Press Release: Wildfire first gin to summit Everest

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The £0 marketing masterstroke: how a tiny borders gin company accidentally beat the spirit giants to the top of Everest.

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• Two-year-old Wildfire Gin pulls off ultimate accidental 'guerrilla marketing' feat as flagship bottle reaches 8,848m.
• No multi-million-pound sponsorships: Irish adventurer Sarah Armstrong simply carried the bottle in her kit bag for weeks.
• Historic summit video shows climbers unzipping gloves and opening the bottle with their teeth for a historic celebratory toast.

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STOW, SCOTLAND – Multi-billion-pound global spirit brands spend millions trying to engineer iconic marketing moments, but a tiny gin creator from a small village in the Scottish Borders has just beaten them all to the top of the world - completely by accident.

Wildfire Gin, based in Stow, is celebrating an unprecedented global milestone after a bottle of their collaborative release, Wildfire Ascent, was carried to the summit of Mount Everest by 31-year-old mountaineer Sarah Armstrong.

On 20th May 2026, Armstrong stood at the highest point on Earth, marking her fifth successful milestone in a gruelling bid to become the youngest Irish woman to conquer the iconic ‘Seven Summits’. After taking her official photos, Armstrong pulled the bottle of Wildfire Ascent from her kit bag - where it had been closely guarded for three weeks of brutal acclimatisation climbs - and handed it to a fellow climber. In a candid video captured at 8,848m, the climber unzipped a glove and took a freezing sip straight from the bottle before passing it to the rest of the international team (not something we'd ever recommend at 8,848m, but it's exactly what happened.)

The extraordinary moment has left the team at Wildfire Gin stunned. Founded less than two years ago by Canadian James Varga and Scot Jeremy Fraser, the company creates unique small-batch gins in Stow that are distilled in Scotland. Unlike major corporate alcohol brands who script high-budget extreme sports campaigns, Wildfire's Everest debut was entirely organic - Armstrong's decision to carry it up, not a brand stunt.

James Varga, Co-Founder of Wildfire Gin, commented:

"The entire team is just completely buzzing. When the video came through, I spent the whole night ringing and messaging absolutely everyone in my network, getting the team on the phone - we just couldn't believe it!

When we did the collaboration late last year, we never actually thought the gin would make it all the way to the top of Everest. We aren't a massive corporate brand paying billions for a bottle in a blockbuster film; we are just a small business out of Stow. Our philosophy is 'To the Bold. To the Brave.' and we just wanted to back a brave person doing extraordinary things. To see our actual gin bottle make it to the highest point on Earth is incredible."

The collaboration originally sparked after Armstrong reached out to the Wildfire team. The concept for the liquid was inspired by a previous expedition where she had been kayaking between icebergs in Greenland; each night, she and a friend would chip off glacier ice to pour over a celebratory nightcap.

To mirror that sense of frozen adventure, Wildfire took inspiration from Nordic-style spirits to craft a gin designed to be sipped neat. The flavour profile pulls from clean iceberg air, pine needles from the climb, the crispness of citrus, and the deep warmth of caraway to represent the physical burn of pushing through the ascent - logistics that proved perfect for the sub-zero summit conditions.

Beyond the historic peak, the bottle is driving vital support back at sea level. In line with Armstrong’s mission to bring others up with her, £4 from every single bottle of Wildfire Ascent sold is donated directly to Evora Hospice, a charity close to the mountaineer's heart.

With Everest conquered, the story doesn't end here. Armstrong is already preparing for her final two climbs to complete the Seven Summits by the end of 2027, with the Wildfire team cheering her on for the final stretch of her historic, multi-million-meter journey.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

About Wildfire Gin

Trading as Wildfire Gin (legally registered as Wildfire Spirits Ltd), the company creates small-batch, seasonal Scottish gins out of Stow in the Scottish Borders. Built on the philosophy of 'To the Bold. To the Brave.', Wildfire rejects generic market trends to create distinctive gins inspired by real journeys, rugged landscapes, and stories of exploration. Every unique flavour profile is designed in-house through creative collaborations and distilled in Scotland, crafted specifically to be shared when the adventure ends and the storytelling begins.

About Sarah Armstrong

Sarah Armstrong (31) is a mountaineer, dentist, and gym owner from Co. Armagh, Ireland. She summited Mount Everest on 20th May 2026, making her the 10th Irish woman in history to stand on the peak. Everest marks the 5th milestone in her global quest to complete the Messner Seven Summits list by the end of 2027, aiming to become the youngest Irish woman ever to do so.

Media Contact

• Contact: Jimmy McLellan, Teller of Tall Tales (CMO)
• Company: Wildfire Gin
• Email: jimmy@wildfiregin.com
• Website: wildfiregin.com