By Katherine Tinsley
3:57pm PST, Dec 9, 2025
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Daily Mail's Richard Eden wrote about a royal protection officer being terminated after King Charles III was caught drinking alcohol when he was 14.
"There's a cocktail mixed especially for these state visits, and the cocktail they chose this time was based on cherry brandy," Eden told the outlet. "Now, for people who know their royal history, cherry brandy has quite unfortunate associations for King Charles."
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"So, when he was a lad at Gordonstoun boarding school, he went on a sailing trip with some of the older boys, and they sailed off, and when they got to Stornoway, they went to a hotel, and I think he wanted to sort of show he was one of the lads," Richard Eden continued.
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King Charles III got caught after he "ordered a drink" at the bar of the hotel.
"He'd never really had alcohol other than a cherry brandy, I think, on a hunting trip with his grandma, the Queen Mother," Richard Eden shared. "So he ordered a cherry brandy, but unfortunately at that very moment, a journalist walked into the bar, overheard him, and it became a bit of a scandal."
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"The hotel was almost closed down, the royal protection officer who was with Charles lost his job because he was only 14, and so Charles later wrote him a letter of apology. He was so embarrassed that this guy had lost his job," Richard Eden continued. "I don't know whether the King would have drunk this cherry brandy cocktail."
