Angelica: The Gin Botanical and Candied Stem, Its Aroma Compounds, and the Furocoumarin Question

You’ve probably had angelica without knowing it: the root is a standard gin botanical, and the candied green stems decorate cakes. Angelica archangelica is a tall perennial in the carrot and celery family (Apiaceae), and its root, seeds and stems all flavor food and drink. Expect a musky, green, slightly sweet smell, somewhere between celery, carrot tops and juniper. Its roots also contain furocoumarins, compounds that make skin sensitive to sunlight, and a European regulator has written about them in the plant’s herbal preparations.¹

At a glance

Flavor and aroma

Angelica smells musky, green and slightly sweet, somewhere between celery, carrot tops and juniper, with a bitter edge in the root. Hank Shaw describes it as more floral, a little bitter and a bit carroty.

The compounds

The 2017 review by Sowndhararajan and colleagues pulls together analyses of angelica oils:⁴

These are separate studies, so don’t merge them into one typical figure. The broad picture: the root oil is led by pinene and related terpenes, and the seed oil is dominated by β-phellandrene.

Origin and history

Kew gives the native range of A. archangelica as Greenland and Europe to western Siberia, and lists a handful of places it’s been introduced, including Belgium, Ireland, Nepal and the Yukon.

The Royal College of Physicians’ medicinal garden records a few pieces of its English history:

• It was claimed to have been brought to England by the Tradescants from Archangel in Russia in the early 17th century, though the same record lists it as a British native that’s rare in the wild in England.⁵
• It was heavily recommended in 1665 as a preventative against the plague in London.
• The herbalist Nicholas Culpeper praised the root as a remedy against “pestilence and poison.”⁵

Plenty of other stories get repeated: that the Vikings carried angelica into eastern Europe, that an angel revealed it to a monk as a plague cure, that it’s named for the feast of the archangel Michael, that it went into the Carmelite water used against witchcraft, and that the 1665 plague remedy was a College of Physicians formula with nutmeg and treacle. We couldn’t trace any of them to a source we could open, so we’ve left them out.

How angelica is used

• Gin. Britannica lists angelica root among the botanicals used in gin alongside orris and licorice roots, and Hank Shaw calls angelica one of the most important herbs in gin.
• Candied stems. The RCP garden notes that the stems are now used mainly as candied angelica to decorate cakes. Shaw’s method blanches the stems, then soaks and boils them in heavy syrup over several days before rolling them in sugar.
• Flavoring. FDA lists angelica, angelica root and angelica seed among GRAS spices and natural flavorings, and oils or extracts of angelica root, seed and stem among GRAS essential oils and natural extractives.²³

You may read that every part of the plant is edible, including young leaves in salads and stir-fries. We couldn’t trace that to a source we could open. Angelica is also often said to go into specific liqueurs like Chartreuse or vermouth, but we didn’t find a source we could check.

Buying and quality

Candied angelica should be bright green and supple, not brittle. Dried root should smell strongly musky when you break it.

If you forage for wild angelica, be careful. Hank Shaw warns that both poison hemlock and water hemlock are in the same family, and that the sap of giant hogweed, another relative, can cause serious burns in sunlight.⁶ He also notes that wild angelica species vary a lot, from the good-tasting A. sylvestris to the unpleasant A. breweri.

Storage

We didn’t find a published shelf-life figure for candied angelica, dried root or seed from a regulator or extension service. Keep candied stems airtight, and keep dried root and seed away from light and heat, like any other dried spice.

Safety

The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee published a reflection paper in 2007 on furocoumarins in preparations of A. archangelica.¹ The key points:

• Phototoxicity. Linear furanocoumarins, such as 8-methoxypsoralen and 5-methoxypsoralen, are phototoxic.¹
• Cancer risk in medical use. The paper notes that 8-methoxypsoralen combined with ultraviolet light is classed as carcinogenic to humans. That’s about its medical use in PUVA therapy, not food.¹
• Diet. The paper cites an estimated average daily intake of 1.45 mg of furocoumarins from ordinary food, and cites assessments that judge the risk from dietary furocoumarins very small.¹
• Herbal preparations. It recommends that angelica herbal products be contraindicated for children and pregnant women, and carry a warning about co-factors, especially exposure to UV light.¹

The paper also reports that fungal infection can raise the coumarin content of angelica roots 20- to 200-fold.¹ All of this is about medicinal preparations. We didn’t find a regulator limit for furocoumarins in angelica used as a food flavoring.

Health claims

Sowndhararajan’s review notes that A. archangelica is commonly used in traditional medicine for nervousness, insomnia and digestive complaints, and summarizes lab research on the oils.⁴ Traditional use isn’t evidence that it works, and we didn’t find an NIH or regulator summary of human trials for garden angelica.

Claims that angelica is a “female ginseng,” eases PMS or acts as an anticoagulant couldn’t be traced to evidence for A. archangelica. Dong quai (Angelica sinensis) is a different species, and we don’t cover it here. We also couldn’t trace claims that angelica is a rich source of vitamin C, vitamin B12, potassium, zinc or iron to any food-composition data.

Related pages

Angelica’s celery-like, musky notes overlap with lovage and celery seed, and it shares the gin back bar with juniper berries.