This New Whiskey Was Distilled From an Extinct Species of Rye Rescued From an 1800s Shipwreck

A shipwreck off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. (Andre Seale / VWPics via AP Images)

Fox 17 reported on Sunday that Chad Munger of Mammoth Distilling joined forces with historian and shipwreck hunter Ross Richardson to send a diving team down to the wreckage of a ship called the James R. Bentley, which sunk in a storm in 1878 to the watery depths of Michigan’s Lake Huron. The mission was to unearth some of its 37,000 bushels of rye that were lost in the wreck so the grain could be used in the mashbill of its whiskeys.

Why? Because that species of rye has been lost to history.

“It’s a land-raised variety that would have character that we haven’t seen in this country, because it’s all been bred and pollinated away, Munger said, according to Fox 17. “It’s historically relevant and super interesting to what we’re trying to do.”

Richardson claimed he had a friend who owned the wreck of the James R. Bently — Paul Ehorn. Ehorn won custody of the wreck of the Bently after he dove to the bottom and retrieved a portion of the ship for a museum. In addition to owning the wreck, Ehorn owned its stocks of extinct rye grain.

The trio teamed up with a diver named Dusty Klifman, and on one calm day, Klifman descended to the wreck in the depths of Lake Huron. Equipped with custom-made extraction tubes, Klifman managed to salvage the extinct rye submerged in the depths of Lake Huron.

Klifman, Ehorn, Ross and Munger sought the talent of scientist Dr. Eric Olson, who was immediately intrigued by the grain and the fact it was submerged under the lake for centuries.

“It’s the first time that someone’s tried to resurrect a rye variety from a shipwreck, right?” Olson said according to Fox. “This, this, this is a unique and novel endeavor.”

A scientist at the College of Agricultural and Natural Resources at Michigan, Olson had already prepared the team for the samples, which were immediately thrown on ice and rushed off to Michigan State University.

Yet, unfortunately, the team hit a snafu: the seeds didn’t germinate.

“It was still in good condition, but it just wasn’t viable,” Olson said.

Olson and his team extracted the DNA from this species of extinct rye and combined it with another species of rye called Rosen Rye.

Mammoth Distilling and MSU teamed up previously to bring back Rosen Rye, a species of rye grain that was a chosen grain amongst distillers but was lost due to Prohibition. MSU grew the species on the South Manitou Island in Lake Michigan. The process of combining the DNAs of both strains had never been done before.

“Of course, it was done in Jurassic Park, but this is the first time it’s been attempted in plant species,” Olson quipped.

Time and patience are key ingredients to the process, and it is expected to take two to three years. Yet the results should provide plenty of benefits to the state, according to Fox.

Michigan was once an epicenter for rye whiskey, and Chad Munger hopes he can contribute to its resurgence as the rye category continues to experience a renaissance.

“We want to see the rye agricultural economy come back because we think there’s a lot of potential for it, not just in terms of grain for food or whiskey, but in terms of promoting tourism and other economic activity, can have a lot of reach in this state,” Chad expressed.

Though a rye whiskey with the appropriately named “Bentley” rye varietal might be a couple of years down the road, whiskey and history buffs can taste a whiskey aged in some of the wood of the Bentley, which is a spirit with one heck of a story to tell.

“Everybody loves shipwrecks,” Ross said. “You got the diving. Oh, you know, we call shipwrecks underwater haunted houses because they’re old and they’re spooky and everything. So there’s that aspect. And then you get on with the whiskey and sharing the history. Oh, my goodness.”