After watching all four seasons of The Crown in two weeks, I suddenly felt... royal. Considering the Queen's favorite tipple is reportedly Dubonnet gin, I naturally had to follow suit now. If you're like me and have a new-found appreciation for the finer, grander things in life, then you'll be delighted to hear that the Queen's Sandringham Estate has launched a new juniper berry for Christmas liquor.
Sandringham Gin is distilled in a barn on Her Majesty’s beloved 60-acre Norfolk country estate. For the budding gin connoisseurs among us, this "full-bodied" gin is said to have a tangy juniper flavor and a persistent citrus flavour.
The small-batch distillation uses “leaves of the myrtle plant” and unique salon fruit grown on the Sandringham estate, both ingredients of royal significance.
The website explains that the Sharon fruit “grows in the walled garden, on a sheltered wall at the end of a series of greenhouses built from the winning horses of Persimmon, the famous racehorse owned by Edward VII.
It adds that the myrtle plant "originates from cuttings that were part of the wedding bouquet when Princess Alexandra married Prince Albert Edward, who later became King Edward VII and Alexander Queen Sandra.”
This isn't the first time the Palace has tempted us to drink gin. They launched Buckingham Palace Premium Small Batch London Dry Gin over the summer, with ingredients including lemon verbena, hawthorn berries, bay leaves and mulberry leaves.
You can buy a £50 bottle (50cl) of Sandringham Gin from the Sandringham online store and from The Gift store post-lockdown. They warned that due to small batch distillation, delivery could take up to two weeks, so I wasn't going to waste any time. There is also a "click and collect" option.
