Sagamore Spirit Distillery opens with free weekend tours

WASHINGTON — Under Armour founder Kevin Plank’s Sagamore Spirit Distillery opens to the public on April 21 with free, hourlong tasting tours through Sunday.

The whiskey distillery sits on five waterfront acres in Baltimore’s Port Covington. The 22,000-square-foot distillery building includes what Sagamore Spirit says is the world’s only handmade 40-foot, mirror-finished copper column still, made by Vendome Copper in Louisville, Kentucky.

A separate, 27,000-square-foot processing building holds the bottling line and 10 of these 1,000-gallon proofing tanks.

(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
Under Armour founder Kevin Plank’s Sagamore Spirit Distillery opens to the public on April 21 with free, hourlong tasting tours through Sunday. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
Sagamore Spirit Distillery sits on five waterfront acres in Baltimore's Port Covington. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
Sagamore Spirit Distillery sits on five waterfront acres in Baltimore’s Port Covington. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
Sagamore Spirit Distillery sits on five waterfront acres in Baltimore's Port Covington. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
The 22,000-square-foot distillery building includes what Sagamore Spirit says is the world’s only handmade 40-foot, mirror-finished copper column still, made by Vendome Copper in Louisville, Kentucky. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
A separate, 27,000-square-foot processing building holds the bottling line and 10 of these 1,000-gallon proofing tanks. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
The distillery also trucks water 22 miles from Sagamore Farm, a historic thoroughbred horse racing farm built on a shelf of limestone rock. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
“Limestone water really makes for some of the best rye whiskey you can have,” President Brian Treacy told WTOP when last year’s first batch was released. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
In May 2016, the first batch of Sagamore Spirit’s rye whiskey was released from a temporary distillery while the Port Covington distillery was built. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
Sagamore Spirit Straight Rye Whiskey is an 83-proof blend of a high rye and a low rye, barrel-aged for two years. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
After this weekend, tours will be $15 per person. Sagamore Spirit says it expects 100,000 visitors a year. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
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(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
Sagamore Spirit Distillery sits on five waterfront acres in Baltimore's Port Covington. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
Sagamore Spirit Distillery sits on five waterfront acres in Baltimore's Port Covington. (Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)
(Courtesy Sagamore Spirit)

The distillery also trucks water 22 miles from Sagamore Farm, a historic thoroughbred horse racing farm built on a shelf of limestone rock.

“Limestone water really makes for some of the best rye whiskey you can have,” President Brian Treacy told WTOP when last year’s first batch was released.

In May 2016, the first batch of Sagamore Spirit’s rye whiskey was released from a temporary distillery while the Port Covington distillery was built.

Sagamore Spirit Straight Rye Whiskey is an 83-proof blend of a high rye and a low rye, barrel-aged for two years.

After this weekend, tours will be $15 per person. Sagamore Spirit says it expects 100,000 visitors a year.

Jeff Clabaugh

Jeff Clabaugh has spent 20 years covering the Washington region's economy and financial markets for WTOP as part of a partnership with the Washington Business Journal, and officially joined the WTOP newsroom staff in January 2016.

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