The founder and owner of Mammoth Distilling has big plans to develop an agritourism hub near Traverse City at a long-shuttered correctional facility in Kingsley. Chad Munger, founder and owner of the Torch Lake-based distillery, says a second company he formed two years ago—Consolidated Rye & Whiskey LLC (CRW)—expects to finalize the purchase of the 100-plus acre former Camp Pugsley on Sept. 15. The prison camp closed in 2016.
“Twenty acres is what you would think of in your mind as the prison,” Munger explains. “It’s behind a double 20-foot-high cyclone fence, with 19 buildings inside that, so it’s a small college campus basically.”
The property will be anchored by CRW, which will occupy about 3 acres of the agritourism hub near Traverse City and manufacture large-scale volumes of whiskey to sell on a contract basis, likely starting in the first quarter of next year. “Our first-year goal is 6,000 barrels,” Munger says. “As a contrast, [200 barrels] is the limit of what Mammoth can do.”
Munger is working to recruit partners to develop other uses for the acreage, with the goal of creating an agritourism hub near Traverse City. “It’s meant to be … what effectively is the development of adjacent businesses involved in value-added Michigan agriculture and hospitality,” he says. “So in general, imagine a winery, brewery, restaurant [featuring produce grown on-property], a small boutique hotel … a spa, a northern Michigan soda company.
“I’d like to see kind of a small general store where … Michigan-grown food and products are all in one place. There’s also room for programmed outdoor entertainment, a small live entertainment venue, maybe a pond hockey tournament in the winter.”
Munger wants to build a venue in the agritourism hub near Traverse City that would accommodate meetings and team-building group events including classes in things like whiskey-making and barbecuing, as well as other gatherings. An education center that could accommodate up to 100 attendees may be up and running by next summer, offering a few different classrooms. A trail network is also in the works, along with a possible bike park with places to perform jumps.
“We’ll get rid of the razor wire, but we may keep the fencing because there’s an opportunity to grow between those two fences,” Munger said.
Mammoth currently operates six tasting rooms around Michigan, offering group event space in its Traverse City and Grand Rapids locations. Munger can’t say yet whether Mammoth will open a spot at the Pugsley property.
The agritourism hub is being supported with $2 million from the state of Michigan. In the meantime, Mammoth has been involved in resurrecting Rosen rye, a Prohibition-era grain, which it’s been growing on South Manitou Island and is contracting with farmers across Michigan to produce. In turn, some of those farms will be able to market their own CRW-produced whiskeys under private labels. He envisions a statewide bourbon trail that will fuel the Michigan distillery market as well as agritourism across Michigan.
“There’s this opportunity to start growing more rye, not just for Michigan distillers to make great spirits, but that distillers in other states will purchase from us,” Munger says. “One of the reasons the state is supporting this whole thing is they believe that’s true as well. It creates a new market for Michigan-grown grain, and adaptive reuse of this prison is obviously appealing to the state because nobody wants to look at a prison sitting idle in their community.”
