Queen Camilla has made like the rest of us and headed to the pub to get the weekend started. However, Her Majesty’s Friday night on the tiles had a rather royal ring, as you might expect.

The Queen was at the Fife Arms in Braemar on September 20^th with the visit recorded in the Court Circular. However, there was no mention of whether Queen Camilla had popped into the establishment’s famous Bertie’s Whisky Bar which was inspired by the life and times of King Edward VII.

Her Majesty was at the Fife Arms for the Braemar Literary Festival Dinner, marking the start of the three day celebration of literature taking place across the weekend. Queen Camilla’s Reading Room is a festival partner, as is the Fife Arms which has a long history in the area and is now a five star boutique hotel.

Hotel residents can also enjoy Bertie’s Whisky Bar which was inspired by Edward VII, known to his family as Bertie, and which has whiskies arranged according to taste under categories of ‘’fragrant, fruity, rich and smoky’’. Edward VII was King Charles III’s great, great grandfather and had an affair with Alice Keppel, the great grandmother of Queen Camilla.

It also has a very popular public bar, The Flying Stag, which boasts regular live entertainment while private areas of the hotel include The Cellar, which focuses on fine wine, and Elsa’s, an art deco cocktail bar created in honour of Elsa Schiaparelli, the famed fashion designer who often visited Braemar.

It’s actually far more likely that Queen Camilla was entertained in the hotel’s star dining room, the Clunie, which is named after the river which runs past the establishment. It was painted in a modern design by the artist, Guillermo Kuitca and top chef Tom Kitchin was in charge of a three course meal to start the festival’s long weekend of events.

The Braemar Literary Festival began in 2022 by the Fife Arms in partnership with the Queen’s Reading Room and this year features talks by Kate Mosse, Jon Sopel and Alan Cumming. The first event is set to be a discussion with Tom Parker Bowles who is chatting to Matthew Fort about royal recipes.

The festival continues until September 22^nd 2024.