A giant manufacturing facility, a business park and technical education hub, a command-and-control center for satellite launches, and housing site for people experiencing homelessness. These are a few of the ideas that have percolated for the former Pugsley Correctional Facility in Kingsley since it was decommissioned as a prison. Now Chad Munger, founder and owner of Mammoth Distilling, is confident he has the winning ticket to turn Pugsley into a thriving economic asset.

Michigan’s newly-approved 2025 budget includes $2 million “for the redevelopment of a former corrections facility in Grand Traverse County into an agricultural tourism hub.” Munger confirms to The Ticker his plans to buy the 105-acre Pugsley site and turn it into a massive commercial distilling operation – and eventually, an agritourism epicenter.

“My wife [Tracy Hickman] and I have started a second distillery; it's called Consolidated Rye & Whiskey (CRW), and it's a contract distilling operation,” Munger tells The Ticker. “It's not a craft distillery, and it's not going to be a brand where you'll see bottles of CRW bourbon on store shelves. Instead, it's a larger distillery, and it will make barrels of whiskey for the contract market, to be sold to other brands inside and outside of Michigan. And it will be using 100 percent Michigan grain.”

CRW is an outgrowth of another ambitious project at Mammoth. The distillery has been working to revive a prohibition-era grain called Rosen rye. Beloved among moonshiners for fast-growing productivity and rich flavor, Rosen fell out of favor due to cross-pollination and hybridization of the crop that compromised its unique character. Working on South Manitou Island, Mammoth crews have spent the past four years turning heirloom seeds into full-fledged Rosen rye crops, in hopes of giving the whiskey market its first taste of Rosen in more than 80 years.

“The Rosen rye project introduced us to a lot of new people and taught us a lot about the state’s interest in getting the craft distilling market in Michigan to a place where it’s more about buying and using local grain,” Munger says. Thanks to state tax incentives, he explains, distilleries across Michigan have plenty of motivation to buy and use Michigan-grown grain, but don’t always have the opportunity.

“Everybody’s interested in [using Michigan-grown crops], but at Mammoth, we found that it's very hard to do,” Munger continues. “A lot of the grain that is being grown statewide is more commodity crop stuff. Which makes sense: There is an established market for certain varieties of corn and wheat and rye. But those commodity-type crops aren’t what we're interested in, particularly after our experience with Rosen. We realized that the heritage varietals have real mass appeal, and that they make interesting distillate with way more character.”

Because most craft distilleries only buy “a small amount of grain every year” from any given farmer, Munger says it’s difficult to convince growers to grow less common strains of rye.

That’s where Munger hopes CRW can make a difference. Soon, he says, Rosen rye will be “commercially viable,” with plans to have “a couple thousand acres” of it growing by next fall. CRW is also growing Hazlet rye – the rye “typically purchased by the big distillers in Kentucky and Tennessee” – and is working with Michigan State University to breed “a brand-new variety of rye, specifically for the distilling industry, that will offer better agronomics and more desirable characteristics” for whiskey making.

The goal with all these growing operations is to create a critical mass for high-quality whiskey production in northern Michigan – enough to move the needle on what other growers throughout the state are willing to plant.

“We’re going to make enough whiskey that we can incentivize growers to actually grow what we want,” Munger says. “We’ll be a guaranteed buyer, so farmers don't have to worry about whether some collection of 60 small distillers around the state wants what they grow. Instead, they’re going to grow it and sell it to us on contract upfront, and we’ll pay them a premium.”

Using the distilling operation to be built out at Pugsley, CRW will turn those specialty crops into a whole lot of whiskey. Munger says the plan is to produce 6,000 barrels of spirit in the first year, with potential to scale production up to a whopping 50,000 barrels per year. For reference, Mammoth currently has the capability to make about 200 barrels per year.

Where will all that whiskey end up? CRW will sell most of it “into the contract market,” or to buyers who purchase pre-made whiskey in bulk and then bottle and sell it under their own labels. “This kind of contract work is very common in the whiskey industry,” Munger explains. 

A much smaller quantity of whiskey will go a different route. Munger wants to help some Michigan farms establish a network of “single-estate growers." For each grower, CRW would make a certain amount of whiskey “exclusively from the grain they grew on that particular farm” and then sell that whiskey back to the growers. Having that kind of value-added product, Munger explains, would allow growers to turn more of a profit, all while providing “an opportunity to build local agritourism concessions around their farm.”

Munger’s ultimate vision? The “Michigan Rye Trail,” a twist on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, a world-famous collection of 46 distilleries throughout the Bluegrass State. Munger wants to do something similar in Michigan, but spotlighting the grain-growing farms and their single-estate-grown spirits rather than distilleries.

The trail would culminate at Pugsley, where the “agritourism hub” concept comes into play. While Munger’s first priority is getting the CRW distilling operation to a successful place, he sees potential for the property to eventually include a hotel and spa, camping or glamping components, “family-oriented outdoor recreation” offerings (like trails, outdoor climbing walls, or ziplines), and storefronts for “other Michigan value-added ag producers,” such as breweries, wineries, and restaurants.

It's a big vision, and Munger acknowledges that it won’t happen overnight. If all goes according to plan, though, he hopes to have distilling operations up and running by next June, with the possibility of “having our first on-site concessions to engage the public by June of 2026.” Already, he’s got a growing list of Michigan farms on board – a show of interest he attributes to the project’s “rising tide lifts all boats” mentality.

“It’s an attempt to change Michigan agriculture writ large," says Munger, "and to engage growers from all over the state. And I think that resonates with people.”