Two of Queen Elizabeth's Children Don't Drink Alcohol

The Queen Mother drinking champagne while being driven around in a buggy as staff members drink champagne next to her — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Mocktails are all the rage right now, and Princess Kate recently admitted that she doesn't drink much these days. But decades ago, it wasn’t as common to abstain from alcohol, especially within Britain. Queen Elizabeth enjoyed a gin and Dubonnet as part of her daily routine at Buckingham Palace, but her alcohol consumption came nothing close to the Queen Mother’s. Princess Margaret also was fond of a drink, but according to royal biographer Robert Hardman, Queen Elizabeth and her children didn’t follow their family members’ influence.

Describing her “tastes in both food and drink” as “unexotic,” Hardman wrote in his new biography of Queen Elizabeth that her “consumption” of everything was “careful” as compared to her sister, Margaret, and the Queen Mother.

“Her mother and sister were both famously thirsty,” Hardman wrote in Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. Her Story. He describes a 1988 luncheon when diarist Victor Stock witnessed the Queen Mother working “her way through two glasses of gin and Dubonnet, followed by champagne, white wine and claret before being offered a closing glass of Chateau d’Yquem.”

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Queen Mother wearing blue and waving from a balcony — The Queen Mother was a devoted gin and Dubonnet fan.

Princess Margaret smoking a cigarette talking to a man in costume — Princess Margaret was "famously thirsty," per Hardman.

In reply, the Queen Mother, who lived to the age of 101, exclaimed, “Oh no, I really couldn’t drink any more. I’ll just have a glass of champagne.” Hardman noted that Queen Elizabeth “would have stopped after the first or possibly second gin and Dubonnet” and she and Prince Philip passed their “steely self-restraint” on to their children.

Per Hardman, King Charles, Princess Anne, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Prince Edward “eat sparingly while the middle two are also teetotal.”

Prince Andrew and Princess Anne talking at the Duchess of Kent's funeral — Neither Andrew nor Anne drink alcohol, per Hardman.

It’s not surprising that no-nonsense Princess Anne prefers to keep her wits about her, but it might come as a shock that Andrew doesn’t partake in alcohol. According to one of Hardman's sources, the former Duke of York said, “I tasted it once when I was a teenager, and I didn’t like it.”

Instead, he will only drink “room-temperature water,” with the source noting that Queen Elizabeth “would always worry about him” because Andrew “was a seven-year-old who never grew up.”

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Kristin Contino is Marie Claire's Senior Royal and Celebrity editor. She's been covering royalty since 2018—including major moments such as the Platinum Jubilee, Queen Elizabeth II’s death and King Charles III's coronation—and places a particular focus on the British Royal Family's style and what it means.

Prior to working at Marie Claire, she wrote about celebrity and royal fashion at Page Six Style and covered royalty from around the world as chief reporter at Royal Central. Kristin has provided expert commentary for outlets including the BBC, Sky News, US Weekly, the Today Show and many others.

Kristin is also the published author of two novels, “The Legacy of Us” and “A House Full of Windsor.” She's passionate about travel, history, horses, and learning everything she can about her favorite city in the world, London.