Lance Winters, master distiller of California’s St. George Spirits, was inducted this year into the Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame. We caught up with him to learn about his unusual journey, from working as a nuclear engineer in the United States Navy to becoming one of the nation’s top distillers at one of its oldest craft distilleries.
Maggie Kimberl (MK): Let’s kick off by discovering how you got into distilling. What was your route into it?
For my 13th birthday, I asked my mom for a wok and I started doing stir fry at home, and as I progressed I was thinking that I wanted to be a chef. I went to work at a restaurant when I was in high school, and I realized that the stress in a commercial kitchen is ridiculous, so
