There’s no doubt that different regions produce different grains, trees, and even distillation and maturation climates. Regional provenance not only helps craft producers differentiate a product in the marketplace, it also provides an opportunity to create community around distillers and local agriculture. University extension programs can provide the conduit for creating these partnerships. Two distilleries in particular, Mammoth Distilling in Central Lake, Michigan, and Tamworth Distilling in Tamworth, New Hampshire, have experienced fruitful partnerships with their local university extension services leading to the development of products unique to their respective regions.
Capturing the Essence of New England at Tamworth Distilling
Tamworth Distilling in New Hampshire is best known for some “gimmicky” products, including whiskeys containing venison and blue crab. But they also produce amazing straight whiskeys, including Chocorua Rye, William Whipple’s Wheat Whiskey, Old Man of the Mountain Bourbon, and a yet-to-be-released American single malt, in addition to brandies, vodkas, and numerous other spirits, which are often experimental small runs. They’ve placed a lot of emphasis on local provenance from the beginning as a way to distinguish themselves, sourcing as many materials as possible as closely as possible. This includes the Dankowski rye that was used in early runs before the team discovered AC Hazlett rye.
“AC Hazlett was an early find,” says Tamworth Head Distiller Jamie Oakes. “We did some mashes with the AC Hazlett and really thought it was unique, especially the white dog, which had this kind of cherry cola quality that we found just really interesting and alluring. And we thought, man, if that was the new make, then time in a barrel is going to be an interesting experiment.”
The switch from Dankowski rye to AC Hazlett rye was possible because Oakes had been working with Jake Dyer at Benedicta Grain even before the distillery came online, and Dyer leveraged his ties in the local farming communities to find a grower who would be willing to make the switch. Oakes says he discovered the AC Hazlett varietal after reading a white paper from Far North Spirits about the different flavor profiles of different rye varieties. AC Hazlett was interesting to him because it was grown close by, giving Tamworth a regional provenance edge, which was an important part of Tamworth’s “as local as possible” ethos. The rye that came from these experiments is Tamworth’s Chocorua Rye.
Oakes says there’s an additional bonus to working with the AC Hazlett rye: It’s not as sticky and foamy as many other rye varieties that distillers typically use.
While the majority of the AC Hazlett grain Tamworth is using comes from nearby Maine, Oakes says that the Tamworth team found a way to incorporate New Hampshire’s agriculture into the ethos of the distillery: barrels made from New Hampshire oak trees, which are being used for the Chocorua Rye as well as Tamworth’s American single malt, which is made entirely from New Hampshire barley.
“The guiding principle for Tamworth is to try to keep things as local as possible — if not New Hampshire, then New England and work our way out from there,” Oakes says. “I mean, it sounds corny, but with my last name, Oakes, I’ve definitely had an interest in aging things in barrels. I had wished that we could do white oak in the area, but it’s hard to prove that you can get more value for your efforts and it’s hard for the industry to pivot. The conversation in the early days didn’t get very far besides just novelty.”
Then Oakes was able to start working with Andrew Fast, an extension specialist for the Forestry Division at the University of New Hampshire. Not only was Fast able to find sources of New Hampshire white oak, but he also had students who were able to assist in milling the raw planks to make them suitable for constructing barrels. The 53-gallon barrels in the first run were constructed at Adirondack Barrel Cooperage.
“UNH has this initiative for business and innovation in New Hampshire where anybody can hire for a grant, work with them to…build out a business idea in the university system and do pilot programs, things like that,” Oakes says.
At first, Fast told the Tamworth team that only about half the oak would be suitable for barrels, but they ended up getting twice as many barrels compared with that initial estimate thanks to skilled sawmill operators and coopers. Oakes wanted to maximize the impact of New Hampshire provenance, so he first chose to put only the 100% New Hampshire-grown American single malt in the New Hampshire oak barrels. But once he realized he’d have plenty of barrels, he began putting the Maine-grown 100% AC Hazlett rye whiskey in the New Hampshire oak barrels.
Now the whiskey is in the barrels and it’s time to wait to see the end result.
“[Fast] had it tested [with] a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer and he found that there was on average more whiskey lactone, which is that kind of coconutty quintessential whiskey flavor from a barrel,” Oakes says. “There’s definitely hope that that might come across in the spirit. What we’ve found in a practical sense is that the grain is pretty close knit, which makes me think that we’ll have a slower permeation. We probably won’t get as much loss due to evaporation and we might get some really nice slow maturation.”
These whiskeys have been in the barrel less than a year, so we won’t have any usable data on any differences from the New Hampshire oak for at least a few years.
Discovering Michigan’s Hidden Rosen Rye Legacy At Mammoth Distilling
Mammoth Distilling was founded by Chad Munger, a Michigan native who wanted to create jobs and celebrate the agriculture of his home state after leaving his previous career. His wife’s family was from the Torch Lake area, so they settled there and got to work building Mammoth Distilling in 2013.
Ari Sussman, Whiskey Maker at Mammoth Distilling, had been researching the history of Michigan agriculture and distilling in Michigan State University’s library when he ran across something particularly noteworthy: Rosen Rye had originated in Michigan and was once grown on nearby South Manitou Island.
“[Sussman is] interested in historical advertising in the spirits industry, and one day he discovered an ad for Schenley Rye in a Vanity Fair magazine from the 1940s, which specifically called out Rosen Rye from South Manitou Island in Michigan,” Munger recalls. “It’s always been unusual for spirits companies to name the varietals they’re using in their products, and even more rare for them to name where that grain came from. So the fact that South Manitou Island is so close to our production facility, only 16 miles as the crow flies, he picked the phone up and called me and said, look at this.”
Sussman ended up down a rabbit hole looking for everything he could find about Rosen rye. It turned out that a professor at Michigan Agricultural College, the predecessor of Michigan State University, named Dr. Frank Spragg had been looking for grains that grew well in “climate twin” regions. He happened to have a student who had come from Russia as a political dissident named Joseph Rosen. Spragg asked Rosen to have his family send some rye seeds from their farm in 1909, which Spragg carefully propagated. Once he realized that cross-contamination would be a serious issue because of the known voracious open-pollination of all rye varietals, he worked with the farming families that were still living on South Manitou Island, including the Hutzler and Beck families, to protect the seed stock from cross-contamination, as there would be no other rye crops grown on the remote island. The Hutzlers would go on to win a Blue Ribbon at the Chicago Hay and Grain Show for their Rosen seeds, and all the farming families living on the island had an agreement that no other rye grains would be grown to prevent cross-contamination. Eventually the families moved away from the island, and it became part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. Rosen rye fell out of favor with farmers around 1970 and disappeared.
“I’m not sure Dr. Eric Olson, our contact in the wheat breeding program, believed me at first,” Munger recalls. “Nobody at Michigan State seemed to be aware of the story. I had a handful of the Rosen seeds because before I called Michigan State, I called USDA to find out if any of those seeds were available. And when they told me they were and they sent me something, then I could prove to them that the story was real. We had the ad. So as soon as they got over the disbelief, I think they were excited. Really from the first conversation, they were more than happy to help think about how we could make this project work.”
Olson was tasked with turning a tiny envelope of Rosen rye seeds into enough to plant a field. Once there was enough to plant a field, MSU and Mammoth Distilling worked together to secure permits from the National Park Service to return Rosen to its former home on South Manitou Island. Because the island was uninhabited, all equipment and personnel had to be brought in by chartered boat. The land was cleared and planted by hand, and harvest was done, painstakingly, with hand tools. After four years, Mammoth Distilling produced its first barrels of Rosen rye whiskey in September of 2023.
“We believe it’s possible to improve the agronomics of this rye, but not at the expense of the distilling characteristics of it,” Munger says. “MSU helps us with our growing plan every year, which we have to get approved by the National Park Service. They help us with certification through the Michigan Crop Improvement Association, as well. Michigan State is also actively working on more laboratory services for the distilling industry in Michigan, which is one of the holes in Michigan right now, local analytical services that we can all use.”
Munger says that the early white dog made with Rosen is very oily with a viscous mouthfeel and notes of banana, while the stereotypical “rye spice” notes are notably absent.
“The industry buying most of its grain from Europe is unfortunate in our opinion,” Munger says. “We’d love to see a domestic supply of rye available and being used in a meaningful way by the distilling industry in the United States. And as climate change happens more and more, Michigan will become a more appealing place to grow rye, which will be increasingly difficult to grow in other places.”
Munger credits Dr. Olson and the team at MSU for much of the Rosen rye project’s success. He says they are great farmers, for starters, and their network has allowed Rosen rye to be grown throughout Michigan at partner farms. What’s more, the university partners with the Department of Agriculture and the Michigan Craft Beverage Association to bring distillers, brewers, farmers, and scientists together to share knowledge and determine other avenues of agronomic development in the region.
“It started with credibility,” Munger says. “We probably would not have gotten the special use permit issued by the National Park Service if we didn’t have a relationship with Michigan State, which has the credibility to make sure that we do it right.”
As the whiskey market becomes increasingly competitive, finding a way to differentiate smaller-scale craft brands will become more important. Fortunately, local university extension services can help determine options for regional provenance opportunities and can assist with the resources and know-how needed to bring such experiments to fruition.
