Churchill Read online

  Copyright © 2022 by Gin Sander and Roxanne Langer

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by David Ter-Avanesyan

  Cover artwork by Shutterstock and FlyClipArt.com

  Interior design by Chris Schultz

  Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-6836-9

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-5107-6837-6

  Printed in China

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER ONE—WHAT HE LIKED TO DRINK

  CHAPTER TWO—WITH WHOM HE LIKED TO DRINK

  CHAPTER THREE—WHERE HE LIKED TO DRINK

  CHAPTER FOUR—COCKTAILS IN THE MANNER OF CHURCHILL

  CHAPTER FIVE—WHY THIS STILL MATTERS

  APPENDIX—IN WHICH WE HUMBLY SUGGEST UPDATING SOME OF CHURCHILL’S FAvORITES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  CONVERSIONS

  INDEX

  INTRODUCTION

  “GO AHEAD, HAVE ANOTHER. I WON’T TELL . . .”

  Winston Churchill said those encouraging words to a young government minister who seemed reluctant to refill his glass at a dinner party. And we would say the same to you, go ahead and have one and then perhaps another while you are enjoying this book. We hope you are in a very relaxed mood and a very relaxed setting . . . maybe a well-worn leather chair, sleeping dog at your feet, and a glass of your favorite libation within arm’s reach.

  We’ve all missed the chance to have a drink with Sir Winston Churchill by many decades at this point, as he died at the age of ninety in 1965. This book can be a stand-in of sorts, in which you will learn what the great man liked to drink, where he liked to drink, and with whom he liked to raise a glass. Some will be familiar to you—big liquor brand names, famous bars and hotels around the world, and bold-faced names of historical figures. Others will be more obscure . . . lesser-known brands, out-of-the-way drinking spots, and interesting people who have faded from view.

  Understand this: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was by no means a drunk. He was an extraordinary man who played an extraordinary role in world history and took extraordinary pleasure in Champagne, wine, and spirits. From some of his earliest exploits—escaping from a South African POW camp and hiding in a deep mine shaft with cigars and brandy, through his strong and steady leadership during World War II with a watered-down scotch forever on his desk, and then on to his later quieter pleasures of painting in the South of France, a glass or a bottle of something was always at hand.

  Industry speculation is that over the course of his lifetime, Winston Churchill drank some forty-two thousand bottles of Champagne. The mind boggles. It boggles the soberest of minds, let alone one that’s enjoyed a drink or two. Relax, we did it for you:

  He had his first taste of brandy at age eleven as a standard nineteenth-century medical treatment during a serious bout of pneumonia, and at age sixteen he wrote to his brother Jack about a dinner at which “there was lots of Champagne which pleased your loving brother very much.” Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was at least in his late teens before he drank Champagne on a regular basis. This leaves seventy-two years in which he enjoyed Champagne daily. Seventy-two years of enjoyment, 365 days a year . . . that gives us 26,280 days total. If we divide the number of bottles by the number of days, it comes out to 1.6 bottles a day or 584 bottles a year. Not entirely out of the question, it seems somewhat doable, doesn’t it? Churchill once said that drinking Champagne made his wits more nimble, and based on those numbers he must have been very nimble indeed. In our Champagne section, we will go into some depth about the size of the bottles he was drinking, but for now let us just bow down and acknowledge that he wins the game.

  Moving from Champagne to spirits, you’ve all heard those wry and witty remarks about gin and dry martinis that are attributed to Winston, right? Something about the only way to make a martini is with ice-cold gin and a bow in the direction of France, or a glance across the room at the bottle of vermouth. All variations on a theme, and all, it appears, strictly apocryphal. Many have searched in vain for evidence that he ever said those oft-quoted words, and in examining the many, many (many) detailed bills from his various wine and spirits suppliers, gin never makes an appearance. Damn.

  In the spirit of enjoying a good story, however, we don’t plan to overlook gin and martinis in this book. Gin has played a long and storied role in the history of England, so it is certain that Winston was often in the room where gin was poured. That makes it Churchill adjacent, eh? No doubt there were many instances in which someone poured a drink of gin and then looked across the room at Churchill before taking a sip.

  Many a bar around the world is named in honor of Sir Winston Churchill, The Churchill Bar, at the Hyatt Regency London and Winston’s on the Beach at Miami’s Surf Club are just two that come immediately to mind. And many a cocktail is named after him even though by many accounts he was not a big fan of mixed drinks. It is well established that Churchill did knock down a martini or two with FDR in the White House and at what is now called Camp David, but whether he did so willingly is up for debate. Again, in the spirit of enjoyment we will relax and include some of the cocktails named in his honor, as well as a few drinks that we feel speak to the Churchillian spirit.

  MILESTONES

  Before we peer too deeply into the Churchill glass, let’s remember some of what he did during his ninety years. Here are just a few major milestones in his career.

  Historians, former personal secretaries, acquaintances, and family members alike freely mention Churchill’s fondness for alcohol when discussing his accomplishments. President Truman himself described the banquet on the first day of The Potsdam Conference he attended with Churchill and Stalin where “The table was set with everything you could think of . . . Goose liver, caviar, every kind of meat one could imagine, along with cheeses of different shapes and colors, and endless wine and vodka.”

  Vodka was often on the table when negotiating with Stalin. Previously secret files released by the British National Archives in the twenty-first century detail a late night meeting in Moscow between Stalin, his foreign secretary Molotov, and Churchill in which a British undersecretary at the Foreign Office reported, “There I found Stalin and

  1899—while covering the Boer War as a newspaper correspondent, is captured and made a POW but escapes, re-joins the army, and liberates the very prison camp where he was held.

  1911—becomes First Lord of the Admiralty during World War I, resigns from the government in 1915, and re-joins the army and serves on the Western Front.

  1930s—no longer in an official government position, Churchill is a loud voice sounding the alarm about German re-armament.

  1940–45—becomes Prime Minister and steers England to triumph during World War II.

  1946—during a visit to the
United States, gives the famed “Iron Curtain” speech in which he warns of the increasing Soviet threat.

  1951–55—once again becomes the Prime Minister, but resigns due to poor health.

  1953—receives the Nobel Prize for Literature in recognition of his many books and articles.

  1965—passes away at the age of ninety. His favorite Champagne brand, Pol Roger, adds a black band of mourning to their label.

  Churchill . . . sitting with a heavily laden board between them: food of all kinds, crowned by a suckling pig and innumerable bottles.” Ah, a long lost world in these far more business-like times, it is hard to imagine our world leaders knocking back drinks in the midst of a world war.

  When Churchill is portrayed in movies or on television he is often shown with glass in hand. Viewers of the Netflix series The Crown were treated to the sight of actor John Lithgow as Prime Minister Winston Churchill, dictating to a new secretary while sloshing in his bath tub with a cut crystal glass half full of scotch and a lit cigar. As you read further in this book, you will soon learn that most cinematic portrayals actually get the details of his drink wrong. Probably intentional, as what he actually drank wouldn’t be so easily filmed. Artistic license, doncha know.

  Ready to learn more? In the spirit of this book devoted to spirits, do go ahead and enjoy sipping a little something while you discover the story of Sir Winston Churchill’s lifelong love affair with wine and spirits. We’ve pulled together all we could about his favorite brands, his frequent haunts, and the friends with whom he tipped a glass or two. His close friend Lord Birkenhead said about Churchill that “his tastes were simple, he is easily contented with the best of everything.” After sampling a few of his favorite libations during our research we adopted this credo ourselves and suspect that this will soon be your motto too.

  Cheers!

  Gin and Roxie

  CHAPTER ONE

  WHAT HE LIKED TO DRINK

  CHURCHILL, THE SON OF AN ENGLISH LORD BUT an American mother, adored America. While riding on the presidential train with President Truman in 1946, he remarked that if given a second life to live, he’d wish to be born in America. Americans did have one barbaric habit, though . . . “you stop drinking with your meals.” Perish the thought!

  Not only was Churchill a man of fixed habit when it came to drinking with his meals, he was also a man of firm habits when it came to what he enjoyed drinking. He was intensely loyal to several brands and was happiest when those brands were stocked in his larder. From the very weak whisky and soda that he drank throughout the day to the Champagne, cognac, or brandy with which he ended the day, Churchill had his favorites.

  He took pains to make sure that there was always a ready supply. Even as a young newspaper correspondent on his way down to cover the Boer War in South Africa, he laid in an impressive amount of libations that traveled on board ship, the Dunottar Castle. He reportedly ordered from the London wine and liquor merchant Randolph Payne & Sons the following items to stave off thirst along the way: Six bottles each of an 1889 Vi d’Ay Sec, port, an old eau-de-vie, and French vermouth. Eighteen bottles of ten-year-old Scotch whisky, and St. Emilion wine. And then twelve bottles of Rose’s cordial lime juice. Sadly, there is no record of how long these provisions lasted. Was it just for the long trip down or meant to slake his thirst during his stay in South Africa? It remains a mystery . . .

  A talented and dedicated writer capable of tremendous output, Churchill wrote countless articles and books throughout his lifetime. Despite Ernest Hemingway’s famous advice that he thought writers should “Write drunk. Edit sober,” Churchill always kept a weak drink by his side as he wrote. It is worth noting that Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953, beating out fellow nominee Ernest Hemingway, who was given the award the following year. A “throat moistener,” his personal secretary Anthony Montague Browne recalled in his memoirs. An old trick he’d learned in the army was another explanation for his whisky and water habit, “. . . the water was not fit to drink. To make it more palatable we had to add whisky. By diligent effort I learned to like it.” He diligently kept the habit going for the next seven decades.

  What didn’t he like to drink? According to nurse Roy Howells, he never drank tea, or cocoa. If he did have coffee, he had it with milk at breakfast but would switch to black coffee after lunch or dinner. “I never saw him drink sherry, vodka, mineral waters, beer, and the only time he drank water was when he used to take a sip from a bedside glass after drinking his late night cold consommé.”

  Hired in the 1950s to appraise the contents of the basement wine cellar at Churchill’s country house, Chartwell, a London wine merchant, pronounced it a “shambles.” We will here attempt to right this wrong and sort through Churchill’s favorite bottles in an orderly manner so that we too can enjoy some of his favorites. So join us now in taking a wander through Winston’s liquor cabinet and learn what we can about what he enjoyed drinking and the brands he liked best. As we begin to detail and describe Churchill’s choices, it is hard to decide which bottle to reach for first, the whisky or the Champagne? He was equally devoted to both, but for different reasons and as a general rule, at different times of the day . . . let’s just grab the Champagne bottle off the shelf first and pop the cork on his choices, shall we?

  CHAMPAGNE

  AH, LET YOUR IMAGINATION SOAR FOR A MOMENT and think of wild rose, lime blossom, quince, apple, lychee, brioche, creamy, sparkling, a necklace, toast, and bubbles—lots and lots of bubbles! What are we drinking? Champagne, of course! Who among us doesn’t love a glass of bubbly from time to time? Maybe on occasion a table of friends might down an entire bottle or two. But remember, our own habits pale in comparison to the world class Champagne consumption of one of the most famous men in history, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Lawrence Spencer Churchill. Industry sources famously estimate his lifetime Champagne enjoyment at a stunning forty-two thousand bottles. Yes, you read that right. Not 420 bottles, not 4,200 bottles, but forty-two thousand over the course of a lifetime. According to Roy Howells, the nurse that tended to him in his final years, “Eating without drinking Champagne was out of the question for him and right to the end he drank it with every meal.”

  Another close observer, John Colville, known as Jock, who served off and on as a close aide to Churchill for almost twenty years, described an evening of train travel with his boss in a bad mood: “We spent the night in a siding. There was a storm cloud owing to the non-arrival of a pouch but after much lightning and many claps of thunder . . . the sky cleared with the advent of dinner and lots of Champagne.” During a dinner later in the war, at the Churchill country home Chartwell, Colville noted this in his diary: “Dinner began badly, with reading of newspapers and monosyllabic answer; but when the Champagne had done its work, Mr. C brightened up and became his brilliant, gay, and epigrammatic best.”

  In reaching out to some of the various historic wine and spirits merchants who supplied Churchill over the years, we were told by Berry Brothers & Rudd that on occasion the British government would have to call up and ask them where they were shipping Churchill’s Champagne in order to try to figure out just where he was. Throughout the first few decades of enjoying Champagne, his wine merchant bills reflect a broad range of producers, everyone from Perrier Jouet to Tattinger, and his friends regularly gifted him with cases of Veuve Cliquot in advance of his many visits to various country house.

  These generous gifts were a big help, as Churchill famously lived beyond his means for much of his long and storied life. At one point in 1926, in order to try to trim the bills, he instructed his wife Clementine: “No more Champagne is to be bought.” All evidence from later years points toward the fact that the rule was quickly abandoned. In fact, a book about the Churchill family finances is called No More Champagne.

  Winston’s favorite, Pol Roger Champagne

  In his last decades, his personal preference was focused on one brand and one brand only, that of the storied Ch
ampagne house Pol Roger of Épernay. What prompted this singular focus? Cherchez la femme, bien sur. Seated next to Odette Pol Roger at a dinner party at the British Embassy in Paris on November 12, 1945 Churchill was charmed by the woman and the Champagne her house produced. He had first tasted Pol Roger in 1908 (one dozen bottles of the 1895 vintage), but it was this intoxicating evening with Odette that sealed their friendship and even inspired Churchill to name one of his racehorses Pol Roger.

  The Pol Roger tribute to Sir Winston Churchill

  Although he had a definite brand preference, he was not opposed to drinking other brands. At various times social occasions are said to include Krug, Mumm, and Veuve Cliquot. In fact, one of the most revealing Churchill and Champagne stories revolves around Veuve Cliquot . . .

  When Churchill was out of the Prime Minister position just after the end of World War II, he was badly in need of some rest and relaxation. Offered the use of a villa on Lake Como by Field Marshall Alexander, he accepted and soon headed that way with a half dozen or so family, friends, and aides in tow. Alexander thoughtfully stocked the villa with one hundred bottles of Veuve Cliquot. Some two and a half weeks later a military commander noted in a letter home that there were only four bottles left. Most impressive.

  So why, you might ask, was Winston Churchill such a fan of Champagne? What makes it so very different on the palate than anything else he could have poured into a glass?

  A quick reminder about Champagne, as all wine, it begins in the vineyard. Grapes being harvested to make Champagne are often the first to be picked and brought into the winery. They tend to be higher in acid then grapes harvested for regular or “still” wine. From there, the process is identical to still wine in that the white or red grapes are fermented and made into wine. Champagne can only be made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, or Pinot Munier grape varietals, or any combination of the three.