In the last 20 years, the world of whisky has exploded, being transformed beyond recognition.

What was once a croft industry in the Scottish Highlands and Islands has spread around the world. The Scots' craft has spread out across the world, from Ireland and Wales to Japan, India and beyond. In India alone, tens of millions of cases of whisky are made each year. And even the English have been getting on the act.

What's driven the change? How has the craft of whisky-making changed, if at all? And how have we gone from a world where once your grandad laid a few bottles down under the stairs to one in which the world's finest and rarest single malts have become an investment-class commodity?

This week's Country Life Podcast sees James Fisher joined by Kevin Balmforth, cask master at Glenlivet, and Andrew Simpson, international brand ambassador for Chivas Brothers, to talk through all this and more. From the 60-year-old bottle auctioned off at £650,000 to the astonishing image of the six million casks lying in wait for future generations to taste, it's a fascinating listen.

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guests: Kevin Balmforth and Andrew Simpson

Producer and editor: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An off-grid lodge in the Canadian Wilderness? The colourful charm of Germany? A weekend jaunt to New York? Or perhaps a palazzo in Florence?

Rosie Paterson, who is both Country Life's Travel Editor and Digital Content Director, has done all of this and more in 2025, and she joins James Fisher on this week's Country Life Podcast to talk about the best places to go in 2026.

The good news is that Rosie reveals that the new trend in travel — if you can call it that — is actually an anti-trend: instead, it's rejection of 'what you ought to do' in favour of just doing what you want to do.

'We don't really like like the phrase "fly and flop",' says Rosie, 'but everyone should, if they can, take a couple of weeks each year when they can just kick back and do nothing.'

With that in mind, Rosie shares her favourite discoveries, tips and anecdotes from her last 12 months of jetsetting.Enjoy!

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guest: Rosie Paterson

Editor and producer: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Country Life's features editor Paula Minchin is a force of nature. Every week she steers her team of editors and writers through the creation of dozens of pages of magazine features, with hardly a glitch and never, ever a missed deadline.

So when Country Life brings in a guest editor — something which has happened five times in the past 12 years — it's Paula who is at the helm alongside our temporary boss. It's a process of helping, guiding, steering, commissioning and editing in tandem with whoever is at the helm, a challenge which has been taken up in the past by Her Majesty Queen Camilla, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, His Majesty The King (twice), and most recently Sir David Beckham.

Paula joins James Fisher on the Country Life Podcast this week to talk about her experiences with these very special issues. The focus is on the eight-month journey with Sir David, from first contact and brainstorming through to the joyous final product, but she also talks about her experiences with our Royal guest editor. It's a fascinating and rare insight into the guest-edits of the magazine that we've been thrilled, delighted and privileged to have worked on.

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guest: Paula Minchin

Editor and producer: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.