Dutch hot anise milk, the bedtime drink of a Low Countries winter
Origin: The Netherlands
From the journey of Anise.
Anijsmelk is hot milk infused with anise seed and sweetened, and it is the Dutch answer to a cold evening, a restless child, and a sore throat. It has none of the ceremony of beschuit met muisjes and is all the more embedded for it: this is a drink made without thinking, in a pan, most often for somebody who is going to bed. The Low Countries came by anise through the Frankish garden rather than through any spice trade. The Capitulare de villis of about 795 ordered anesum planted on Charlemagne's estates, monastery gardens kept it going, and by the early modern period anise was being grown commercially on the sandy soils of Zeeland and Brabant. It became one of the few genuinely domestic spices in a country that made its fortune importing everybody else's. The Dutch sell the drink in kit form as anijsblokjes, pressed cubes of sugar and anise made to be dropped into a pan of milk, and a great many Dutch households have never made it any other way. De Ruijter has produced them for generations, and they sit on the same shelf as the muisjes and the hagelslag. Made from whole seed, though, the drink is a considerably better thing: rounder, less sugary, and with the clean liquorice-sweet edge that only fresh infusion gives. The technique is a scald and a steep rather than a boil, and there are two details that matter. The seed must be bruised and not ground, because ground anise makes the milk gritty and grey. And the pan must be covered whilst the milk stands, because anethole is volatile and an uncovered infusion gives most of its aroma to the kitchen. A thickened version made with a little cornflour, closer to a thin custard, is common in the north and is what is generally given to a child.
For a stronger infusion, bruise the seed and leave it in cold milk in the refrigerator overnight, then heat gently and strain in the morning. This gives the cleanest flavour of all and no risk of scalding. Anijsblokjes, the pressed anise sugar cubes sold in the Netherlands, are the shortcut: two cubes to 250 ml of hot milk. They are sweeter and one-dimensional beside the whole-seed version but they are what most Dutch children grew up on. Oat and almond milk both work; oat is closer in body to whole milk and takes the anise well. A tablespoon of jenever or brandy turns the drink into an adult one, though at that point the Dutch would more likely reach for the anijslikeur. The drink is traditionally paired with speculaas or a plain rusk, and is offered alongside beschuit met muisjes to visitors in the weeks after a birth.
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