100-year-old woman reveals how gin has helped her live longer

Drinking six gin and tonics a day could be the key to a long life, a 100-year-old woman from Suffolk, England has said.

Mabel Jackson recently celebrated her 100th birthday with family and friends.

The Suffolk Gazette reports that Mabel who is fit as a fiddle, stopped smoking three years ago on doctors’ advice.

She has however never considered giving up downing her favourite drink.

Here’s what she told the Suffolk Gazette: “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!”

The centenarian has been drinking gin for 82 years and even knows how many bottles she had got through in that time.

“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!”

Mabel has three children, nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. “It’s lovely to see the young ones, but they are quite boisterous and once they’ve gone I definitely need a G & T,” she said.

Her daughter Mary Whiteside, 74, told the Suffolk Gazette: “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.”