From September 1939 Winston Churchill was spending today’s equivalent of £1800 a month on wine. General Jacob observed that Churchill began the day by drinking “white wine on occasion” at breakfast. Mid-morning occasioned a glass of dry sherry, then a bottle of claret or burgundy at lunch, “sometimes port after lunch and always after dinner”, according to his secretary Phyllis Moir.
In the late afternoon, he called for his first whisky and soda of the day, followed by a bottle of champagne at dinner. After the post-dinner glass of port, “he sips the very finest Napoleon brandy and may have a highball in the course of the evening”. Famously, he said: “I’ve got more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me”.