Athletics a Pillar of Success for Cameron Mackenzie

From running the 4x400m at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games to producing 1.2 million bottles of Four Pillars Gin per year, Cameron Mackenzie’s thirst for constant improvement and innovation has made its way back to supporting Australian athletics once again.

Both the co-founder and distiller of Four Pillars Gin, Mackenzie quickly connects the dots between his two passions. Describing the process of refining his craft to strike the perfect balance on the track and in the laboratory, the Olympian found an unique crossroad in his pursuits.

“You meet great people and it’s a really creative space, always changing, always moving. Gin is kind of where track and field has been, it was a pretty dated and old product, and in my day track and field was the same,” Mackenzie said.

“Part of the reason I want to be involved in things like the Maurie Plant Meet is because I love the sport and I love to see the sport freshening up and doing things like this. It should have great music and a great vibe, more energy about it. On top of that, Maurie Plant was just a great bloke.”

Clocking a career-best of 45.97-seconds over 400m in 1998, Mackenzie fell shy of qualifying for a home Olympic Games at Sydney 2000 while juggling his two distinctly different hobbies – unable to harness the “luck” that saw him land in Atlanta four years earlier.

“I didn’t run my first 400m until I was 25 years old, I stepped up and thought maybe there was an opportunity to make my first national team. I will go down in history as Australia’s luckiest Olympian – right place, right time, and a good team to fall into,” Mackenzie said.

“At the same time, I was working in the wine industry in the Yarra Valley, learning wine from the ground up. I became a bit of an anomaly in the track and field because I would turn up to training some days having tasted 40 or 50 wines in the lab.”

Calling time on his athletics career, Mackenzie turned his attention to a business venture with friends, aiming to produce 15,000 bottles of gin per year but soon increasing that number to 1.2 million under the Four Pillars Gin banner.

“I left athletics for something that I was equally passionate about in wine, did that for 15 or 16 years and then took a sidestep. Myself and a couple of mates set up a little gin project that got out of hand, and that’s Four Pillars,” Mackenzie said.

Activating throughout the 2024 Chemist Warehouse Summer Season, Four Pillars Gin will add to the atmosphere as Australia’s best athletes light up the track, with gin bars installed to be enjoyed responsibly as a partner of Athletics Australia.

“Track and field is in such a good space in Australia right now. We haven’t seen this quality for a while, we have always teetered on the edge but have three or four handfuls of amazing world-class talent now,” Mackenzie said.

“The opportunity in all these places to take your family to see what is going to be a future Olympic star is such an outstanding opportunity.”

Transferring the accountability learned from athletics to his career in business, Mackenzie’s processes have remained much the same – practice, performance, and review:

“You set goals, you achieve goals, and you celebrate goals. But when you fail, you want to know why.”

By Lachlan Moorhouse, Athletics Australia
Posted: 19/2/2024