Ep. 190: Sagamore Spirit with Ryan Norwood

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Levine (00:00):
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of The

(00:02):
whiskering podcast today. I'mthrilled to have on a brand that
I've been visited for one thing,but I've also been wanting to
have on for a couple years now,the opportunity has finally
arrived. So we are here today totalk about Sagamore spirit and
to talk with us about Sagamore.We've got Ryan Norwood. He is
the VP of Operations. He's beenwith them for a number of years
now. And Brian, welcome on. Hey,David, thanks for having me on.

(00:24):
Absolutely So second war mightbe known to a couple of my
listeners, or many of mylisteners because of many things
that might have tried theirproducts. Might have heard them
sponsor whiskey casts. I don'tknow if you still sponsor
whiskey casts. I don't think wedo anymore. Yeah, okay, but it
was for a while. So you know, Igot used to hearing it whenever
I listened to mark. Butcertainly they are very well

(00:47):
known rye brand, Marilyn ryebrand at that. And like I said,
I've been looking forward tohaving you on. So I'm going to
skip a little bit of the historyitself in the origin story, just
for the sake of time andexpediency. But I did want to
start out with the name itself.So Sagamore spirit, not spirits.
And I am fine saying I'm guiltyof saying the wrong one more

(01:11):
than once. So why say morespirit and not spirits? Yeah. So

Ryan Norwood (01:15):
when we, when we initially started, I mean, our
origin started from Sagamorefarm in Baltimore, Maryland, and
one of the things that we lookedat was, what do we want to make?
And we knew we wanted to payhomage to Maryland's rich
history of distilling ryewhiskey, and we wanted to start
out and put all of our focus onmaking rye whiskey. We didn't
technically want to close thedoor to making other spirits in

(01:38):
the future or making evenanything outside of rye, but
that was our focus, and has beensince we started. And you know,
initially it was kind of backand forth on, is it Sagamore
whiskey? Do we do Sagamore ryewhiskey? Do we do Sagamore
spirit? Or Sagamore spirits? Andwe landed on Sagamore spirit
that we felt, like I said,allowed us to focus on rye, but
then and not close the door ontodoing something else in the

(02:01):
future,

makes sense, and it's that may sound like a kind
of a throwaway question, but itis important down the road,
because, like you said, it canshut off your road to marketing
other spirits, I think also ofan example. You know, barrel
craft spirits. They're, they'vebeen on the podcast before.
They're good friends. I've donea barrel pick with them. But for
example, they're one of theirhandles is barrel bourbon. And

(02:24):
they do a lot more than justbourbon. Now, they do blends and
Rose all these different things,but it's always going to be
barrel bourbon whenever you tagthem. So you know, these are
things you got to think ahead ofin today's day and age. So now
that makes total sense, though.This brand has throughout its
decade plus now, 12 years now ofbeing in existence has been kind

(02:48):
of a model of planning to me. Soyou've got a couple years of
planning from the idea thenopening, or I say opening, as
in, like you're starting in 2015you open to the public. 2016
2017 you start production. Sogoing into that, probably what

(03:12):
many listeners might be mostfamiliar with about sack more is
that you started with MGP juice,contract distilled, but you
know, made an MGP just toseparate out contracting,
personal sourcing there startedMGP are now in most, if not all,
your products, 100% your own,Maryland distillate, and you've

(03:34):
been kind of a poster child forhow to start out that way and
successfully transition so theway I want to ask this is, you
know, we've seen so many otherproducers try this transition,
and most, really, the vastmajority, seem to fail or really
stumble in doing it. What do youthink has made Sagan more

(03:56):
successful in in handling thattransition?

No, it's great that you you call that out,
because it is something that wehave done from the beginning was
we were very intentional in ourplanning and in the
understanding of from inceptionto where we are today. And I
think, honestly, one of thethings that has benefited us the
most is transparency. Istransparency, and then another
thing is bringing our consumersalong on the journey with us,

(04:22):
and being open along the way, Ithink, has been super helpful,
because, as you stated, westarted contract distilling with
MGP early on, and started buyingwhiskey from them years before
we even had a brand out on themarket, and we knew that that
was the plan was we wanted tostart by contracting and then
slowly evolve into building ourdistillery and then making it
100% here in Baltimore, and Ifeel like the consumer over the

(04:46):
years has has been burned byother brands that weren't trans
transparent about what they weredoing or what their even
intentions were, and it's been afun process for us. So you know
when, when we work with MGP,we're fortunate that they make
fantastic whiskey. Whiskey, andwe had a great base whiskey to
start with, and to kind of modelour process off of. We worked
very closely with LarryEversole, who was the master

(05:08):
distiller at Seagrams and LDIfor a while and and so we we
learned and kind of built thatprocess. And then, like I said,
is we're very transparent. Andwe said, we want to do this as
soon as we had the distillerybuilt in April of 2017 we
stopped buying any contractwhiskey and started producing
our own. Obviously, we we do astraight rye whiskey here, so

(05:29):
everything is aged a minimum offour years. And so we knew that
it was going to be some timebefore we'd get into our
process, our products. But oneof the things we wanted to do
also was there's a coupleschools of thought when you make
that transition from contractinto your own product, is, you
can kind of do it very quicklyand stop producing whiskey using

(05:51):
MGP and go right into yours andsay, That was them. This is us,
welcome to our brand. Or you cankind of do it in a slower
blending process. And we chosethe latter, and part of that was
to work through some of theolder inventory that we had. But
also, when we first startedproducing here in Baltimore, we
only had three people on theproduction team at the time, so

(06:12):
we weren't making a lot ofwhiskey, especially for the
future growth of the company.And so we knew it'd be it would
take a little bit of time for usto be able to build up that
inventory. And as you said, nowtwo of our three core products
are now 100% made by sagmorehere in Baltimore. Our other
product, double oak, will betransitioning hopefully in the
next year, once we kind of getthrough the last of that

(06:34):
inventory. So it's been anexciting process for us, and
it's taken a long time to gethere, but we're really happy to
be here

with the so is the plan to completely use up all
the MGP, LDI, inventory, orleave a little back, just in
case for something that's

the hope is to work through all of it, you
know, sell some of it is bulk,just some of the stuff that we
don't plan to use into thefuture. We don't have a ton of
inventory left. We are gettingready this fall to release a 10
year MGP whiskey nationwide,which we're really excited
about. And have kind of donethat over the last couple of
years. We released a nine yearold MGP last fall. We're doing a

(07:16):
10 year old this fall, and it'skind of right in that sweet spot
for rye to me where it's like,still got some of those nice
Rice Bites, spice notes to it,but it's mellowed out a little
bit. So we're excited for that,and that will be one of our last
kind of large MGP releases. Andthen from there we're we'll
slowly move into stuff thatwe've made here in Baltimore. So

(07:37):
awesome.

So with the with with the transition away from
MGP and into your own, that alsonecessitated things like getting
your own grain and your ownbarrels and your own Rick
houses. So the first area to goto, I think, is, is the green,

(07:59):
you know, as of as of 2023 istwo years ago now, but, you
know, you'd been working witharound four farms to grow rye
for you in Maryland. But itwasn't without his challenges.
You know, it was, as I learnedin the research, rye was an
uninsurable crop in Maryland. Isthat still the case? Still
uninsurable?

Yeah. I mean, it's pretty much uninsurable. No
one's buying insurance on it.They make the make the premium
so high that it's not even worthit, but, but it is. There's no
subsidies to harvest it. Socurrently in the state of
Maryland, that if a farmer growsrye, the only subsidies or
government money that they'llget is if they actually use it
as a cover crops. They have totill it into the ground. The
minute they harvest it, theydon't get any money for it. It

(08:40):
is a protected seed as well. Soeach year that farmers plant the
seed, they have to go and buythat has to be first generation.
So those are just some of thechallenges we work through. But
we are still working with withfour farmers in Maryland. We
have kind of incrementally,slowly grown the process since
we started doing this in 2018and, and, you know, we'll never

(09:03):
have be at a point where 100% ofour grain comes from Maryland.
We don't want all of our eggs inone basket, just in case
something were to happen. And,and we're fortunate enough that
we also work with Brooks grainto source rye for us as well.
And they do a fantastic job offind finding very high quality
rye for us to use in ourprocess. That

was going to be one of our questions, you know,
is it, do you have a sustainablepipeline, or you're going to
have to look out of state? Wasthere an idea to try for maybe
not every grain, becauseobviously not every grain grows
everywhere, but rye fry is oneof those grains that you can
grow in most places. Was there athought to, at least trying to

(09:44):
do rye, I want to say just fromMaryland. But, you know,
Maryland is a fairly smallstate. There's not a ton, but
like, you know, in the kind ofDMV area, maybe as local as
possible,

we've, yeah, we've looked at that. And, like I
said, is, you know, in. In 2018when we first bought rye from
from Maryland farmers, we gotabout 36,000 pounds of grain. In
2023 we grew about 1.6 millionpounds of rye in the state of
Maryland. So we, like I said, wehave grown it quite a bit, and
we're doing a very calculatedgrowth and making sure that we

(10:19):
work with the right farmers thatthat have quality in mind that,
you know, we understand on ourside that they need to have a
yield as well. They need to makesure that if they're putting
time and effort and energy intoit, that they need to get paid
for that. And so we understandthat, but also we want to make
sure that that this rise goingto make a very high quality
whiskey. And so we're, we'rekind of going through that

(10:40):
process now and understandingwhat that whiskey is tasting
like, and super excited for it.And you know, in the plan in the
future is to probably release aproduct or two that is 100% made
with grain from the state ofMaryland. And like I said, we
won't ever go to all of it, butcurrently we get 100% or roughly
100% of the corn that we grow oruse in our process is grown in

(11:03):
the state of Maryland. So weare, we are working with a lot
of the local farmers in ourcommunity to continue to invest
here. So,

and a lot of that corn being from your own farm on
sagmore Farm, correct?

Yeah, yeah. So almost all of it is comes from
Sagamore farm, and, yeah, it'san exciting process for us, and
it's something we use non GMOcorn, being able to grow it up
at our farm is, is somethingthat we we work very closely
with our farmer up there to makesure that, again, it's, it's, we
put a lot of effort into thequality, because we know that
grain quality will absolutelydictate how that Whiskey tastes

(11:39):
after the process. So for

sure, and I forget which interview was either
reading or listening to where itsays, but there were some
experiments going on inpartnership with University of
Maryland with different ryevarieties and different methods
to grow them. Are those stillongoing? They're

not currently, right now. And that was some of
the stuff we did very early onin the process. Was when we were
trying to engage differentfarmers. We we worked with the
University of Maryland and theirAgricultural Department, and
wanted to understand, again,like, what, what rye variety is
going to make really greatwhiskey? And so that's was the
start of our process, and wewent through a handful of
different trials with them tohelp us kind of understand that

(12:24):
process a little bit better. Andthen we got to a point where we
had to actually understand whatis even commercially available
at the size that we needed. Andso when we first started, we
were using a variety calledBracero at a larger scale. And
Bracero since then is actuallywe've transitioned over to
Serafino. Part of that was justbracetto was no longer a one of

(12:46):
the higher yielding, one of thehigher quality rise out there,
and Serafino had kind of comeinto its place, and we've been
using that now for a couple ofyears, and excited to see how
that whiskey tastes on on theback end of that, it seems

like only, I don't know why this just came to mind,
but it seems like only corn kindof stays in its own yellow, you
know, number two, yellow dent.The rise change each year. The I
guess the wheat is mostly soft,red, hard, red. Winter wheat
occasionally white, but the risecycles between them every couple
of years. And then the malt willalso cycle between concerto

(13:17):
laureate, whatever else they'reusing this this year or next.
But I mean, that does give you anice flavor variation too over
the years that you can kind ofexplain and play with. And yeah,
I mean, I enjoy that kind ofchange over the time, even if
it's harder from a consistencystandpoint, from the brand, with

(13:39):
the, you know, growing your asmuch of the grain as you can, a
lot of the most of the corn onSycamore farm, as much as you
can from the local varieties forrye, malt, barley, no wheat that
you need. So that's, you know,that's something you can at
least cross off the list. Reallyoff the list entirely the i So,

(14:00):
the when, when you were, so,just to go back to that
transition for a second betweenthe MGP product and and your own
and the blending throughout thattransition you've you, and
people like Brian Tracy andothers have spoken about how, as
you did, percentage bypercentage, you start at like
10% or 15% you were. Your stuff,85 MGP, go higher, higher,

(14:26):
higher, higher over time. Sothere is not, it doesn't sound
like necessarily, flavorconsistency, because it wasn't
going to be a one to one. Butyou know, ushering people along
this path as you were goingthrough that, what was the
reaction to people that you werelistening to for how that flavor

(14:48):
was changing?

I think, honestly, it was, it was pretty positive
overall. There were some kind ofnuanced flavors that we were
seeing in the whiskey that wasbeing made in Baltimore that we
weren't seeing in some of the M.P whiskey, there's kind of some
call outs, if you if you've donea lot of research on MGP and
kind of flavor notes, andtasting notes, there's this kind
of dill, dill pickle note thatgets called out a lot. There's a

(15:10):
handful of those that that, youknow, people obviously had
tasted sag more and said, Oh, wetaste that in there. We taste
some of those similarities towhat you would get in MGP
whiskey. And then that kind ofstarted to slowly go away as we
added more, sag more into it.And then, you know, we work on a
smaller batch system. We have6500 ferment a gallon fermenters
on site. We have a 40 foot tall,24 inch diameter, copper column

(15:34):
still. And so that just thatwhole process. And then the
natural flora that is inMaryland, all of our fermenters
are open top, so that's going toadd a slightly different flavor
profile and have differentimpacts than what you're seeing
out of Indiana. And so overall,it's been, it's been very
positive. And I think it's againto that transparency and to

(15:55):
walking people along thejourney. It's, it's, they're not
going into it saying, Well, whydoesn't this batch tastes like
this old batch. They're saying,Oh, I like the way this is
going, and I'm getting thatflavor. And you'll even see some
changes, even from batch tobatch, as you know, is like with
the raw materials, with the ryeand when that was grown and
harvested, but then also thebarrels, that's going to impart

(16:15):
so much flavor and and help tomellow out those flavor flavors
over time. So we, like I said,we try to be open with all of
that, and it has been generallypositive moving forward. So

yeah, I mean, I'm definitely a fan of that nine to
five five the dill thing. Butnot everyone who makes 95 five
themselves has that same note toit, for sure. And it's also
worth noting, as you said,there's differences in
production, so you've got adifferent just for example,
different brick houses. So yourbrick houses are not stone and

(16:46):
brick lined, you know, a lot of,most of the ones at MGP are
these old industrial buildings,like fireproof in every sense.
You know, stone buildings. Sothat's going to age a lot
differently, and in a differentclimate. You're right by the
harbor, you know, there's a lotthat's different there. As you
mentioned, you've got your 40foot tall, 24 inch diameter,

(17:07):
still Penny. This is the it'sreally a it's a sight to behold
when you go to the campus. Sothe campus itself is five acres,
which doesn't sound like a lot.And then you go there, and
you're like, there's a lotpacked into this five acres,
without it at all feelingcramped. It still felt very
spacious. When someone finallytold me it was only five acres.

(17:30):
I don't know. I'm used to NewYork geography, right? Five
Acres? Yeah, exactly. But withthe with those five acres you
had worked with. And by you, Imean, you know Sagamore in
general, you'd work with, witharchitects and lighting experts,
you know air saint, grosslighting practice to create

(17:50):
these, these spaces ineverything from the building
housing production, where you'vegot the still Penny just
straight up going straight upinto the air in a beautiful
windowed column, if you will, orcolumn of Windows, that's better
way to put it, and all the wayto the visitor center and all
that. So the lighting, thewoodwork, wooden stone, is all a

(18:14):
part of it, but still reallyfeels like that centerpiece of
the campus when you walk ontothe square. Now, Penny itself,
it's also the only mirrorpolished copper column still
venoms made.

So isn't that crazy? Yeah,

so is that something that was chosen
because of a production value,or more? Esthetics, 100%

esthetics. That was, that was something, I mean,
as you mentioned, like thecampus is beautiful down here.
If you've not been here, I wouldhighly recommend coming.
Everything is the attention todetail around the campus is
unbelievable from thedistillery. It's a showpiece. It
is meant to bring people here toto talk about the history of
Maryland rye, and to talk aboutSagamore, and what we're doing

(19:00):
to do that and and to your pointis, is Penny is literally the
showcase that is the thecenterpiece. When you walk into
our courtyard in the middle,that's the first thing you look
at. And get to your point, it'slike, I always say that. It's
like, it is the only, the onlyone that I'm aware of. The
mirror finish copper columnstill, and it's beautiful, and
it really does stand out, and itpatinas really nicely, and has,

(19:22):
over time, there was a coupletimes early on where we would go
in and polish it. We've kind ofstopped doing that. It's like,
All right, that's we don't needto polish this anymore. But,
yeah, the campus is beautiful,and we do, we do tours here, we
walk people through and we tryto, again is educate them and
talk about what we're doing inthe process, what we're doing
with the local community and howwe're trying to put Maryland

(19:43):
back on the map for making ryewhiskey.

And as I said, we're skipping over some of the
history and origin story here,but listening other interviews
to how Sagamore was part of thisrenaissance of rye in
particular, but whiskey makingin the Maryland area is A. Yeah,
definitely interesting story. Wetouched on it also when we had
max on from Baltimore spiritscompany. So, you know, take a

(20:06):
listen back to that episode ifyou want to hear a little bit
more as well. And then we askabout more about Sagamore,
specifically later on. So pin,you got Penny where almost
everything is made. And off ofPenny, you do have two doublers.
And I remember asking thequestion while I was touring of
you know, why two doublersinstead of just the one or

(20:28):
running it through again? But Ihonestly don't remember, and I
couldn't find my notes. So withthat, why have two doublers and
not just one or run it throughagain?

Honestly, on the front end, this was not a
production value either. Thiswas our founder, Kevin Plank, at
the time a he was very intonumbers. He liked things done in
threes. Our kind of logo isthree diamonds. He did know and
had done some research abouttriple distillation, and kind of
understood that, and and so whenwe were building and designing
the distillery, it was like,well, so there's only one column

(21:01):
still and one doubler. I want itthree. And how do we do that?
And so I think Larry, at thetime, was like, you don't need a
second doubler. You can gothrough one doubler and make
really great whiskey. Kevinpushed back, and we ended up
adding a second doubler. Andhonestly, David, like it does
help to clean the spirit up. Sowe will go through and we'll do

(21:23):
samples distillate, samples offthe column, still, off doubler
one and double or two, and youwill see a progression and a
quality improvement through thatprocess. It just helps clean it
up a little bit. It's a lot morecopper contact, which also helps
remove some of those offflavors. And it is something
that I think actually benefitsthe distillate heading into the
barrel and but again, I don'tknow of anybody that's running,

(21:45):
running two doublers, and I callthem still, so

I can, I can commiserate with that. I I eat
things in threes. I'm just alittle bit OCD about that. So I
Yeah, for sure. It's, it'sinteresting thing just because
you, I mean, you have the twoand you're not marketed as a,
you know, triple distilled rye,which, in itself, could be
fairly unique and fairly rare.You've also it doesn't taste

(22:12):
triple distill that, you know, Ithink at least, I'll speak for
myself, but I think in thecommunity, we think triple
distilled, you think maybeIrish, or some certain styles
that tend to be lighter, becausethe more you distill something,
the more times you distill it,rather, you're still stripping
something off every single time.So you're going to get something
that's maybe light floral,fruity, but it's also going to
be not as as viscous or rich.And I've never found that with

(22:36):
any of the Sagamore productsthat I've tried that I'm lacking
mouthfeel. At this point, I'vetried at least a dozen between
the finishes and the caststrengths and the other things
that I have hanging around. So,yeah. I mean, so I get why. I
get why you wouldn't necessarilymarket it as a triple distilled

(22:56):
rye, because that puts somethingin the consumers mind, yeah,
yeah.

And I think that's what we we've tried to be pretty
intentional with that, as wellas understanding, like, when you
say something, what is somebodyassociating that with? And if
it's like, yeah, if you say, youknow, we've started to lean a
little bit more into the tripledistillation process and and
kind of talking it as ashelping, you know, with that
balance a little bit. But, butto your point is, it is very

(23:21):
different, and it tastesdifferent. Tastes different. It
has more of that kind of mouthfeel, body and and it isn't a
light whiskey by any means. AndI think it, but again, it's
very, very approachable. And Ifeel like that's what kind of
sets sag more away from a lot ofother traditional rise is its
approachability anddrinkability, and maybe that
does come a little bit from thattriple distillation process. But

(23:44):
again, yeah, it's, it's, it'spart of our our process. And
then also, like, we're veryintentional with our proofs too.
So you'll see that across ourportfolio, and as you say,
you've tasted many of them, iswe're very intentional with that
also is understanding what, whatproof that tastes best to us,
what is going to, you know, beappreciated by the consumer, and
allow them to to enjoy it neator over, over an ice cube, or

(24:06):
even mix it into a cocktail. So

So Penny can between the fermenters and what
goes into a penny can make about10 to 15 barrels per batch,
something like that. You do haveEdgar, the experimental still.
It's not its official name. It'sjust Edgar, but I like Edgar the
experimental still. So Edgarproduces about half a barrel of
time. This is, you know, to testout new things. See what works,

(24:33):
what doesn't work. I rememberlooking at it. Edgar wasn't
running when I visited. It wasan off day, and so we got to see
inside. And it's just not thatbig. It's half a barrel worth.
When you guys find somethingthat you like, like, you've
tried something in ED green,like, you know, this could be a
really good either, new product,extension, adjustment, you're

(24:58):
going from a very small potstill. Apple to a 40 foot
column, still, it's not going tobe apples to apples. So, you
know, How significant are theadjustments that you have to
make to replicate what you'vemade and liked on Edgar onto
penny?

I think, honestly, like, the adjustments are kind
of the easier part. It's more ofsetting our expectations. It's
kind of to your point. It's likeit's never going to be apples to
apples. There is, is a verydifferent flavor profile that
comes off of even a pot columnhybrid like Edgar is, is you're
going to get some, some nuancedflavors that you will never see

(25:35):
in the column still. But it doesgive us more confidence going
into it, and has us understandthat, yeah, this recipe is is
nice and it and it will producethe flavors that we're looking
for, or This yeast strain couldwork, or this grain that we're
trying to look at will willwork. And so, you know, the step
up process isn't thatchallenging from our side. It's,
it's, it's kind of likeunderstanding the two systems

(25:56):
and what that input of grain isand making some small
adjustments to either theenzymes we're adding or the cook
times and but outside of that,the fermentation process is all
the same. And then, like I said,it's setting our expectations to
know that it's not going totaste exactly the same, but we
know we know what it shouldtaste like, or at least the
benefits of it. And then thehope is that it that it tastes

(26:19):
exactly as you want it to be. So

just before we leave the Greens behind and the
production part of this behind,can you talk to us about the
microwave test? Oh,

yes, yeah. So that was something very, very early
on, that that Larry taught uswas you have to evaluate the
grain that comes in house. Hesaid it is, you know, it was one
of the things that is, like, oneof the most important things,
especially as a new startupdistillery. Because he said, You
never want to be the distillerythat said, Oh, send it to
Sagamore. They'll take thatgrain if, if it's been refused

(26:54):
somewhere else. And and so, youknow, we initially bought a, I
think it's an eight foot probe.And so what we do is every truck
that comes on site to deliver,whether it's corn, rye, barley,
we jump in the back of thattruck and we take at least six
samples throughout the truck.And so this grain probe will
will reach from the top of thetruck down into the bottom.

(27:15):
We'll also take a sample off thebottom. Hoppers. We have Hopper
trucks only that come to thesite, and we take some of that
grain, we go in, and we measurethe moisture content to make
sure that, you know, it's nottoo dry or there's not too much
moisture left in it, becausethat can lead to mold or
spoilage. And then we take asmall sample that and we warm it
up in the microwave. And thereason you do that is to start

(27:40):
to activate any kind of, likeoff flavors, oils, gasses,
anything like that that couldhave been on the grain, or, you
know, imparted some flavorsduring storage. And it's
amazing, like, if you just smelldry, non micro microwave grain,
it's kind of just dusty and justsmells a little bit like grain.
But as soon as you put it in forabout 20 to 30 seconds in a

(28:01):
microwave, you start to get morethat that flavor, and it can
kind of, you know, at that stagewhere we're not really smelling
for positive flavors, you'resmelling for off flavors. You're
smelling for faults in thegrain, because, literally, a
small chunk of even mold or or apocket of like moldy grain can
ruin several batches of whiskey.And so it's something that you

(28:22):
know, it's not 100% foolproof,even you know you're grabbing
six samples in a truck that'sgot 50 to 60,000 pounds of grain
in it. It is not like you're notgoing in with 100% confidence,
but it helps you understandthat, like you know, and part of
that is your relationships withyour farmers and your grain
broker as well, is knowing thatthat they are storing it

(28:43):
properly, that that they'recleaning it the right way, and
they're doing all these things.And that microwave test helps
just bump that along a littlebit. And it's always great
because people walk through, andespecially if we take a tour
through there, they're going,what are you why are you
microwaving the grain? What areyou doing? And then we'll find
three or four people arounddistillers or people in the lab
and have them smell it and giveus kind of a rating of one to

(29:04):
four on where they think thatgrain is. So I

mean, because the first time I had heard about it,
and obviously you've talkedabout, I've never spoken to
Larry one on one, but spoken tomany projects that he has been a
part of, either directly orindirectly. It never heard that
test before brought up, so hadto ask about it for sure. So
with that, I want to move overto the finished product side of

(29:29):
things. So there are, in mymind, two barrel specific items
that make Sagamore unique. Oneof them is you use a mix of
number three and number fourchar from two different
cooperages, one of which useswood to burn, one of which uses
gas to burn. Is this? One isthat? Still you know what you

(29:55):
use, but if so, you know why so.Lit the difference there, like,
what is it not getting what youwant from just one as opposed to
needing both profiles?

A little bit of that is a balance on our side.
So we're currently only doing anumber four char right now, but,
and honestly, part of that wasjust barrel availability. And
so, you know, when we firststarted there was, there were
quite a few barrels on themarket, and Cooper just had some
excess capacity. So when we werereaching out to the Kelvins, the

(30:28):
ISCS, and talking to them aboutgetting barrels, it wasn't
really a problem, especiallyeven at the early stages, we
weren't producing a ton ofwhiskey, so it was easy to get
our hands on barrels. But then,you know, fast forward a couple
of years, we got to a pointwhere the it was, it was a lot
more challenging to get barrels,um, and there was a bit of a
barrel shortage for about a yearor two. And so that's when we

(30:51):
kind of got into a positionwhere Kelvin no longer had
capacity to produce barrels forus. They apologized and said, We
just can't do it. And so thenwe, we moved most of our
production to independent stavecompany, and they even got to a
spot where they were like, we'renot sure if we're going to be
able to get everything you needfor the year. And so we worked
with West Virginia, great barrelcompany, and kind of just have

(31:11):
spread that out a little bit.Again, it's somewhat similar to
the grain, where it's like, youdon't want all of your eggs in
one basket. You want to be ableto kind of spread it out for,
for quality, for, for anunderstanding, because, you
know, they're just likeanything. It's a raw material,
and it will change. And Cooperjust do have issues as well. And
so there's times when, like,maybe production faults or
something happens, but we try tomake sure, again, that, like,

(31:35):
you know, it's economics alsoit's like, you want to make sure
that you're you're paying theprice, that you can sustain four
barrels, but then also thatyou're getting the highest
quality. And so we we try toengage as many of the the
cooperages that we can, and thenfind the right partners and and,
you know, there's not even a lotof contracts in in barrels at
our size, so we can't even signon and say we want this for the

(31:56):
next five years. And here's whatour growth is. It's more of like
a re engaging every year andsaying this is what we think
we're going to make for the nextmake for the next year. Can you
provide barrels? And thenunderstanding what those barrels
are going to do to our dislid ispart of the fund process on our
side. And

before asking about the other unique barrel
process, it's worth noting. Youguys, I see you all the time
because I'm paying attention. Ilike Sagamore stuff, and have
for a couple of years. You're ina number of states, good number
of states, not even countingonline sales. You're in
international markets, butyou're still on the smaller
side, where, like you said,you're you're not doing a five

(32:34):
year plan for the barrels.You're re engaging every year to
say we need this many, asopposed to, you know, someone
who's getting 1000s and 10s of1000s of barrels every month,
maybe for some of these places.So the other question I had was
the introduction or inclusion ofthe wave groove barrels. So

(32:57):
again, is that something

you're still doing? Yes, that is so

those get, you know, heavy toast, and number
one char, so light char, heavytoast. So, to me that it was
reminded a lot of like a mixbetween the STR style from like
Dr Jim Swan and the theseheritage casks that Jack Daniels
had started making the lastcouple of years where it was

(33:22):
where it was like that. It was,it was a very heavy toast, super
light char, kind of what youcould do in the past when you
didn't have gas burners to makea number four char. So how did
the, but I don't think I heardabout, how did the wave group
barrels get introduced to youand start you and you start
using them? Yeah, it's actually,

it's kind of a fun story. So we were working with
independent Steve at the time,and working very closely with
Chad Spaulding, and he had comeon site to talk through about
innovation and R and D and someof the things they were doing,
just to give us a fullunderstanding of, you know, at
the time we were we were justgetting started with the
distillery here in Baltimore. Wewere using a lot of MGP, or all

(34:01):
MGP whiskey in our products atthe time, and we were trying to
figure out, like, how do we kindof put our fingerprint on this?
How do we make it our own? Youknow, like I said, they, they
had a wonderful base of ryewhiskey to to work with, and so
we just wanted to understandwhat, what R and D options do we
have, what barrels out there?What are things that we can do
with this whiskey, to to changesome of those flavors into to

(34:21):
kind of make it our own. And andChad had come to us and talked
about a handful of differentbarrels, and one of those
barrels was the wave statebarrel that that independent
state was making. And sobasically, in theory, for those
that don't know, is it'sbasically grooves are cut length
wise in the staves to increasethe surface area. And then, to
your point, it's a, it's amedium to heavy toast on it with

(34:41):
a number one char because of theamount of surface area, it's
like it would just be almost toomuch if you went any higher on
the char level, I believe. Andthey had been doing some testing
on their scale with moredistillate, and I don't know how
much they'd actually done withkind of aged whiskey, testing it
in these barrels. And. And so wehad that meeting with him. And
fast forward. Two weeks later,we were training relatively new

(35:05):
distiller about our process. Weuse two different mash bills. We
do a high rise mash bill and alow rye mash bill. We cook them,
ferment them, distill them, andage them completely separately,
and then on the back end, wedump them separately before we
blend them together to ourflavor profile. So we're, you
know, going through the processtraining this distiller. And we
said, Okay, this tank over heregets the high ride, this tank

(35:26):
over here gets the low ride, andeverything seems set. We walked
away, and it was like you shouldhave two tanks that are about
three quarters full when youdump all the barrels. We come
back a little bit later, and oneof the barrel, one of the tanks,
was filled almost to the brimand about to overflow. And I was
like, well, this doesn't seemright, and so they had
accidentally dumped the wrongbarrels into the wrong tank. And

(35:49):
so kind of just pre blending thetwo what were like? I said,
Great whiskeys. And so we kindof sat around a table and was
like, well, we can math our wayout of this, and we can say we
think this mini barrel, we knowthis many barrels were dumped,
here's what the blend is goingto be, and how do we taste this
and move forward and try to makeit into our standard rye
product? And then we got theidea to hey, we had just met

(36:11):
with Chad. We had just talkedabout these wave state barrels.
It might be a fun opportunity tokind of make lemonade from this
bad situation. And so we reachedout to independent stave we got,
I think, on the first quarter,maybe 20 to 25 barrels, and
said, We want to play aroundwith these a little bit. And so
we filled those with this kindof known, unknown blend, and

(36:35):
started tasting them. And tastedthem a month in and not much had
changed, and taste them threemonths in six months in we got
to the nine month range, andwe're like, this is pretty good,
and has started to take on someof those oak flavors from the
wave stay barrel, some of thattoasted notes as well. And so we
packaged our first product offof that line called Double oak

(36:59):
that is now become one of myfavorites of our core lineup,
and and then what we found waswe only did it with about, I
want to say, maybe a handful thebarrels that we had laid down.
And so we continued to tracktheir life cycle through the
aging process, and ordered moreof the barrels behind it.
Because we're like, we know thisis going to be nice. We know we

(37:20):
want to continue to do this inthe future, and we've grown that
process now to where thatsecondary aging in the wave stay
barrel is over 18 months now,and it to me, it's, it's a
really, really nice kind of playon rye, and almost a mix between
bourbon and rye, because thereis some sweetness to it. It It

(37:40):
is very balanced. You get someof that oak toasted notes. But
to me, it's not over oak.Sometimes you can get some of
those double oaks where it'sit's a little bit over oaked or
to tannic and and so yeah, thatwas the kind of process of
coming up with double oak on ourside and using the wave state
barrels. And

I think one of the things I used to shy away from
double oak anything, because itwould, it was almost always too
Woody or too oaky. And I thinkyou said something earlier about
how the the actually, this mighthave been a different interview,
because I'm blending punintended to ideas together. But
the idea of the secondary agent,you know, you're doing at least

(38:19):
18 months this is get where youstart getting past finishing
into really a secondary agingprocess, but also by not
charring the barrel as much,doing only a number one char
even with the grooves, addingthe surface area, you're not
going to get as much alcoholpenetration or liquid
penetration into the wood. Soit's not going to pull out those

(38:40):
really tannic things that are alittle behind the char. I don't
know if I have to pay a royaltyto Fred and the Sears guys for
saying that, but you know, youdon't get some of those things
and chemicals and flavors.That's where I'm looking for
that you would get if you weredoing it just like that. I do

(39:02):
think it's very interesting alsoto point out just highlight
something you said, which wasthat ISC had been playing around
more so with entering new makeinto this type of barrel, as
opposed to aged whiskey. So Ilike that idea that you guys
were saying earlier, we're notjust going to take these
barrels. We're gonna dosomething different with them. I

(39:22):
know we could go more into that,just for time sake. I would move
on to the next topic, but we'llmaybe talk offline more about
that. So I want to talk speakingof finishing, about finishing,
because you guys have done somany finishes over the years,
and some have become sosuccessful that they've become,
arguably, semi, semi permanentproduct extensions. Others are

(39:46):
more one off. So, you know, thefirst one that you're probably
most well known for was the portfinish that like put Sagamore on
the map in 2018 I think it was,yeah, at San Francisco. You've
also done, you know. Sherryfinishes, Calvados. I've got a
couple of. I had a rum finished,a Mead finish, lots of different

(40:09):
things in there. Oh, of course,the Manhattan finish, using the
components of Manhattancocktail. So I think it's fair
to say that you guys have funplaying with the finishes. Now,
when, when he was on my bourbonjourney, Brian said that at one
point you had a sherry caskfinish batch that it had a
barrel note to it that you guysjust didn't like. So he said,

(40:31):
you know, we're going to put iton hold. We're going to see, you
know, leave it in the cask, seeif it ages out. But the sales
team was planning to have thatbatch of the sherry finish, and
they had to backfill somethingto put out, because you were
doing usually, like two releasesa year, spring and fall.
Eventually it did go out. Itwas, it met the standard, and

(40:54):
you were able to put it out.I've heard something similar
about the Calvados finish too.That ended up being, I think,
almost two years like that. AndI gotta say, the Calvados finish
might be my favorite productuser ever had. You know, not
every producer, particularly atyour size, could hold back a
product like that to see if itturned out okay. And some we've

(41:17):
seen forced to put out productsthat might not be as good, and
you're just like, oh, this is areally cool thing. And, you
know, try to spin it. What, youknow, beyond maybe straight up
capital, what allows Sagamore tonot only play around with these
finishes, but really allow thefinishes to come to fruition and

(41:38):
allow a time to see if it'sreally going to work? Yeah.

I mean, those, those were two very, very fun
products that we released. Andto your point, yeah, they, they
weren't ready. And one of thethings is we were very fortunate
that that from the beginning,you know, we were obviously a
startup whiskey brand trying toget our name out there. And we
sat around the table, and, liketo what I said earlier, we
talked about transparency, butwe also talked about integrity

(42:03):
and quality. And it was like, weknow that, you know, as more
distilleries pop up, as moreproducers come, we have to make
what is a very, very highquality product. To your point,
we were very lucky that we didhave the finances and resources
to play around a lot, and tosay, You know what, we're not
going to put something out therethat we don't feel is our best

(42:25):
foot forward or our best productthat we can produce, and we're
lucky that we had the leadershipto back that up and to say no,
that this isn't ready. And youknow, with the Calvados one, we
actually ended up dumping thebarrels and then putting them
into X rye barrels and then tobounce it back, I heard, yeah,
exactly, to kind of allow thatto mellow is, you know, some of
the tannin, some of the bite toto leave it a little bit. But

(42:48):
that was something that, youknow, the sales team, I'm sure,
still is upset about some ofthose, because they're like,
we've got numbers, we've gotagreements with the
distributors. You know, they'recoming to us and saying, if we
don't have this product, but,but to us, it was, it was very,
very important to, especially asa up and coming brand, is, you
know, and I said this is, is,oftentimes, is someone only has

(43:10):
one opportunity at a firstimpression with your brand, and
if they go in there, even ifit's a fun story, even if it's
a, oh, that's kind of a cool,unique idea, if the product
wasn't there, we knew that thatcould damage us, that could
damage our ability to continueto grow, and and we were firm
with that. And luckily, we hadBrian Tracy and drew Thorne and
our leadership team that thatsaid, No, we're not, we're not

(43:32):
going to release this if, if theteam isn't fully behind it. And,
and so that's been fun. And toyour point is we, we have played
with a lot of differentfinishes. You know, Rye is
fortunately, goes very well witha lot of flavor profiles,
especially with a lot of winefinishes, because they're
inherently a little bit sweeter.A lot of the ones we've played
with and with the rye spice,they balance out very nicely.

(43:54):
We've done some very uniqueones. We've done a Mezcal
finish, we've done a a peatedScotch finish. We've done a lot
of weird things as well that areall very unique. And I think
some have been a littlepolarizing, and people may not
have liked, like some, as muchas others, but, but it's been
fun for us. I

mean, if you have the Pete, that Pete's always
going to be a little polarizing.What was the other one? The with
the Mezcal, and I think you dida tequila finish as well. Do it
tequila? Yep, yep, yeah.Honestly, I also tend to stay
away from those, because I metscouts. I'm actually okay with
but tequilas don't really enjoy.I don't like Blue Agave just
generally. It's not a reflectionof product. But I hear what

(44:36):
you're saying with the winefinishes in particular, and the
brandy fortified wine andbrandies. There was something
about the Calvados though, thatjust like and that was that a
one off like that. That

was a one off we did one time and again. I on the
same way. I have a bottle at myhouse that still sits there,
that like is slowly working itsway down, but it, but it only
comes out of. Very specialoccasions. That's,

that's one that I found. I don't even know how I
found, I'm, I don't think it wasat the distillery, but I wish I
had a case of those, becausethat's just an apple pie in a
glass. It's so good it it'sapple pie, but also, like,
spiked with a little blackpepper in there. And it's worked
so well that I've actually toldother producers who make rye,

(45:22):
like, you know, have you tried,like, a COVID skin about this?
Yeah. And I always do give tocredit to be like, I try this in
a Sagamore product, and it wasreally good. So no, I just love
that. Like, I hope you guys cando it again, just so I can do
it, but then again, since nowyou've got probably your all

(45:44):
your own stuff in there onMaryland's distillate. I'm sure
it'll still be very good. Itmight not be the same, agreed,
agree. That'll be a fun side byside to do also exactly. So, you
know, I know I've only gotabout, you know, 15 minutes of
years left I want to go through.So the I want to touch on the
bottle design. So the bottledesign is significant. You've

(46:06):
got the logo of the threediamonds from the Vanderbilts,
whose Sagamore farm still usesthe same logo. Still got
thoroughbreds there that areracing. The six sided bottle
came from Walters, a familyassociated with this as well.
Did you work with a particularcompany to create these bottles

(46:27):
and labels that were evocativeof pre pro style, but also
inclusive of the Sagamore andracing components? Yeah,

we did, and that was something that was very
important to us from thebeginning, and from from Kevin
Plank to Brian Tracy, it was, itwas something they talked a lot
about, is we again, we have to,we had to separate ourselves
from other producers out there,from other other whiskey and
distillery that were on themarket. And one of the ways we

(46:59):
did that was this very custombottle that had some kind of
throwbacks and paid homage tothe distilleries that operated
in Maryland before and and kindof their unique bottles, like
they weren't all just roundbottles that they were releasing
them in and. And part of thatis, is, is we wanted to stand
out and be recognizable. And Ifeel like this bottle helped to

(47:19):
do that, and coming up with thisvery it's very heavy, it's a
it's a big bottle. But you walkinto any establishment, any bar,
and you can immediately, I lookon the back bar, and I could
say, oh, there's tag more. And Ican see it, and it catches my
eye. And same with a retail isyou walk into a store and you
know, when you've got 100whiskeys sitting in front of
you, Sagamore definitely standsout. And I appreciate,

(47:42):
appreciate that about it. Justlike anything, it's it's custom.
So custom bottles and situationscome with custom equipment and
custom problems. So it's been abit of a challenge to work with
in general, but, but I wouldn'tchange anything about it because
I, because I do reallyappreciate how recognizable it
is in the market,

and thinking about it from a bartender's
perspective in particular, youknow, the bottle itself. It is
beautiful bottle. And if youhave it straight on, if you
will, you see Sagamore. It'srye. Is bigger than Sagamore, so
you know it's a rye right away.But if you put it to the side,
sometimes we run into issueswith bottles where either you
put it to the side and you don'tknow what it is, or you put it

(48:20):
to the side, and it's so wide orbig that doesn't help. It's
taking up too much space. Youknow, it's it's narrow enough,
like it's flat enough on thedepth, even with the six sides,
that you could put it sidewayson a bar. Have other products
there, so you're not losingmoney on the space. But with the
Sagamore embossed in the glass,is in Boston, right word? I
don't know. I'm not that great.We can't remember if it's

(48:42):
embossed or debossed, but yes,yeah, one of the it's Boston one
way. Or on the side, you know,you can see that it says
Sagamore. So you're still gonna,and you're still gonna see a
little bit of the label from thediamond edged sides there. So
personally, I like that, justbecause you can it's keeping in
mind the people who are going tobe selling your product. Same

(49:03):
thing goes for retail. You know,if you've got 15 bottles on the
shelf, and you need one facingforward, but the others may be
facing inwards so you could fitmore on the shelf. Someone takes
that first bottle. You need toknow the next consumer needs to
know what's the next bottle?What is that bottle before you
replace it in the front? Soanyway, that was a wrap, but I

(49:24):
did want to ask with thebranding, I think this fits as
irony, which is that for thethorough beds and the horse
racing farm and the connectionwith the Vanderbilt and all of
this, and with all, with all thelogos and everything, the one

(49:44):
thing that's not included in thebranding are horses. And that's
when every, not every, a lot ofbourbon brands are used, and rye
brands are using a horse any waythey can. They might have no
connection to horses whatsoever,but a horse is like synonymous
with American whiskey. Somehow.So do you know why a horse in
particular was left out of thebranding process?

So I think early on, there was a lot of talks
about that, and we wouldreference Sagamore farm and the
thoroughbred horses that were upthere. But then, as we started
to lean more into our processand working with local farmers,
we knew that that was going tobe our story more than horse
racing. More than to your pointis there, there are a lot of
brands out there that referencehorses, or talk about horses and

(50:29):
and even Sagamore farm is is nolonger a thoroughbred horse
racing farm. We converted thatover to an agricultural farm a
few years back to start to growour grain up there, there are a
few rescue horses or formerthoroughbreds that are up there
now, but that was our was moreleaning into our brand identity,

(50:49):
the history of Maryland rye andthen, and then working with our
local community. And so I thinkit would have been challenging
for us, especially if we had ahorse on the label or somewhere,
and then we transfer away from athoroughbred horse racing farm
to come back and say, well,let's change our whole label or
our whole identity. And so we'vebeen fortunate that that wasn't
the case. And again, like itwas, it was something that we've

(51:10):
kind of our brand and ouridentity has slowly evolved over
the years, and we've gotten tothat point where, like, you
know, our first rah rah was allabout Maryland, rye and doing
these things, and now it's aboutcommunity and it's about product
quality. And, you know,understanding where your product
comes from, what grains aregoing into it, and being like I

(51:31):
said, is open and transparentabout all that has been
something that we've leanedinto, and hopefully people and
our consumers understand andrespect us because of that.

Speaking about marketing and markets, I was
listening to an interview BrianTracy did in 2019 so this is pre
COVID, which is important. Inthis case, Sagamore had just
entered the Asian market, andspecifically, you know, China,
Japan, I think want to sayTaiwan or Thailand over there as
well Singapore, you know, a fewinternational markets. Again,

(52:05):
having this been pre COVID, thismight be a little different, but
you know what is? What is aninternational brand activation
look like for you, particularlygiven the fact that it's an
American whiskey, that's notbourbon, it's,

it's just like anything we do. It's
challenging. It is. It's a lotabout education. It's a lot
about leaning into the history.But trying to separate ourselves
from a bourbon, you know, andbeing an American Rye is
something that isn't asprevalent, especially in
international markets. And sotrying to educate the consumer,

(52:39):
have them kind of come alongthat process with us. You know,
in some of the Asian markets,when we started, they were very
interested in the the horses andthe racing farm and some of the
history of that. And so now I'mtrying to kind of bring them
along our journey of, hey, nowthis is how we're doing things
and and it, like I said, is isacross the board, education has
been very important for us,because we want people to

(53:00):
understand what we're doing, whywe're doing it, why we set our
apart from other whiskeys andand it is tough, because when
you go internationally, it'slike, oh, you make a bourbon.
Oh, you make a really greatbourbon. It's like, well, we
actually make a rye. And it saysrye in the bottle. And you know,
even I have friends here that,you know, even in the United
States, that will pourthemselves some of our whiskey,

(53:21):
and say, Wow, this is a reallygreat bourbon. And so trying to
have people understand anddifferentiate rye from Bourbon
and has been challenging, butfun for us, and something we
will continue to do,

even though you are blending the two mash bills,
the higher rye and the barelegal rye. Blending those two
gives you an advantage wherethis is, again, speaking for me,
the barely legal rise tend to bea little too much like bourbon.
And this could be for manydifferent reasons, but I think a
big one is simply that even ifthe mash bill is 51% rye and
whatever percentage of corn,let's say it's 51 rye, 45 corn

(53:56):
for malt is a popular one withthe alcohol produced by it, you
actually end up with morealcohol produced by from the
corn than from the rye. So yes,the mashpl says rye, but the
actual blend has more cornalcohol than anything else. So
it's you get more corn flavor.And I've had some rise in the
past that I'm like, this is areally, really good product and
really good whiskey, but itdoesn't taste like a rye, like

(54:18):
it's a really good bourbon. Sothat I know that that definitely
helps you guys set aside alittle bit to be like you were
making a Maryland style, right?But it's you still got the
spice, you still got therichness and the darkness.
That's going to say, alright,it's not just a bourbon. Yeah,

it's so true. And I feel like I see the same
things too. For my side is, iswe're somewhere right in the
middle. It's like we're not likerise on the market, you know, a
lot of the rise out there, andwe're not like a bourbon it's
like we kind of fill that likegap between the two of them. And
sometimes that's hard becausepeople only know what they've
experienced or, you know,they're familiar with bourbon,

(54:59):
or they're from. Earlier withmanaga, Gila rise, and so it's
challenging to say, Well, ifyou've had both of those, we're
somewhere between them so, butit's been fun, and something
we'll continue to

do awesome. And so last thing I'll ask you on this
one, just for now, is, again.Well, again number one, I
encourage people to visit. It'sright in downtown Baltimore.
Although, honestly, the fiveacres looks like a it feels like
a little island isolated awayfrom it, even though you're
minutes from Camden Yards, MTstadium, downtown Baltimore, 10
minutes from i 95 you're righton the harbor. It's so quiet.

(55:34):
You know, it's like being in themiddle of Central Park in New
York. You forget that there's acity around you. So there's
definitely questions aroundlocal impact and economic
impact, but I want to ask thisperhaps as kind of a mixed past
and future legacy question,which is, when you started? When
Sagamore started in 2013 andthen 2015 1617, with production,

(55:58):
there were very few distilleriesin Maryland, this was still
maybe first wave of craft, craftdistilling in the US. By the
time you start a production,there's still not a ton, maybe a
handful more in Maryland. Nowthere are a few dozen, you know,
especially some who are reallymaking their name out there with
a Maryland rye like you guys areas their centerpiece, even if
they're making other productsalongside it. What do you see as

(56:21):
sagamores place and role ingrowing and nurturing that
Maryland distilling scene, andwhat legacy do you think
Sagamore is heading

for? I think it's, it's vital for us to continue to
grow that scene. Because, again,is, is, as I've said earlier,
it's, it's about education, andit's about the consumer,
understanding and knowing that.And one of the things I've
always said from the beginningis I truly feel that high tides
raises all ships, and we feelthat way is like we're fortunate

(56:50):
that we have really greatresources in the state, and so
we share that with with theMaryland distilling community as
well, and it's something we wantto be a part of, and we want to
be embraced by them. And we workvery closely. Because, you know,
I think that more people talkingabout Maryland rye and speaking
about rye in general, helps allof our brands to continue to
grow. And it's, you know, Ialways liken it to, kind of the

(57:13):
way the craft beer scene reallyblew up is you got to this point
where there were so many of themopening, and people were going
out and experiencing a lot ofthese things for the first time,
and if, if you're not making agreat product, then you know,
sometimes that could be theirlast time going out and
experiencing this. And so tryingto make sure that we, we all can
interpret what we feel Maryland,Rye is differently, but as long

(57:36):
as we're all working togetherand making quality products, I
think that helps everybody tocontinue to educate the consumer
and hopefully grow our brandsand our community into the
future.

Awesome. Well, with that, Ryan, hang on with
you for just a minute afterrecording to close out. Ryan
Norwood, VP of Operations forSagamore spirit, not spirits.
Sagamore spirit, thank you somuch for taking the time to come
on and talk about Marilyn rye,about the not so much, I guess,
the story of Sagamore, buteverything that has gone on
since then, it's been absolutepleasure to have you on, hope to

(58:09):
have you back again and to keeptrying some of these whiskies
that I just So, these rise Itruly love. So Brian. Thanks so
much. Hang on. Wait for just asec. Thank you everyone for
listening. It's been anotherepisode of The whiskering
podcast. Like rate and subscribeand subscribe and there'll be
show notes for productsdescribed in the show notes you.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 190: Sagamore Spirit with Ryan Norwood

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

Ep. 190: Sagamore Spirit with Ryan Norwood

Crime Junkie