What Winston Churchill Was Drinking During the Blitz.

According to the new book “The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz” by Erik Larson, the following order of wine and liquor was delivered to Churchill’s country residence (Chequers) in 1940:

36 bottles of Amontillado - Duff Gordon’s V.O.;
36 bottles, white wine - Valmur, 1934 (Chablis);
36 bottles, port - Fonseca, 1912;
36 bottles, claret - Chateau Leoville Poyferre, 1929;
24 bottles, whisky - Fine Highland Malt;
12 bottles, brandy - Grande Fine Champagne, 1874 (66 years old, same as Churchill);
36 bottles of Champagne - Pommery et Greno, 1926 (Pol Roger, however, remained his favorite).

VM

Slow weekend.

He evidently had pretty exquisite taste. Don’t think that order would have lasted him very long, however.

Given other descriptions of his daily intake, it was probably for a month, assuming there were no guests.

He almost always had guests through this period–and for most of his life. He loved having others to bounce things off of, to stimulate conversation, etc. Minimum would be he, his wife, his youngest daughter, and his personal secretary, generally plus 1 to 6-8 other people. I would guess his average dinner was between 6-12 people at the table.

See if you can find out what cigars were delivered. That would be just as interesting for obvious reasons.

Interesting that the Leoville Poyferre was only eleven years old at that time. Needed another twenty.

Apparently he drank 42000 bottles of pol roger in his lifetime

I wonder how many of them François Audouze has drunk.

He is famous for loving cuban Romeo y Julieta’s, but he actually smoked a variety of cigars. If you do a quick internet search of his favorite cigars, you’ll find a short article by one of the shops he used to buy from. they have an extensive record of what he used to order. there’s a great short section in the Erik Larson book about a fear that he might be poisoned during the war by a cigar that had been doctored, and the cigar testing that was attempted (he was getting large gifts of cigars from all over the world).

From the Churchill War Rooms in London…

I dearly hope that M. Audouze has not actually drunk any wine that Winston Churchill has already drunk. There is a limit to the lengths I would go to imbibe some history.

Times change.

RT

The most worrisome thing about all of this Churchill wine/booze/cigar nostalgia is that, apparently, his favorite scotch was Johnny Walker Red.

I am surprised Churchill was not drinking more expensive stuff, actually. This is where he was born:

Churchill’s 1941 White House visit
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/darkest-days-world-war-ii-winston-churchills-visit-white-house-brought-hope-washington-180961798/

The 67-year-old prime minister proved an eccentric houseguest. “I must have a tumbler of sherry in my room before breakfast,” Churchill told Fields, the White House butler, “a couple of glasses of scotch and soda before lunch and French champagne, and 90-year-old brandy before I go to sleep at night.”

He kept Roosevelt up until 2 or 3 a.m. drinking brandy, smoking cigars and ignoring Eleanor’s exasperated hints about sleep. “It was astonishing to me that anyone could smoke so much and drink so much and keep perfectly well,” she later wrote.

RT

From what I’ve read the 36 bottles of Champagne is particularly suspect.

Maybe he was a part of drinking that many bottles.
That’s nearly two bottles of Pol Roger every day for sixty years.

He wasn’t particularly good with finances and often had to supplement his Government income with writing, just to stay afloat.

Yes, but one of the ways he was not good with money was that he drank stuff he liked no matter the expense. If he drank Johnny Walker red, it would have been what he wanted. Someone who knows more about mid-century drinking can say whether single malt scotches were a big deal then. I have the impression they were not. As to the 3 of bottles Champagne a day for sixty years, Churchill lived to be 91. Even assuming he didn’t start his impressive drinking until he was 25, he would have had time, and even a few off days when he only got through two. A supposed debunking of the myth of Churchill’s drinking has him drinking 2 imperials of Champagne (40 ounces or about a bottle and three quarters) a day along with scotch and brandy in large amounts. I would not be surprised if this debunking needs to be debunked upwards given other reports one can read.