Ranked Among The Rarest Whiskies, You Can Only Get This Dram In One Restaurant, And Only When You Hear The Bell

Everyone enjoys a sip of a rare whisky, be it a small glass of a hard-to-come-by single malt or a nip off the dusty old bottle that your patient friend put up years ago. But the unique pleasure of savoring something scarce is heightened further when it is found at the end of a quest, as is the case with Ardbeg's Badger Juice. For a sample of this smoky Scotch, you'll have to travel all the way to Port Ellen on the rugged Isle of Islay.

Once you have arrived in Port Ellen, make a trip to the Islay Bar, located in the recently opened Ardbeg House hotel, where you'll see the small grey and black cask sitting on the bar. Each evening at 6:15 p.m. — or 18:15 on the 24-hour clock, a nod to the year that the Ardbeg distillery was first licensed, 1815 — a bell is rung in the bar, announcing the start of whisky hour. Those at the Islay Bar invite guests to partake of a dram from this secret recipe.

Before arriving in the land of peaty whisky, you may have sampled Ardbeg 10-Year, the distillery's smoky flagship single malt, or perhaps the young and potent Wee Beastie, a 5-Year that is undoubtedly one of the best Scotch whiskies under $50, but Badger Juice is an experience you'll find only there. Each batch is just 60 liters, so you'd better grab that dram when you have the chance — but you can trust that on your next visit you'll find another equally exciting and unique offering.

But there is much more to the Islay Bar than just that one special cask. We had the pleasure of speaking with Stuart Smith, Head of Brand Houses for Ardbeg and Glenmorangie, who explains that back when the building that is now the Ardbeg House was known as the Islay Hotel. It was a meeting place for the community, a "popular place for locals to enjoy a drink, local music, and a good meal." While the distillery completely renovated the building, turning it into the luxury boutique hotel that it is now, keeping that space welcoming to the local community was a key goal.

As such, in addition to the signature Badger Juice and an impressive variety of other whiskies to sample, the Islay Bar also has a menu of upscale pub-style foods that highlight local ingredients like Islay crab and prawn cakes and fish and chips made with Scottish haddock. There are also a wide variety of cocktails designed to put Ardbeg's intensely peaty whiskies on display. The Beastly Bramble is a twist on the simple blackberry bramble cocktail, swapping the traditional gin for a pour of Ardbeg's Wee Beastie and adding an intense smokiness that pairs beautifully with bright lemon and sweet, rich blackberry. The Coal and Velvet is another interesting cocktail on offer, a peaty, briny play on an espresso martini made with Ardbeg Uigeadail, espresso, coffee liqueur, sugar, seaweed, and salt.

For the biggest peatheads out there — as devotees of Islay's signature smoky whiskies are sometimes known — the Ardbeg House offers much more than just the Islay Bar. As Smith puts it, "Ardbeg House is a unique opportunity to eat, drink, and sleep Ardbeg." In addition to the Islay Bar, the hotel also features fine dining in the Signature Restaurant as well as 12 rooms, each individually themed and uniquely decorated to tell a piece of the Ardbeg story — and a fascinating story it is. The centuries-old distillery came back from bankruptcy on more than one occasion to find its current success.

Guests of the hotel will not only have a nice bed to rest on just a few steps away from the Islay Bar but also distillery tours included in their stay. Rare whisky lovers will be pleased to learn that this presents another chance to sample something that cannot be had anywhere else, Ardbeg's distillery-exclusive Homecoming. This whisky is aged in bourbon and rum casks, delivering the peaty backbone of any Ardbeg whisky, complemented by an intriguing melange of flavors and aromas ranging from briny oysters to the tropical tang of pineapple and mango.

For those making a trip to Islay to experience firsthand the smokiest of the main whisky-producing regions of Scotland, the Ardbeg House has plenty to offer. Not only will you find comfortable lodging, fine food, and whiskeys that can be had nowhere else, but along with it the camaraderie of a local pub.