Princess Anne’s strict drinking hack that helps her navigate her busy royal schedule

Often dubbed the hardest-working royal, the secret to Princess Anne’s go-getting mindset may be her decision to abstain from drinking any alcoholic beverages. Appearing at multiple engagements a week, the only daughter of the late Queen Elizabeth II is teetotal, and it might explain her never-ending social battery. 

The Princess Royal, 75, won’t be caught with a glass of expensive Champagne in her hand while out and about at various charity events and the like, as she made the decision to stay sober, much like her younger brother, the former prince, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, 66. 

Despite other working royals dabbling in a cocktail or two, including the late Queen, who reportedly enjoyed a cocktail inherited from the Queen Mother, made from Dubonnet, a French drink by Pernod Ricard, and gin, Anne refuses to touch alcohol at charity events due to her ongoing packed schedule. 

Her former private secretary, Captain Sir Nicholas Wright RN, revealed Anne doesn’t drink alcohol during an interview for ITV’s documentary, Anne: The Princess Royal at 70, and said: “I’m very jealous, the princess doesn’t drink [alcohol] at all.”

Anne’s younger brother, Andrew, has also publicly revealed he avoids drinking and told the Mirror during a visit to New Zealand in 2005 that he had been teetotal since he was a teenager after he “poisoned” his taste buds with alcohol. He also told the Evening Standard that he didn’t drink because he “hasn’t got the head for it”. 

Royal pressures and stress-drinking 

Despite Anne and Andrew’s abstinence, other members of the royal family have revealed in the past that the pressures of life in the spotlight had led them to drink to quash their nerves as they faced up to their public duties. 

Prince Harry, now 41, explained how he leaned on substances to help him cope during an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021. He told the American host: “I was willing to drink, I was willing to take drugs, I was willing to try and do the things that made me feel less like I was feeling… I was just all over the place mentally.” 

© Getty Images

The late Princess Margaret, who was the sister of Queen Elizabeth, smoked and drank heavily while she was alive and according to Andrew Morton’s 2021 biography, Elizabeth & Margaret: The Intimate World of the Windsor Sisters, she was “smoking and drinking excessively” during her struggles in 1966.

Working royals, such as the Prince and Princess of Wales, have been pictured enjoying a pint or two, and it is known that King Charles himself enjoys a ’50:50′ gin and dry vermouth martini before his dinner.