Betty White will forever be one of the most admired and revered actors to have graced the big screen. She is a Hollywood legend, and while her passing in December 2021 came too soon, just shy of her 100th birthday, she lived a long and extraordinary life. What was the secret behind this Golden Girl’s longevity? White’s secret can be added to the list of drinks celebrities credited for their long lives with her choice being vodka.
You read that right. While some celebrities chalk up their good health and multiple years around the sun to Pilates, White’s name is not among them. In fact, she happily told people she stayed away from anything green and instead liked a good hot dog alongside her vodka. In an essay she penned for Harper’s Bazaar, White shared, “I don’t eat anything special. French fries. Hot dogs if I can get ’em. And I’m not a big breakfast eater. I’ll have a sandwich at lunch and then come home, and Pontiac (White’s dog) and I have a vodka on the rocks and then our dinner. You can’t get much better.” Sounds like heaven. White went on to share that she liked her vodka with lots of citrus, specifically lemon or grapefruit.
Is there any truth to drinking a vodka a day adding years to your life? White may have been on to something. According to a 2022 study that started tracking 430,016 adult drinkers in 1994, modest drinking, which was classified as no more than one drink a day, added a year to life expectancy. That said, White definitely fell into that category. She revealed in an interview with Bon Appétit that she kept her drinking in check, stating, “One cocktail before dinner is fine. If I’m out with friends, I’ll probably have a second. But I don’t really like to feel it.”
What brand of vodka did White fancy? While the celebrity who starred alongside the likes of Mary Tyler Moore and Ryan Reynolds never publicly divulged her go-to brand of vodka, she did do shots of Grey Goose with David Letterman in 2017, referring to her consumption of the odor-free alcohol as a “hobby.” If you want to drink a Betty White-inspired cocktail, try Valerie Bertinelli’s Betty’s Lemon Vodka which her “Hot in Cleveland” co-star created to honor White’s life.
