The Queen has launched a new gin named after the forest near her Deeside retreat.
Balmoral is new taking orders for its tipple called Ballochbuie – a 2,500 acre woodland about five miles from the castle near Invercauld Bridge.
Sales from the £60-a-bottle will go towards some of the running costs of the Balmoral Castle estate, which sit at around £3million a year. Half of that comes from tourism and related enterprises, which have taken a hit due to the pandemic.
Launching it online, the estate said the first bottles would be ready next month.
In a statement online, the estate said: “We are proud to announce the launch of our very own premium Balmoral Gin, distilled with hand-picked botanicals from the estate’s Ballochbuie forest.
“We are now taking orders for our the first batch of Ballochbuie Gin, with orders processed and dispatched as soon as our delivery arrives in June.”
Other royal gins
This is not the first gin that the royals have launched.
Most have been inspired by estates around the country and feature ingredients grown there, such as the Buckingham Palace Sloe Gin and the Sandringham Celebration Gin.
Prince Charles’s Highgrove also has its own organic London dry garden botantical gin.
The Queen Mother famously enjoyed a daily tipple before lunch of gin mixed with Dubonnet and a slice of lemon – with the pips carefully removed.
Her lifelong affection for the popular drink also prompted her old Scottish home in Caithness to join the gin renaissance sweeping the UK – by helping make its own associated brand.
The Mey Selections Traditional Scottish Gin is made at Britain’s most northerly gin distillery, Dunnet Bay – home of Rock Rose – and contains herbs gathered from around the walls of Castle of Mey.