Almost everyone has their drink of choice when they walk into a bar — maybe it’s a cranberry juice and vodka, it might be a Scotch neat, it could possibly be a glass of wine or an icy-cold brew — but for this 100-year-old woman from Suffolk, England, gin is where it’s at. Mabel Jackson, who has been sipping on her favorite liquor for 82 years, says drinking six gin and tonics a day is the key to living a long life, the Suffolk Gazette reports.
“I have two at lunchtime, one at tea time with a biscuit and then three more during the evening while I do my knitting. I swear the gin keeps me young!,” Jackson said as she celebrated her 100th birthday surrounded by family and friends.
Jackson has been drinking since she was 18 years old and even says she remembers how many bottles of gin she’s gone thru throughout the years — 4,264 to be exact, or 52 bottles a year.
“I worked it out one night when I couldn’t get to sleep. Instead of counting sheep, I counted gins. You get around 35 measures in a bottle, so as I always have six a day it takes me around a week to get through a bottle. I know this because I buy one every Wednesday from the Co-Op. On that basis I buy 52 bottles a year, making 4,264 bottles since I started. That’s quite an achievement!”
The mother of three, who was married to her childhood sweetheart, Eric, for 55 years before he passed away in 1989 of liver disease, now has nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. One of her daughters, Mary Whiteside, 74, says her mother has always loved a good cocktail.
“Mum has always been a bit of a character. She loves a tipple, and to be honest, it seems to have preserved her, like a good pickle,” Whiteside said.
(Via Suffolk Gazette/Cosmopolitan)
