Let’s get one thing straight: I only bought Mint Chocolate Baileys as research for this column, and not because I like that sort of thing. I won’t be buying it again. The mint-choc aftertaste is so thoroughly sundered from the initial flavour of the Baileys that it is hard to imagine they once inhabited the same bottle.

But presumably somebody is buying the stuff this Yuletide, along with all the other mutations of everyday consumer goods.