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Because most liqueurs have in their formula ingredients that help digestion, such as fruits, herbs and flowers. “The rule is this: if the active principles of the drink’s components are digestive, it will be too. The famous orange blossom liqueurs, such as Cointreau, for example, owe their effect to the properties of the plant”, says agronomist Fernando Valadares Novaes, from the University of São Paulo (USP). In the mixture that makes up the liqueur, alcohol helps to extract the color, smell and flavor of the drink’s raw material, but, alone, it does not help with digestion. “Ingesting small doses of alcohol does not influence the speed or quality of digestion. In fact, large amounts do just the opposite, making the process more difficult, because they distend the stomach and change its acidity level, reducing digestive capacity”, says gastroenterologist Joaquim Prado de Moraes, from the Hospital das Clínicas in São Paulo.
Even so, the custom of drinking liqueur after meals has survived for five centuries, probably supported by the mystical fame that surrounds the drink since it was first marketed in the Middle Ages. Since then, the liqueur has been used as a medicine, tonic and aphrodisiac.