In Bertie’s Whisky Bar I have in my hands an open bottle of US prohibition-era Laphroaig distilled on the Isle of Islay more than a century ago.
I put its neck directly beneath my nostrils, breathe in its aroma and am temporarily transported to an illicit Chicago speakeasy.
Mark Shedden makes a point of ensuring the bar’s most prized bottles are safely back in his hands before discussing numbers. Should any of us fancy a 25ml tot from this one, that’ll be £4,000.
His reasoning is that scary figures can bring on sweaty hands. We wouldn’t want any accidents, now would we, with an open bottle still containing some £80,000 worth of alcohol?
No takers? The bar manager gingerly returns it to an upper shelf in the whisky ‘library’ – the most talked about room in the most talked about hotel in Scotland.
Here, in the amber glow of its 440 bottles, a party of 15 financially carefree customers ran up a bill of almost £159,000 for a single night’s drinking a few weeks ago. Mr Shedden admits that, regrettably, the till receipt was ‘leaked’.
It is quieter tonight. Neither multi-millionaire BrewDog founder James Watt nor his new bride, Made in Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo, have been in, although they did honeymoon here at The Fife Arms in Braemar a days ago.
There is no sign, either, of Holywood A-lister Margot Robbie who is said to have bought a holiday home nearby. Yet there is a feeling that, at almost any moment, we may be joined by showbiz royalty.
The list of stars who have made the pilgrimage to this singular lodging a few miles from Balmoral is lengthening steadily.
One Hogmanay, actress Judi Dench and Texas frontwoman Sharleen Spiteri did a singalong at the self-playing Steinway grand piano in the lobby.
Singer Rita Ora has stayed. Comedian John Bishop and Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville brought in 2024 here. Model Alexa Chung and actor James Nesbitt enjoyed a Burns supper at The Fife Arms weeks later.
Why do they come? Local councillor Geva Blackett perhaps puts it best. ‘It’s bonkers but it’s brilliant,’ she says.
Bonkers seems accurate for all kinds of reasons. Isn’t that a Picasso on the wall above the sofa where a couple sit having afternoon tea? Yes, an original called Tête de Femme, painted in 1938.
Across the lobby hangs another original by a less celebrated artist who signs herself V.R. It depicts the head of a stag shot by ghillie John Brown. The painting, dated 1874, is Queen Victoria’s work.
Ridiculously, you might think, this is feet away from the Red Deer Chandelier, which American neo-Dadaist artist Richard Jackson was commissioned to design to hang beside the grand staircase.
It is a riot of steel, glass, plastic, neon and ‘electronic devices’ fashioned to echo both antlers and a drone reed from a set of bagpipes – and it’s not even the strangest chandelier in the building.
Quite the visual assault then, as you march past the tweed-waistcoated greeters in shooting breeks and declare at reception that you have booked a room.
Mine is not the £3105 a night Majestic Family Suite or even a Royal Suite, which starts at £2,205, but one of the lowlier ‘Croft’ rooms, each of which is individually designed to a theme pertinent to the area. My view out beyond the village is a stunning one of the snow-capped Grampian mountains. Here in the room the traditional cabin bed – literally a huge wooden box, a TV inset into the foot end – is the main attention-grabber.
No time for a nap now, though, for I have been invited on the 4pm guided tour of the hotel’s art collection. And, with more than 16,000 works adorning almost every inch of the place, typical guests need all the guidance they can get.
Art, of course, is the key to The Fife Arms phenomenon. The place was bought as a crumbling wreck in 2014 by Swiss-born global art dealers Iwan and Manuela Wirth who spent the next four years – and untold millions – transforming a hotel which once welcomed coach parties into an extravagant lair for the vacationing elite.
Once famed for its annual Highland Games which the Royals at Balmoral would never miss, the tartan and shortbread image of Braemar was seeing radical tweaks. Suddenly it was cool.
The multi-millionaire owners’ melding of traditional Highland décor and outlandish international art resulted in an eccentric fusion which, on paper, should have been a disaster. Guests here clearly adore it.
In the drawing room, tour guide Shona Armstrong introduces us to the hotel’s other Picasso – Nude and Man with a Pipe. Then it’s on to the Clunie Dining Room where a stuffed stag atop a box of Aberdeenshire undergrowth silently greets us as we are led to an enormous canvas – a Flemish village-scape painted by Peter Brueghel II in the late 1500s.
It looks like it belongs in the Louvre, yet I will be gazing up at it between mouthfuls of Arbroath Smokie at breakfast the following morning.
In the Flying Stag public bar, another stuffed deer – this one with wings attached – hovers over the oak bar top. And those are grouse feathers adorning the lampshades.
In the Fire Room, meanwhile, the strangest piece of all – a vast ‘chandelier’ of seemingly random stainless steel utensils hangs above a formal baronial style dining table. Indian artist Subodh Gupta’s work is so gloriously nuts you barely notice the assorted curios at ground level.
Pointing at one of them, Ms Armstrong tells us, almost casually: ‘This may be the oldest hostess trolley in the world.’
Of course, we barely scratch the surface of the 16,000 art treasures, but feel free to wander the corridors soaking it in, we are told. There’s original art in all your rooms too.
But my ‘must see’ is Bertie’s, The Fife Arms’ inner sanctum, undisputed Scottish bar of the moment and, as we now know, den of obscenely decadent transactions. Will I be laughed out of the place if I admit I’m not much of a whisky man?
Not a bit of it. There is no bar as such, only walls of bottles – dizzying numbers of them – and an expert host (a cross between a maître d and a librarian) anxious to find the right one for you.
‘What do you normally drink?’ asks Mr Shedden after I have dropped some hints about my budget.
‘Red wine,’ I say, imagining this is unhelpful. But no, he is already narrowing it down. Four or five questions are normally enough, he says, to select a shortlist of five whiskies to bring to the customer, describe the flavours therein and proffer for a sniff.
I plump for the second cheapest one – a Kilchoman from Islay at £12 a nip – and relax into an enormous red velvet Edwardian armchair, relieved the tricky bit is over.
This is an ‘experience’ bar, best enjoyed by the newcomer simply by watching Mr Shedden work the room, match customer to dram and chat about his passion.
He tells us he is instrumental in choosing the most interesting whiskies for the collection. And it’s not all mega-expensive malts. There’s a 1970s Bells blended whisky – once standard in every spit and sawdust pub in the land – taking its place among the premium Balvenies and Taliskers.
Mind you, even that infamous recent drinking party did not stretch to the Blair Castle whisky which Mr Shedden persuaded the Wirths would be a fine addition to the drinks list.
It was found in the castle cellar in 2023 and, dating back to 1840, is the world’s oldest known Scotch. Yours for £10,000 a nip.
Has he tried it?
‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘One of the perks of the job.’
And so, up the stairs, past the wall of mounted local mammal heads and the countless glass cases of taxidermized wildlife, along the corridor festooned with artworks of every style and vintage, to bed. ‘The Pine Wood’ is my private quarters for the night and complimentary munchies such as tablet, chocolate and shortbread produced by local artisans await. Not to mention the free negroni nightcap.
Breakfast in front of the Brueghel the next morning feels like the best seat in the house – and I’m amazed when chatting to a young waitress about the masterpiece that she is a font of knowledge on it. ‘Well, we all take a keen interest in the art here,’ she says.
On the day I check out, it is revealed The Fife Arms is introducing a new package – a night in the hotel coupled with a guided tour of Balmoral Castle a 15-minute drive away, with prices starting at £550. A dream pairing, perhaps, for the well-heeled traveller.
So what do locals in Braemar make of their village’s new status as bolthole for the beautiful people? The reviews are more mixed than one might imagine.
As one villager, John Macpherson, explains, it is not that anyone has a problem with The Fife Arms being transformed into one of the most enchanting hotel experiences in the country. The Wirths always said they were aiming for upmarket and this, he says, is ‘five star-plus with bells on’. Not only that, they saved the building.
The problem is that Artfarm, the hospitality firm the Wirths founded, has bought the village’s only other big hotel, The Invercauld Arms, and thus far done next to nothing with it. The place, open until the day they bought it, has now been closed for years.
The couple have also bought up several former guesthouses to use as staff accommodation. It means that, unless you can stretch to Fife Arms prices, have a caravan or fancy the youth hostel, there are precious few holiday lodgings to be had in the village.
While the Invercauld Arms remains in mothballs, says 78-year-old Mr Macpherson, a large section of the tourist market is lost.
‘The only wish would be, and I think you’ll find this would be a general wish in the village, whatever you’re doing with it, will you get on and do it, please?’
Earlier this year, the Wirths added to their Braemar property portfolio by buying the B-listed Braemar Kirk for a reputed £325,000 – double the asking price. Its last service was held earlier this month. It is just yards from The Fife Arms and locals now believe it will act as a function suite, specialising in weddings.
‘The kirk didn’t go to the purchaser the community wanted,’ said one congregation member at the time. ‘It’s very sad.’
Along the street at Lamont Sporrans, owner Alasdair Colquhoun, 77, says of the hotel: ‘I don’t know many locals who go into it now – special occasions maybe.’ He suggests the place is less interested in reaching out to locals since it became a celebrity hotspot.
It is a charge which would surely sting the Wirths who see themselves as highly community minded. To reach out to the village and surrounding area, they mounted photographs of local characters in The Flying Stag bar. Elsewhere in the hotel there are paintings of some of them. Soon after the place opened in 2018, locals were handed key fobs entitling them to a 10 per cent discount.
A much more positive take comes from Councillor Blackett. ‘We have a world class hotel in world class scenery,’ she says. ‘It’s the jewel in the Cairngorms’ crown’. She adds that almost every village outlet is enjoying the bounce from the stream of upmarket clientele.
Over at the deserted Invercauld Arms, the waiting game goes on – the only sign that anything is in the offing an art installation outside it by Subodh Gupta. It is a gigantic metal bucket overflowing with yet more of his kitchen utensils.
Two minutes away, The Fife Arms was once the poor relation of the Invercauld. Now it basks in the midday sunshine, its brilliantly bonkers lobby flooded with light. I take a last look at Picasso’s Tête de Femme and settle my £400 bill.
Leaving feels premature. A week’s stay and unlimited cash to burn would have been my preference. I can quite see the celebrities’ point.