Well, licorice in the USA is sickly sweet. There is some natural licorice that tastes just like some of our best ones..still sweet though.
The Dutch are probably on the face of earth the people who are most addicted to licorice.. I can buy about 50-75 different varieties of them and actually when I look at them in the candy shop I know almost exactly how each and every different variety tastes like.. . [edit: make that 100 varieties ]
You can keep your chocolate, licorice is my trigger food!
The beauty is, that some licorice has 6 g of protein per 100 g of product, but is quite good as a carb up food (nearly 80 g of carbs/100 g) especially when you're losing salts during workouts.. but I'd rather not eat more than 50 g in 1 sitting or it'd be too salty.. even the very sweet types have a bit of salt..

I think only the Danish are known for their fondness of licorice and we imported a few of their varieties..