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Return of Rosen Rye offers farmers new markets

One distillery in Northern Michigan is trying to restore the state’s prominence as a rye producer and it’s going to great lengths to do so.

“Our goal here is to make Rosen Rye a viable commercial grain for growers across the state.”

Founder and CEO of Mammoth Distilling Chad Munger tells Brownfield during the prohibition era Michigan farmers supplied Rosen Rye to bootleggers across the east coast. It was then later used by many of the major national brands.

“If you went into the store today, you would not find a bottle of alcohol that one named the grain that was used in making the spirits, and you certainly wouldn’t find a label that told you where it was grown,” he says. “And we think that’s exactly the kind of information that ought to be on a label.”

The seed was brought over at the turn of the century from a Russian student attending the Michigan Agriculture College and bred for farmers as a winter crop. As its popularity grew throughout the Midwest, so did its tendency to cross pollinate.

Munger says the solution 110 years ago was to go to a nearly deserted island in Lake Michigan and hand sow the variety for its seed.

“It was an enormous amount of work and to be able to harvest it and then get it to market, nobody actually knows how they got it off the island,” he shares.

The crop eventually grew out of fashion and distilleries turned to importing much of the rye that’s used in American spirits today. 

Munger has partnered with Michigan State University to source Rosen Rye from USDA’s seed bank and received a special exemption from the National Park Service which now oversees South Manitou Island to reestablish seed farms that originally produced the crop.

“There’s nothing out there in terms of infrastructure now,” he explains. “There’s no power, there’s no water, there’s no place to sleep. There’s no equipment to fix anything with, and there’s no way to get on and off the island without a World War II kind of style landing craft.”

The Michigan Crop Improvement Association has recently certificated the first batch of Rosen Rye seeds for commercial production.  

“I’m pretty confident that there’s a new market there, an old market that we can reinvigorate,” he says.

AUDIO: Interview with Chad Munger

Photo courtesy of Mammoth Distilling