A Michigan Distillery Salvaged Rye From a Shipwreck for Whiskey Making

Distilleries have been making whiskey from heirloom varietals of grain for years, spending time and effort to literally revive lost flavors using long-forgotten barley, corn, and rye, a process that starts in the lab and ends in a still. But one distillery in Michigan went to even greater lengths to revive a grain, literally sending divers down to the bottom of Lake Huron to collect rye samples.

Mammoth Distilling was founded more than a decade ago in northern Michigan by…