Flaming Sambuca Shot

A traditional Italian digestif shot featuring anise-flavored Sambuca, often served flaming with coffee beans.

Sambuca takes its name from the Latin sambucus, meaning elderberry, referencing an older elderberry liqueur, though modern sambuca contains no elderberry and is defined by star anise. Its first commercial version is credited to Luigi Manzi, who began producing "Sambuca Manzi" in the coastal town of Civitavecchia, near Rome, in 1851. As an anise-based Italian digestif it belongs to the same family as French pastis and Greek ouzo, but its higher sugar content and sweetness set it apart. The famous service is "con la mosca" - "with the fly" - in which coffee beans are floated on the sambuca; the name comes from the way a bean bobbing in the clear liquid resembles a fly, and one common story traces the ritual to the practical joke of dropping a bean into a friend's glass. Three beans are the traditional lucky number, said to represent health, happiness and prosperity (salute, felicità, prosperità). Sambuca became a cultural fixture during Italy's post-war "Dolce Vita" era of the 1950s and 1960s. Igniting the shot briefly toasts the beans and warms the liqueur, releasing their aroma; the flame must always be extinguished before drinking.