Mammoth Distilling’s Collin Gaudard led a presentation for a group from the Leelanau County Historical Society visiting South Manitou Island Monday to talk about their historical preservation project of Rosen rye on the Leelanau County Island.
“When you research agriculture, Rosen rye is actually one of the advents of what we start to consider the scientific farming era, where we start looking at grains as more of a commodity, how to grow them together how to improve genetics,” said Gaudard, head distiller at Mammoth Distilling.
With a permit from the National Park Service, Mammoth Distilling for the first time in 70 years is growing pure Rosen rye on South Manitou Island since they started in 2020.
The reintroduction of Rosen rye to the Hutzler Farm on the island, where it was originally planted 100 years ago, will allow Mammoth Distilling to revive a varietal of rye celebrated by legal whiskey makers and moonshiners alike for its distinctive and superior flavor.
Michigan’s role as the entry point for three-quarters of the liquor smuggled into the U.S. during Prohibition is well documented; less so is the state’s contribution to domestic whiskey production during that period. As the sole-source of Prohibition’s most celebrated whiskey grain, recognition of the South Manitou Island’s contribution to American whiskey is overdue, according to Mammoth Distilling.
The seeds Mammoth planted on the island in 2020 were obtained from the USDA seed bank in Colorado, propagated by the Michigan State University Bio Agriculture Research Center and certified by the Michigan Crop Improvement Association.
As Mammoth’s South Manitou Island site expands, certified Rosen rye seed will be distributed to partner farms across Michigan and grown under contract for distillation of Mammoth’s Northern Rye Whiskey. Mammoth doesn’t anticipate and products related by to Rosen rye for 4-6 years.
Josh Rosen, an exiled Russian Jew who was booted from his home country for anti-tsarist activities, found his way to the United States by way of Germany in the early 1900s. Quickly, Rosen went to work at Michigan Agricultural College (MAC), which is today known as Michigan State University. Rosen happened to be an expert agronomist in the rich rye region that is Russia.
Rosen met a professor at MAC named Frank Sprague, who was the leading agronomist in the country. MAC was one of the first colleges to specialize in agriculture as a mainstay of what they did.
Rosen had convinced Sprague that Russia was superior in the Rye game compared to the United States and that Rosen would send a letter to his father and have him mail some of the prized Russian rye back to Michigan.
Eventually, that letter arrived long after Rosen left the college.
At this point in time, most of the farmers in the 1900s were still sustenance farmers in the U.S., especially on South Manitou Island.
There’s some speculation whether Rosen rye itself is a cross breed or if it is the genetically pure rye from Russia. Gaudard says it’s nearly impossible to say without traveling to Russia and doing some extensive research over there.
“But what we know is that Doctor Frank Spragg walked away with what he thought was a very, very important grain,” Gaudard said.
In 1915, one million acres of Rosen Rye were planted in Michigan. In 1917, MAC scouted South Manitou Island as a prime place to grow pure Rosen rye to be used as seed stock for farms on the mainland. By 1920, Michigan was the largest producer of Rosen rye. By 1928, farmers on South Manitou Islands were named “Rye Kings” or the “World’s Rye Center” thanks to multiple Chicago agricultural shows.
Rosen rye was referenced in whiskey advertising in the mid-1930s. The last distilling of Rosen rye happened in the 1970s. Along the same time, the National Park service acquired South Manitou Island.
Rosen Rye is known for its big and plump look with amazing flavor and yields. Rosen rye does have one major flaw which is cross pollination, meaning that Rosen rye grows plentiful until it is near any other rye, and then it starts to mutate.
“The genetics degradation to a point that it becomes way less favorable than even common rye. So it goes from being the best rye that you could find out there to probably the worst thing you could ever grow,” Gaudard said.
Gaudard along with other Mammoth employees will be planting the rye on three acres next week for hopes of a plentiful harvest in 2025.
“It’s unreal we went from a million acres (in the early 1900s) to not knowing anything about this grain,” he said.
The USDA gave Mammoth the last 18 grams of seed. They worked with MSU for a couple of seasons to propagate, before planting their first plot in a 10-by-20 foot space. In 2024, this is the second time they’ve planted in a six-acre field.
We ended up with 3-4,000 pounds of seed and gave 18 grams back to USDA,” Gaudard said. “The overall incentive is that this stays a seed farm like it would have back then. We don’t do any soil amendments. We don’t have irrigation. We are working with similar conditions to farmers 100 years ago.”
Over 500 acres of Rosen rye have been planted on the mainland since 2019.
Next year, Mammoth Distilling hopes to harvest nearly 1.2 million pounds.
