Whisky tasting in the Arctic Circle and creating whisky - Stephen Woodcock and Les Mason

This was our first episode back in Diggers recording for 2025 and it was great to be back in our spiritual home. We were joined by 2 guests this week - Stephen Woodcock who is Head of Whisky Creation and Stocks for Glen Turner and we had a last minute call up for Les Mason who is founder of the Arctic Whisky Club, and is about to head out to the Arctic on some exciting adventures. Stephen has had an incredible journey and career in whisky. Starting off as a chemist with no real inclination for a dram, he found himself managing a cooperage site for Diageo and from there began an amazing journey which has taken him to working in some amazing distilleries and being part of some very big and significant projects. Stephen is now working with Glen Turner which is best known for owning Glen Moray and Cutty Sark. His stories are full of insight and humour. I can see why his longest whisky tour took 7 hours and we could have easily chatted long into the night about his experiences in the industry and hearing about some of the projects he has been involved in. Les is a firefighter by day but also works with his friend who specialises in adventure events and taking groups up mountains and off to the Arctic Circle. On Sunday 26th Jan he will be flying out to Finland to be a guide for multiple groups of people trekking three days through some of the coldest and harshest conditions in the world. But he'll be doing it with a Whisky Stories 25 yo Blend in his bag. While on these trips the other guides have made it a little tradition to bring a bottle with them so that they can enjoy a dram or two around the campfire in the minus 30 degree weather. As always this was a lot of fun to record and the drams and chat flowed nicely. Enjoy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.