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Hello Kansas City Whisky Fans!
Glenmorangie’s National Brand Ambassador Dan Crowell is returning to town for a special tasting on Saturday, December 20th at 7pm -- and he's upping the stakes -- a showdown of two 25 year old Scotches -- 25yo Ardbeg vs. 25yo Glenmorangie. Kansas City Whiskey Guild and Drammers Club have teamed up to make this an extra-special event.
How did our lineup come to be headlined by a head-to-head match of 25yo Ardbeg vs. 25yo Glenmorangie? A little bit of all-in-good-fun rivalry between our Ardbeg and Glenmorangie friends. As you probably know, both distilleries are owned by the same parent company — Moet Hennessy, and so when Glenmorangie started showing off the new “Altus” 25yo release, a friendly debate arose internally over which our club members would like better. Initially there was even talk of Travis (the Ardbeg National Brand Ambassador) coming in to do a head-to-head smackdown of sorts with our guest speaker, Dan Crowell (National Brand Ambassador for Glenmorangie), but then Travis just laughed and said “Heck, I don’t even need to fly in to win that contest, I can just send a bottle of the Ardbeg 25yo and that ought to settle the debate!” All tongue-in-cheek good fun of course, ha. So, this event will feature those two bottles, plus a mighty lineup of new Glenmorangie releases (all new since Dan visited us last December). Specifically, here’s the lineup:
Glenmorangie 25yo Altus. This brand new release significantly ups their age statement game in the core range. Matured in Glenmorangie’s bespoke designer bourbon casks before being lifted even further by a sprinkling of whisky finished in Malmsey Madeira wine casks – a nod to the distillery’s groundbreaking 1995 Madeira Wood Finish.
Ardbeg 25yo. A monster of a dram in every respect, and for Ardbeg fans, a very rare treat, not just because these bottles clock in at normally over $1,000/bottle, but also because this liquid was distilled back in the distillery’s darkest days, back when they were barely staying afloat as a distillery and making hardly any whisky at all. Needless to say, it is the oldest whisky in their core range. So which of these 25yo gems will our members like better? We’ll see!
A Tale of Spices. This is hot off the presses, just released this September 2025, the latest in their “Tale of” line of special releases. Glenmo describes this release as being inspired by a mosaic of flavors at spice markets, marrying four cask finishes: Moroccan red wine, new charred oak, Pedro Ximenez sherry and shaved toasted red wine casks. The rich tapestry of aromas includes rose, jasmine, and lilac, mingling with a myriad of exotic spices like cumin, saffron, nutmeg, ginger, chili and anise.
Lasanta 15yr. Glenmorangie has been one of the fastest out there to take advantage of the global slowdown in whisky sales to add a little bit of extra age to their lineup. One of the beneficiaries was their Lasanta expression, a mix of bourbon and Oloroso sherry casks. This new 15yo release introduced a few months ago replaces their longstanding 12yo expression.
Nectar 16yr. Another example of Glenmo upping their game — earlier this year they introduced the new “Nectar 16yo” which replaced the longstanding (beloved) Glenmorangie Nectar d’Or 12 year old. With 4 additional years of aging, they’ve implemented a far more intricate finishing process, using a combination of sauternes, monbazillac, muscatel, and tokaji casks. The result is extraordinary.
Barrel Select Reserve Calvados Cask 12yr. This is the 5th edition in their “Barrel Select” series, and this is the first time that Glenmorangie has experimented with finishing in Calvados casks, so of course expect plenty of apple and pear notes on this one. Until recently this was a total wine exclusive, but our retail partner put in extra time to make sure we could get it in for this event!
Quinta Ruban 14yo. This was the only bottle from their core range that we didn’t get to last year, so we made a point to include it this year. Aged for 14 years in bourbon casks and port casks from Portugal. They describe this whisky as having notes of walnut, black pepper, mandarin orange and melted marshmallow. dark chocolate bar and peppermint.
A Tale of Ice Cream. We tasted this last year, so it won’t be one of the featured pours, but we’ll have it on hand in case anyone wants to revisit it. Tale of Ice Cream experiments with a heavy toast barrel to accentuate the vanilla notes, and it’s an absolute delight of a dram.
We hope you can join us! We’ll order in light food (likely pizza) which is included with your ticket. As always, we ask that everyone arrange a ride home, we’ve got a heck of a lineup that we’ll be tasting after all. A big thank you to our friends at Kansas City Whiskey Guild and Holly, Paul and the team at Drammers Kansas City for organizing (location details to come). Please let us know if you have any questions!
Cheers!
Kansas City Whiskey Guild and Drammers Club