Australia’s royal fans seem keen to raise a glass to the Queen, leading to a surprise surge in demand for the late monarch’s favourite tipple.

Endeavour Group, the parent company of BWS and Dan Murphy’s, enjoyed a 465 per cent increase in sales of Dubonnet in the three days following the Queen’s death, compared to a normal week.

Owned by Pernod Ricard, Dubonnet is a French aperitif that combines rich, sweet fortified wine with herbs, spices and quinine.

The Queen was reportedly such a fan of a Dubonnet and gin cocktail, that she awarded the aperitif a Royal Warrant in 2021; essentially allowing the company to include the phrase ‘By appointment to HM the Queen’ on the drink’s label as a mark of prestige.

Tim Carroll, Endeavour Group director of buying and merchandising, said ‘The Queen’s Cocktail’ was the perfect balance of sweet and tartness.

“Our customers clearly wanted to toast Queen Elizabeth II by making her favourite cocktail as we have seen a huge sales spike of Dubonnet, and our stores are now busily restocking shelves,” he said.

The Queen’s cocktail

Ingredients

• 30 millilitres gin
• 60 millilitres Dubonnet
• Two ice cubes
• Lemon wedge or twist to garnish

Method

1. Add all ingredients except garnish into a mixer and stir well
2. Strain into a chilled glass
3. Garnish with lemon
4. Serve.

Dubonnet’s medicinal history

Dubonnet was created by Parisian wine merchant and chemist Sir Joseph Dubonnet in 1846.

A key ingredient he used was quinine, a bitter compound that comes from the bark of the cinchona tree that was originally developed as a medicine to cure fevers and fight malaria.

It is believed Dubonnet created the aperitif in response to the then-French government’s call for recipes that would make ingesting quinine more palatable for French Foreign Legion soldiers fighting malaria as they colonised African countries such as Algeria.