While the concept of monarchy is fraught, it’s always sad when a family must say goodbye to a beloved mother and grandmother. And while I never visited Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth II was a familiar figure growing up. Her face was a familiar one on Canadian money, and I remember the gold and silver silhouettes of Queen Elizabeth II on colorful Trinidadian postage stamps on letters from friends living on the Caribbean island.
Queen Elizabeth’s favorite cocktail was Dubonnet and gin, a taste she acquired from her mother. Here’s how to mix up the Queen’s cocktail, which sounds like a sweeter, less intense version of a Negroni, which pairs gin and Campari.
But what does one drink to say goodbye to a monarch? Celebratory champagne and mourning don’t seem to go together. Yet those sentiments share a glass in the historic champagne cocktail known as the Black Velvet.
The Black Velvet, a mix of bittersweet chocolate-hued Guinness stout and champagne, is on the menu of many pubs in the UK. While it’s not well known in the rest of the world, Black Velvet is a peculiarly pleasing drink with mournful tale attached to it.
Queen Victoria married her second cousin Albert in story-book wedding ceremony on Feb. 10, 1840. According to an account on the defunct site Love Tripper.com, she wore a then-unfashionable white dress, a blue sapphire and a wreath of orange blossoms in her hair. Victoria and Albert were friends who shared a passionate romance and a professional relationship, along with nine children. Ten years after their wedding, Victoria wrote in her diary: “Often I feel surprised at being so loved, and tremble at my great happiness.”
So she and her subjects were devastated when Albert died of typhoid fever in 1861 at age 42. Laughter was forbidden in their home Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Queen Victoria stayed out of sight for a decade, and wore black for the rest of her life. A barman at Brooks’s Club on St. James Street–a private London men’s club open since 1778–is credited with mixing some Guinness with champagne.
Difford’s Guide notes the cocktail may have originated in Germany, and was first dubbed a Black Velvet in Frank-Meier’s 1936 book The Artistry of Mixing Drinks. This feature on Esquire.com explains the intricate steps involved with pouring a perfect Black Velvet (fill a Collins glass halfway with Guinness, top with champagne and stir.)
And it seems like a fitting way to say goodbye to Queen Elizabeth II.
Original Black Velvet Drink
