Sir, recently I was invited to a dinner party hosted by a well-trained chef and sommelier. After several courses of fine food and wine, an impromptu double-blind trial took place with all guests and the sommelier taking part as participants to compare Fernet-Branca (a famous Italian herbal digestif with many similarities on the palate to Corsodyl), Pernot, Corsodyl standard and Corsodyl Mint. Much to my surprise, the unanimous conclusion was that Corsodyl Mint was the superior digestif when scored on mouth feel, taste and participants' inclination to serve again. All of the drinks served were swallowed, with only Corsodyl standard found to be poorly tolerated in this way.

Although a wide range of digestif drinks have been advocated over the centuries, all tend to be strongly flavoured and to have distinctive mouth feel which provides a cleansing refreshment to the palate after a large meal. These attributes and often flavours are shared by most oral rinses; however, the two concepts remain stubbornly separate in use despite the potential dental and gastronomical benefits of uniting the digestif drink with an oral rinse.

A search of both Google Scholar and PubMed revealed no results relating to the use of Corsodyl as either an aperitif or digestif; however, a recent paper in BDJ Open did advocate the use of mouthwash following meals but lamented the relatively large dose volumes required and suggested this requires the development of new products.1 I suggest that rather than a new product, perhaps we need a new appreciation of Corsodyl Mint served as a digestif to both settle the stomach, aid the digestion and improve oral hygiene.