dates and cashews ($8) - but it also keeps the foremost brand, Metaxa ($8), on hand at the bar.
Pastis. The lore surrounding Provence's famed star anise-based aperitif is as rich as its yellow hue. Though its origins are murky, its popularization isn't, occurring after the abolition of absinthe - whose second most salient feature, after all, is its anise flavor, trumped only by its wormwood-derived hallucinogenius (if you will). While Pernod Ricard dominates the market, Sel de la Terre (255 State Street, Boston, 617.720.1300) favors smaller producer Elie-Arnaud-Denoix, a glass of whose Des Terres Rouges goes for $7. To do pastis as the Frenchies do, order it with a side of spring water, so you can dilute it to taste (and simultaneously be mesmerized by the color changes it undergoes). Or you can sample it in the Café Moresque ($7.50), a drink over which I've long been spilling copious ink (along, undoubtedly, with a fair amount of drool): blending coffee with pastis, Frangelico, almond syrup, and whipped cream, it's as perfect an afternoon pick-me-up as a non-hallucinogen can be.
Raki. Turkey's take on the genre is usually distilled from raisins or grapes, flavored with aniseed, and served - like arak and ouzo - with meze, particularly the local white cheese. Grab a bottle of Efe raki ($21.99) at Martignetti's (64 Cross Street, Boston, 617.227.4343); hit Formaggio Kitchen (244 Huron Avenue, Cambridge, 617.354.4750) for kashar when it's in stock or a good strong feta when it isn't; and get fezzy wit' it.
Sambuca. In a city as Italophilic as ours, it goes without saying that most reasonably stocked restaurants and retailers carry my beloved sambuca. That the très petite bar of a French bistro like Pigalle (75 Charles Street South, Boston, 617.423.4944) would feature it, however, is a bit more surprising - and the cocktails concocted therefrom, like the extra-exotic, sake-based Black Thai ($11), are downright startling. Besides the bit of citrus that comes from Cointreau and lemon juice, it depends on a flavor pairing that, like the aforementioned anise-and-coffee combo, speaks primarily to more sophisticated sweet teeth: intensely licorice-y black sambuca and coconut cream, which in turn contrasts smartly with the salty Asian-accented snacks on Marc Orfaly's current bar menu. @
