Iron Fish Distillery’s Rye Whiskey commemorates the Arctic grayling’s return to Michigan waters. Iron Fish Distillery

THOMPSONVILLE, MI – Anglers and environmentalists who are cheering the Arctic grayling’s return to Michigan waters – nearly a century after the once-plentiful fish vanished – now have something special to pour when they’re toasting the comeback. Iron Fish Distillery will offer a limited release of its bottles in its Arctic Grayling Whiskey Series beginning Saturday, Dec. 9.

Iron Fish has been a supporter of the Michigan Arctic Grayling Initiative that is working to bring back the species in Michigan. The popular distillery in Thompsonville will also be hosting free, DNR-led information sessions on the grayling restoration effort on Dec. 9.

Presentations at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. that day will feature Ed Eisch, the fisheries assistant chief for the Department of Natural Resources. Eisch will give people an update on the Arctic grayling’s reintroduction efforts, followed by a Q&A session with a limited-seat audience. If you plan to attend this event, just RSVP through Eventbrite.

Saturday is also onsite pick-up day for those who have ordered their Arctic Grayling Whiskey. Aged five years, this special release includes 95% Iron Fish Distillery estate-grown rye and 5% Northern Michigan barley malted at the Great Lakes Malting Company in Traverse City.

“In 2018, we set aside a few barrels of estate farm grown rye whiskey. We finally bottled that rye and labeled it with a design donated by Michigan artist Dani Knoph,” Iron Fish staff said in a recent social media post announcing the limited release.

“Two hundred bottles of Arctic Grayling Rye Whiskey, aged over five years, will be released on Saturday Dec. 9 starting at noon. Each bottle is signed and numbered and can be purchased on site or reserved for pick up only, at the distillery by emailing

grayling@ironfishdistillery.com.”

The whiskey’s label features Knoph’s hand-drawn grayling print.

“The story of Michigan’s lost grayling is a comeback story – full of hope, challenge, science, and partnership.” said Knoph.

“Restoring Michigan’s wild grayling encourages us to learn from the past, evaluate the present and define the future. From Montana and Alaska to Michigan, many people are caring for this native species. It gives me hope, it’s the Native American Seven Generations principle at work.”

For more details about the staggered release times for these special whiskey bottles, the price, and donation guidelines, check the distillery’s Facebook post here.

To date, more than $8,000 has been raised for the Iron Fish Arctic Grayling Fund. This money goes to support research being done at Michigan State University, and costs for the reintroduction process.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Little River Band of Ottawa Indians and more than 40 other partners are working to reintroduce the Arctic grayling to Michigan waters. Michigan Department of Natural Resources

Michigan wildlife officials earlier this year approved catch-and-release rules for grayling. So far, the fish have been stocked in two Upper Peninsula lakes, as well as one lake in Manistee County. The exact locations have not been released.

Efforts to restore the grayling began in 2016, and the first adult fish were stocked this year. This created more hatchery space for the smaller graylings being raised by the DNR.

“The 2019 year-class of arctic grayling are starting to mature and we can only maintain so many of them per raceway as they get bigger, and so we need to move some out of those systems,” Jay Wesley, Lake Michigan basin coordinator for the DNR fisheries division, told MLive earlier this year ahead of the stocking effort.

“Our idea is that we’ll stock adult grayling in certain lakes, which would create kind of an instant fishery,” Wesley said.

The Arctic grayling second-year class was brought to Michigan from Alaska during spring 2021. The eggs have since hatched and are growing at the Oden State Fish Hatchery in Emmet County. The Michigan Arctic Grayling Initiative has been working since 2016 to reintroduce this native fish into the state’s cold-water streams after nearly a century of absence.Michigan Department of Natural Resources

The DNR has been using grayling eggs from Alaska to bring back Michigan’s grayling stock. A hatchery team in the U.P. is doing this work, and ultimately the plan is to have the DNR plant grayling eggs in cold-water tributaries so later those that become adult fish will return there to spawn.

The first efforts to save the grayling occurred more than a century ago, when their numbers were waning. Habitat loss was a problem for them then. So was logging across Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. Add in overfishing and the appearance of non-native trout, and the grayling had vanished by the mid-1930s.

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