Prince William is a future king, but, at one time, he was just a college kid, a coed at the University of St. Andrews (where he met future wife Kate Middleton and where his younger cousin, Lady Louise Windsor, is headed to school, it was recently announced). But his taste in cocktails ran a little pricier than most college kids can typically afford—£135, to be exact.
While at university, William is said to have enjoyed sambuca shots and a cocktail named “Treasure Chest,” a combination of peach liquor, brandy, and champagne served—naturally—in a wooden chest.
While William typically avoided more high-priced bars and clubs, The Mirror reports that “he did enjoy occasional evenings at expensive establishments like the now-closed Boujis in West London.” The outlet reports an anecdote from 2007 when teenager Lisa Agar told The Daily Echo how she once bumped into William at a club “and ended up doing a sixties-style jive dancing with him on the podium.” (Unfortunately, these were the days before smartphones, because we’d love to see video of that.)
“It was quite funny because I know the security guards at the club, and they said Prince William is in here and I said oh yeah, funny, ha ha,” she said. “He was telling everyone that his name was Danny, and he was from London, and he often gets mistaken for William. But his friends were saying ‘that’s Hugh, Rufus, and Will.’ We started dancing with them. He was dancing with bouncers and everyone. I wish I had got a video of us pratting around on the stage. When people began to realize who he was, he was totally upfront and posed quite happily for mobile phone snaps with a number of girls, including me.”
Okay, so William had his fun in college—didn’t we all?—but he’s nowhere near the only member of the royal family to enjoy a drink now and then. The Queen’s drink of choice, according to The Mirror, is a gin and Dubonnet, made with two parts Dubonnet and one part gin with two cubes of ice, served with a slice of lemon.
For Charles, he prefers a crisp gin and tonic when he travels, or a Scotch whiskey. His wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, prefers wine and even once said “Well, first of all, I love wine, and secondly, my father was in the wine business, so I was brought up as a child drinking wine and water rather like the French.”
William’s wife Kate prefers a pint of Guinness or a gin and tonic—and “William brings her one in the evening after Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis have gone to bed,” The Mirror reports.
“William will bring Kate a gin and tonic,” a close friend of Kate’s said. “They look after each other, but in different ways.”
Back when Kate herself was in her younger, pre-royal days, she is said to have enjoyed a cocktail called “Crack Baby,” which was served at the aforementioned Boujis. At William and Kate’s 2011 wedding, the couple served the concoction: a mix of vodka, champagne, and passion fruit juice.
