GRAPEVINE

FOOD & DRINK KATHRYN MCWHIRTER ON CURES FOR INDULGENCE

WHEN the pudding settles stodgily, tummies begin to quibble and we wish we'd resisted that last chocolate, our family's favourite remedy comes not from the medicine cabinet but the shelf where we keep spirits and liqueurs. For an over-indulged stomach, the adults take a drop of Elixir Vegetale de la Grande Chartreuse, a potent, spicy, herbal and utterly delicious dark green liquid, shaken straight from the 10cl bottle on to the tongue.

The Elixir comes from the same monastic distillery as green Chartreuse, but it couldn't be drunk as a liqueur. The flavour is similar but more intense, it's much drier and, at 71 per cent alcohol, very alcoholic: hence the drop-by-drop dose.

The accompanying leaflet suggests a few drops (neat, in a hot toddy or on a sugar lump) "to overcome tiredness, sickness... or to help combat indigestion". Before modern rules on medical claims trimmed the monks' prose, they also recommended their potion against a host of other things ranging from apoplexy to typhoid.

As an antidote to over-indulgence the Italians swear by the dark brown, dryish Fernet Branca. "It's only the second sip that gives you the real thrill," says the leaflet. Well, several sips on, I'm still waiting. It's very bitter, very medicinal, darkly spearminty and herbal, with 40 per cent alcohol and, for me, shades of dentists' gas. The Branca family have been making it since 1845 from "selected blossoms, rare aromatic herbs and other natural ingredients". Their counterparts in Germany are the Underberg family, whose fifth generation is still producing the little brown-paper-wrapped bottles to which bloated Germans turn for relief. In my student days working as a barmaid in Bavaria, it was usually after liquid excess that customers groaned for this, though its 44 per cent alcohol must have added to their problems. I could get to enjoy this, with its not-too-sweet, complex, medicinal but oddly moreish flavours.

Elixir Vegetale de la Grande Chartreuse costs pounds 10.84 per 10cl bottle at Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, or by mail order from JE Fells (0181-749 3661); Underberg costs 99p for a 20ml bottle from Thresher, Bottoms Up, Wine Rack, Davisons and Unwins; Fernet Branca is sold mainly in restaurants.