Sarah Burgess: Making Atonia’s Legacy is a career highlight
Sarah Burgess has been making whisky for some of the biggest names in Scotland and England for two decades. Now, she’s ready to give back. She tells Becky Paskin why we need to shine a light on others, and how creating a unique whisky for the Demeter Collection is a career highlight.
It’s not often a blender gets free rein to create an entirely new whisky. So when the OurWhisky Foundation approached Sarah Burgess, whisky maker at The Lakes Distillery, to craft a new, unique blend for auction, she jumped at the chance.
“I am so pleased to be asked to do this,” Burgess says. “When you're making whisky for a company you need to think about the brand’s story and not your own preference, but with Atonia’s Legacy I could do whatever I wanted and I loved that sense of freedom.”
Atonia's Legacy (Atonia meaning ‘strong as oak’ in Hebrew) is a new Scotch blended malt from the OurWhisky Foundation, created exclusively for upcoming auction, the Demeter Collection. Designed to honour the mentees and mentors participating in the OurWhisky Foundation’s Mentorship Programme, each one-of-one edition will feature liquid selected by mentees and blended by a different female whisky maker, ensuring no two bottles are ever the same.
One of One: Atonia’s Legacy: The Sarah Burgess Edition, created exclusively for the Demeter Collection
“Something like this opens up a whole sense of fun,” exclaims Burgess. “It’s a new challenge because I didn't know what whiskies I would be working with or in what volumes, particularly some of the limited stock we received.
“Leaning on the whiskies selected by mentees, I chose some older stocks for a leathery sense of age, which reflects the journey of maturity and growth that happens to people through the mentorship programme, alongside whiskies with a fresh sweetness and subtle smoke.”
This inaugural release, The Sarah Burgess Edition, is a one-off bottling, presented in an engraved Glencairn crystal decanter and case meticulously crafted by another of whisky’s leading female creatives, Kirsty Nicholson, design and marketing manager at Glencairn Crystal. Nicholson also designed Atonia’s oak emblem featuring five main branches that signify the different attributes of the OurWhisky Foundation’s mentees: wisdom, strength, resilience, endurance and growth.
It will be auctioned via Whisky Auctioneer between 29 March- 8 April to raise funds for the OurWhisky Foundation.
Giving back
For Burgess, a long-running mentor for the Foundation, its creation offered an opportunity to reflect on her career and give back to a programme helping the next generation of women in the industry.
“I was delighted to spend a few hours creating a blend that fetches some money at auction for the OurWhisky Foundation,” she says. “I’d never say no to a cause I believe in.
“Being involved with the Foundation is really important to me because I’ve been really lucky in my career and I want to give back. Your light doesn't shine brighter by putting others’ out, only by lighting that of others. That’s why I want to be part of the Foundation and why I think its work is so important. It helps springboard women’s whole careers.”
Strong as oak: Atonia’s Legacy is made to honour the resilience of OurWhisky Foundation mentees
Burgess grew up in Speyside surrounded by distilleries but unaware that was not normal for the rest of the world. “I didn’t understand that Speyside was special with the 51 distilleries we've got in this wee valley. I didn't know that you couldn't smell draff or wash depending on how heavy the air was anywhere else.”
Despite having a passion for travel and ‘zero interest’ in whisky, when she was just 21 Burgess took on a role as a tour guide in Cardhu distillery’s visitor centre ‘because my friend said I’m good at speaking and I needed a job’. But it was witnessing overseas visitors’ emotional pilgrimage to the distillery that ‘ignited a whisky fire’ within her. She realised then that a life in whisky – and Speyside – was for her.
Swapping the visitor centre for operations, Burgess worked with Diageo as a distillery manager for 11 years, hopping between Auchroisk, Clynelish, Brora, Glenkinchie and Oban distilleries – not easy when you’re trying to raise a young family at the same time. Especially harder when you’re also studying part-time for a management degree.
Move to Macallan
She began to look at other options, particularly those back in Speyside, when a role in the Macallan whisky making team caught her attention. “I knew I had good sensory capability but I’d never worked in blending,” she explains. “When I saw the interview schedule I almost withdrew… I wasn’t a blender and I just didn’t know how to do it. I was told I’d probably not get the job, but I smashed the blending exercise with Bob Dalgarno and tootled off to Macallan as whisky maker!”
Burgess spent two years in the Macallan blending team, becoming lead whisky maker alongside Kirsteen Campbell and Polly Logan – both also mentors for the OurWhisky Foundation – before taking a break from whisky to assist Craigellachie Hotel owner Piers Adam’s start-up businesses producing a range of luxury sodas.
But the lure of whisky was too strong, and in January 2023 when an opportunity arose south of the border in Cumbria to run one of England’s most exciting distilleries, Burgess couldn’t say no.
Magical place: Burgess describes her first impressions of The Lakes Distillery
“When I walked into The Lakes distillery I thought this place was the cutest,” she beams. “The attention to detail around the entire site is phenomenal and I thought there was something quite magical about this tiny little distillery.
“Never in a million years did I think I’d be switching Scotch for English. There are some good strong pluses to being in England – the lack of rules in English whisky making is a benefit, you can experiment and play more. I’ve ordered some unusual wood types for casks just because I can.”
While Burgess is technically whisky maker for The Lakes, her role also encompasses distillery operations and warehousing, as well as the visitor centre, kitchen and bistro. “The whisky maker title doesn't cut what the job is. It works well for me because the team are all really good, and I’m able to help them by passing on my knowledge and experience.”
Speyside and beyond
Yet for all her decades of experience and legendary status within the industry, Burgess says she still experiences challenges and inappropriate behaviour as a result of her gender.
“I’m much less confrontational in these situations now, I’m more likely to use language like ‘could you modify your tone?’, ‘should you not use that language?’ ‘are you ok?’ Stuff like that. I just got fed up of fighting people; I’ve lost patience for it now. I can’t fix everyone, I can’t make everyone see through a fair and equitable lens, so I have to look after myself and ask, ‘how much fight have I got?’”
Burgess instead turns her attention to working hard and giving back. It’s a strategy that’s paying off – in 2023 she was inducted into The Gin Guild and named on Walpole’s Power List of the 50 most influential people in British luxury. Later this year sees her take up the mantle of chair of the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival, while she also lists the creation of Atonia’s Legacy among her highlights reel.
“It’s one of the highlights, absolutely,” she says. “I think if you don't ever give back then what did you do, what’s your legacy for your life? It’s nothing, because all you did was grow yourself and you didn't assist anyone else.”
She pauses, before adding: “I’m also quite bad at saying no to anything that sounds like fun.”
The Demeter Collection auction will run 29 March - 8 April 2024 at whiskyauctioneer.com.
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