How Queen Elizabeth makes millions: Buckingham Palace English Sparkling Wine celebrates her Platinum Jubilee while Kate Middleton may have inspired royal honey from Scotland …
- Perhaps influenced by Kate Middleton’s love of beekeeping, honey gathered from beehives on the queen’s Balmoral Estate in Scotland is sold for US$12 a jar
- The queen’s own brand of dish soap goes for US$20 a bottle and Scotch whisky for US$102 – but how much do sales contribute to her massive US$470 million net worth?
The queen pays for the upkeep of homes such as Buckingham Palace through her Royal Collection charity. The Royal Collection Trust isn’t technically owned by the monarch, but exists under her patronage, and reported a total income of US$98 million in the years 2019-2020, with US$68 million coming from visitor admissions to the likes of Windsor Castle and US$27.3 million from gift shop sales.
With a portion of merchandise sales going to the Royal Collection, here’s how the queen’s side hustle has raked in millions to fund her lavish lifestyle.
Boozy buys
According to a press release on the Royal Collection Trust website, the 12 per cent abv vintage sparkling wine is a “classic blend of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier, made exclusively from hand-picked fruit grown on vineyards in Kent and West Sussex”. The label design takes inspiration from the gold embroidery on Her Majesty’s Robe of Estate, worn on Coronation Day, June 2, 1953, according to a website product description. Champagne flute glasses are also available at US$157 for a pair.
In 2020, the Trust launched a premium small-batch London dry gin for US$54. The 42 per cent abv spirit is infused with citrus and herbal notes derived from 12 botanicals, several of which are from Buckingham Palace garden, including lemon verbena, hawthorn berries, bay leaves and mulberry leaves.
The Royal Collection has also launched a 12-year-old single malt Scotch whisky (US$102) from Balmoral, Scotland. The Sandringham Shop page reported that the gift shop beer uses “organic laureate spring barley harvested on the Sandringham Estate with crystal clear water drawn from a nearby bore hole”. It’s sold with a jar of chutney for a total of US$34.