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FRANCE EXPLAINED

Digestif: Do France’s after-dinner drinks actually help digestion?

Drinks like Cognac, Calvados and Armagnac are popular in France and thought to aid digestion after a big meal - but does any actual science back this up?

Published: 3 December 2021 17:25 CET
Updated: 25 December 2022 16:22 CET
Cognac is among the digestifs popular in France. But its health benefits are pretty much non-existant.
Cognac is among the digestifs popular in France. But its health benefits are pretty much non-existant. (Photo by GEORGES GOBET / AFP)

Alcoholic beverages thought to help with digestion have existed since the middle ages – or perhaps even earlier. 

Monks and alchemists in Europe used herbs and spices to make drinks like Hippocras which were thought not only to have medicinal properties but also to be aphrodisiacs. King Louis XIV of France was known to be a fan. 

READ ALSO 17 of the best digestif drinks in France

Digestifs remain highly popular in France today. A tipple of calvados, cognac or armagnac after a hearty meal is seen as a luxurious way to help the digestive system. 

At the other end are apéritifs (apéro) such as kir, white wine or pastis that are thought to sharpen the appetite before a meal.

But the science suggests that digestifs do little to aid digestion. 

A 2010 scientific paper titled, ‘Effect on gastric function and symptoms of drinking wine, black tea, or schnapps with a Swiss cheese fondue’, found that consuming alcohol after a meal actually slows down the digestive system by up to 50 percent. 

READ MORE Cigarettes and alcohol: How young French people differ from older generations

The reason for this is that alcohol blocks the secretion of gastrin – a hormone that that stimulates the release of gastric acid, which is a key component of the digestive process. The stronger the alcohol, the greater this blocking effect is. 

Alcohol is also highly calorific. In consuming it, drinkers are adding to the overall amount of calories that the body has to digest.  

The only physiological benefit of drinking a digestif after a meal is that alcohol is a vasodilator, meaning it opens up blood vessels and prevents muscles from tightening. This allows the stomach to expand and can bring a short-term feeling of relief if you have eaten too much food. 

Whatever the science says, French people seem unlikely to stop drinking digestifs anytime soon. 

“Digestifs maybe don’t have the digestive qualities that we attribute to them but the ritual means that they have a place. They allow us to stretch an evening on and have conversations, to relax, to chat, to laugh and to take our time,” writes sommelier Véronique Rivest. 

Member comments

  1. A shot of kiwi eau de vie, not the shop bought stuff, after a large meal always helps. Also, a shot in coffee keeps one alive.😛🙃

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FOOD AND DRINK

Paris bakers attempt world’s longest baguette

A dozen French bakers have set their minds to beating the world record for the world's longest baguette - hoping to join a long list of French records from stretchiest aligot to biggest tarte tatin.

Published: 3 May 2024 13:36 CEST
Paris bakers attempt world's longest baguette

On Sunday, 12 Paris bakers will attempt to beat the world record for the longest baguette, as part of the Suresnes Baguette Show, which was organised by the French confederation of bakers and pastry chefs. 

The current record is held by Italian bakers, who in 2019 baked a 132.6 m long baguette – roughly the height of the Great Pyramid at Giza (which is now about 138.5 metres tall). 

By contrast, the standard French baguette is between 60 and 70 centimetres long, and roughly 5-7cm in diametre.

The French boulangers will have some challenges – they’ll need to knead all of the dough and then put it together on site. The only ingredients allowed are flour, water, yeast and salt. In order to count, the bread will have to be at least 5cm thick across its entire length.

According to the press release for the event, cooking the giant baguette will take at least eight hours.

Once it’s prepared, it will be up to the judges from the Guinness Book of World Records to determine if the record was beaten or not.

Then, the baguette will be cut up and Nutella will be spread across it, with part of it shared with the public and the other part handed out to homeless people.

What about other French world records?

There are official competitions every year to mark the best croissant and baguette, plus plenty of bizarre festivals in towns across France.

The French also like to try their hand at world records. 

Stretchiest aligot – If you haven’t come across aligot before, it’s basically a superior form of cheesy mash – it’s made by mixing mashed potato with butter, garlic, cream and cheese.

The traditional cheese used is Laguiole but you can also use tomme or any cheese that goes stringy when stretched. That stretchiness is very important – it makes aligot is a popular dish for world records. 

In 2020, three brothers managed to stretch the aligot 6.2m, and apparently in 2021 they broke that record too (though unofficially), by adding an extra metre.

READ MORE: 5 things to know about aligot – France’s cheesy winter dish

And in 2023, in Albi in southern France, local media reported that a man had made the world’s largest aligot (not the stretchiest). He reportedly used 200kg of potatoes and 100kg of Aubrac tomme cheese. 

Cheesy pizza – A Lyon-based pizza maker, Benoît Bruel, won a spot in the 2023 Guinness Book of World Records for creating a pizza with 1,001 cheeses on top of it. 

 
 
 
 
 
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Biggest raclette – In March, the city of Saint-Etienne in France claimed the world record for the ‘largest raclette’.

There were 2,236 people who participated, and the raclette involved 620 kg of cheese, 350 kg of cold meat and one tonne of potatoes. 

Largest omelette – Unfortunately, France does not hold this title anymore, though it did in 1994, when the town of Montourtier in the département of Mayenne cooked up an omelette on a giant pan with a 13.11m diameter. 

Currently, the title is held by Portugal, according to Guinness. In 2012, the town of Santarém cooked an omelette weighing 7.466 tonnes.

Still, France cooks giant omelettes all the time. Every Easter, the ‘Brotherhood of the Giant Omelette’ cooks up one, cracking thousands of eggs and passing out portions to the people in the town of Bessières.

Largest tarte tatin – The French town of Lamotte-Beuvron also beat a world record in 2019 for making the largest tarte tatin, which weighed 308kg. 

This isn’t the first time the French have experimented with gigantic apple pies. In 2000, the country made history (and the Guinness Book of World Records) for creating an apple pie that measured 15.2m in diameter. It used 13,500 apples and required a crane to be lifted (as shown below).

(Photo by MICHEL HERMANS / AFP)
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