341 - Bringing Rye Back To Baltimore with Brian Treacy and Ryan Norwood of Sagamore Spirit

Bourbon Pursuit

Hobbies, Food, Arts, Leisure

4.9 • 866 Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2022

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rye whiskey production had a historic past in the northeastern states, especially Pennsylvania and Maryland. And now Sagamore Spirit based in Baltimore is bringing rye whiskey back. Ryan and I traveled to record this interview with their CEO, Brian Tracey, and their Director of Operations, Ryan Norwood. We uncover Brian's unique past of how a phone call with Kevin Plank, the CEO of Under Armour, would take him from running a backpacking and kayaking company in Flagstaff Arizona to building a new distillery from the ground up. One of Brian's tasks was to find a distiller and that led to a few conversations with Ryan Norwood, a young guy who was really into yeast and beers. Sagamore had a longstanding relationship with MGP but now they have their own Maryland rye distillate and we talk about how they shaped and revitalized the Maryland rye category. Show Notes: Brian talk about how you go from ski bum to whiskey CEO? How did you cross paths with Under Armour CEO, Kevin Plank, and him ask you to become CEO? What did you know about the distilling business before starting? What did Kevin like about the distilling business? What was the initial vision? After you were convinced to start, who was the first call you made? When did Ryan Norwood come into the picture for distilling? Walk us through the differences be between brewing and distilling. What was is like working with Larry Ebersold to develop your Maryland style rye? Why do distilleries go with 95/5 rye? What was the process of figuring out how to scale and go beyond a 500 gallon pot still? Why only distill rye whiskey when bourbon is so popular? What does it mean to you when articles begin coming out without any affiliation to Under Armour? As a CEO, what are you trying to empower your people with? What was it about going down the path of finished whiskeys? Do you have any horror stories from working with barrel brokers on used barrels? Here's how we all came together to collaborate on Pursuit United Rye. @sagamorespirit @sagamorewhiskeybrian @smilesdavisjr Support this podcast on Patreon

Transcript

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0:00.0	Cool.
0:01.2	Cool.
0:01.6	Great.
0:02.2	Thanks for the opportunity.
0:03.5	Yeah.
0:03.7	Thanks for having to.
0:04.6	Hey, we haven't started yet.
0:06.0	Yeah.
0:06.2	This is Bourbon Pursuit, the official podcast of Bourbon, bringing you the best in
0:24.1	bourbon news, reviews, and interviews with people making the bourbon whiskey industry happen,
0:29.2	and I'm one of your hosts, Kenny Coleman. Rye whiskey production had a historic past in the
0:34.2	northeastern states, especially Pennsylvania and Maryland. And now, Sagamore
0:38.8	Spirit based in Baltimore is bringing Rye Whiskey back. Ryan and I traveled to record this interview
0:44.4	with their CEO, Brian Tracy, and their director of operations Ryan Norwood. We uncover a bit about
0:50.6	Brian's unique past of how a phone call with Kevin Plank, who's the CEO of Under Armour,
0:55.8	would take him from running a backpacking and kayaking company in Flagstap, Arizona,
1:00.0	to building a new distillery from the ground up. And one of Brian's tasks was to find a distiller
1:04.9	that led to a few conversations with, of course, our other guest, Ryan Norwood, a young guy
1:10.1	who was really into yeast and
1:11.4	beers at the time.
1:12.9	In Sagamore, they have a long-standing relationship with MGP and a quite connection with one of
1:18.9	the greats in distilling Larry Ebersol.
	...

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