Henry Jeffreys

How to make a royally good Dubonnet cocktail

The Platinum Jubilee celebrations look like boom time for the drinks industry, with various whisky, gin and port brands all releasing special commemorative bottles. But there’s one curious omission: Dubonnet, a liqueur that is said to be the Queen’s favourite. According to a spokesman from parent company Pernod Ricard, there’s nothing planned to celebrate 70 years on the throne of its most famous fan.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting a flurry of activity. I picture the Dubonnet promotional department as two old Frenchmen asleep by a telex machine in the back of a dusty café in Béziers. But then again, who needs le marketing when you’ve got the Queen? Say the word ‘Dubonnet’ and immediately you think of the royal family, just as the words ‘Harveys Bristol Cream’ will conjure up images of vicars. According to the former royal chef Darren McGrady, every morning, until very recently, the Queen had a gin and Dubonnet at around 11 and then would move on to other drinks. (I also have it on good authority that she actually prefers a martini, made very dry with Gordon’s gin.)

It’s her mother who was the real Dubonnet lover, so much so that there’s a cocktail called a Queen Mother, made with equal parts gin and Dubonnet. A writer based in Bordeaux told me that the Rothschild family had a bottle on hand when the Queen Mother visited Château Mouton Rothschild in the 1970s, though, ever the diplomat, she didn’t turn her nose up at the wines.

The classic regal recipe is two parts Dubonnet to one part gin, which is much too sweet for me.

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