Liquorice flourishes in salty soils of the dried-up Aral Sea
Karakalpakstan is the sweet root’s new production hub
They put liquorice in their vodka in Karakalpakstan. Its sweetness softens the local liquor, Qarataw (named for the nearby mountain range), making it a surprisingly palatable tipple.
Karakalpakstan itself offers no such respite. The vast autonomous republic in western Uzbekistan, spanning the Aral Sea, is an environmental disaster zone. Soviet-era central planners sucked the sea dry to irrigate cotton fields, turning the world’s fourth-largest lake into a puddle. The roads around Nukus, the region’s capital, are crusted with salt, a memory of the dried-up sea.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Sweet success”
Asia September 17th 2022
From the September 17th 2022 edition
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