Queen launches another limited edition gin for £40 made at Hillsborough Castle and Gardens

The Queen’s favourite drink is a gin and Dubonnet, and now the monarch has another spirit to choose from for her favourite cocktail. 

Hillsborough Castle and Gardens, the Queen’s Northern Ireland residence, is launching its own variety of the gin, made using rose petals from the gardens and blended with apples and pears from the castle’s Walled Garden.

The Northern Ireland residence is 20 minutes away from Belfast and has teamed up with local distillery Rademon Estate, Northern Ireland’s first craft gin distillery. 

Only 400 bottles have been produced of the special edition Shortcross Gin, which is being sold for £40 for a 70cl bottle, available on the Historic Royal Palaces Shop website. 

It’s the fourth gin to be sold by the Royal Family, with the official Buckingham Palace gin launched by the Royal Collection Trust in July last year selling out online within eight hours. 

The Granville Rose Garden was created by Lady Rose Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother’s eldest sister in the 1940s and 1950s, with the Queen and her sister Margaret enjoying the spectacular grounds when visiting their aunt and uncle as young princesses. 

In November last year, the royal launched a new gin made with plants grown in her Sandringham estate. 

The batch of Sandringham Celebration Gin is priced at £50 for a 50cl bottle and was made in a distillery on the estate in north Norfolk. 

It was the third brand of gin to be marketed by the Royal family, cashing in on the popularity of the drink. 

Prince Charles recently launched his own organic Highgrove gin just months after the Royal Collection Trust started selling a Buckingham Palace variety. 

But the Sandringham gin is the one most closely linked to the Queen because the 20,000 acre estate is her private property.

The Queen is known to be a gin lover and is said to enjoy it as a pre-dinner tipple mixed with Dubonnet.

The Sandringham gin is flavoured with leaves from myrtle plants grown on the estate and exotic Sharon fruit, known as Chinese persimmon, from its walled garden.

Bottles are being sold by the estate’s online store with free shipping in the UK, and will be available at the Sandringham gift shop when it reopens after coronavirus restrictions are lifted.

The limited edition gin was produced by local distillery Whatahoot at its former premises in a barn at Fltcham on the estate before it moved to a new base at nearby King’s Lynn.