Spend a Day Exploring
Maryland's Local Grain Trail
This article was published on July 17, 2024.
By Kurt Jacobson
Planning a road trip? Maryland has a diverse group of Common Grain Alliance members, including grain growers, bakers, millers, and distillers who are open to the public to visit. We’ve mapped out a day across the state to visit these members & see what they are doing that makes them special.
To start, begin the trip out at Fiddler’s Green Farm near Taneytown, then lunch at one of four Atwater’s Baltimore area locations. Add in an afternoon stop in Baltimore City at Motzi Bread, make your way to Sagamore Spirit, stop by Hyattsville at Sang Froid distillery and end the day in Brunswick at the newly-opened Maple and Rye bakery. By starting at Fiddler’s Green Farm, you can camp on their land or stay at 1844 Antrim, a historic inn nearby.
Fiddler’s Green Farm
3907 Old Taneytown Rd, Taneytown, MD 21787
Husband and wife team Benjamin and Brynn are the duo responsible for taking Fiddler's Green Farm into a bold new market. They grow hemp for CBD products and heirloom wheat for area bakers and millers across 107 certified organic acres.
Fiddler's Green Farm was started by Ben's grandfather, who bought the farm after returning home from World War II. After decades of conventional farming by Ben's grandfather and father, Ben came home to try his hand at farming in 2019. He and Brynn grew hemp that first year, creating CBD products they sell at the farm's store and online. Brynn's background in the wellness industry and plant medicine guides her vision of Fiddler's Green CBD product line.
As for grains, Ben started with rye as a cover crop and to sell to local distilleries. Recently, Ben and his father, Chris, began experimenting with different heirloom wheat varieties to produce Bolles bread flour and turkey red all-purpose flour. So far, the results have been encouraging, and customers can buy Fiddler's Green Farm products online or at the farm store. Visitors to the farm can rent RV/tent space through Hipcamp.com. This is a great way to visit a farm.
Atwater's Traditional Food
Multiple locations
One of the best things about visiting Atwater's is that they have four Baltimore locations. The original location is in the Belvedere Square Market, which has several other food stalls to peruse in this food hall-type market. All four of Atwater's locations serve breakfast, lunch, and weekend brunch. The menus at each location are similar, but the Catonsville location bakes many of their baked goods on-site and adds tarts, kouign amann, and other pastries to the menu. All four locations get baked goods from Atwater's Big Kitchen.
Start your day with a ciabatta, egg, and avocado sandwich and see why Atwater's is known for excellent bread. Atwater's bread is available to buy by the loaf, but in limited quantities, so it may run out. The choices are raisin pumpernickel, seven grain & flax, country white, gluten-free bread, cheddar biscuit, and add croissants on Saturdays and Sundays. One of the more popular lunch choices is the chicken salad sandwich served on seven-grain bread.
A full coffee menu is available with something for most coffee lovers. Three of the four locations serve beer, wine, and cocktails. The Kenilworth location doesn’t serve alcohol but is BYOB.
Motzi Bread
2801 Guilford Ave, Baltimore, MD 21218
Maya Muñoz and Russell Trimmer own a small dynamic bakery in Baltimore's Harwood neighborhood. The name Motzi comes from HaMotzi, the Hebrew name for the blessing over bread. Motzi Bread stands out for its sales practice of allowing customers to pay what they can afford. Nearly everyone has access to their artisanal baked goods, made from freshly milled local grains.
They make their sourdough by fermenting often longer than 24 hours. The result is an easy-to-digest, crisp crust with tender bread that's delicious from the first bite. Motzi Bread is open on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and at the Waverly Farmers Market on Saturday. The daily offerings are classic and sesame rye bread, granola, and chocolate chip cookies. On Fridays and Saturdays, they add challah, English muffins, onion bialy, and other tempting baked goods.
Sagamore Spirit
301 E Cromwell St, Baltimore, MD 21230
Kevin Plank of Under Armor fame first began Sagamore Spirit to bring the history of Maryland whiskey to the market. Sagamore Spirit seeks to use Maryland-grown grains for their rye whiskey instead of buying out of state grain. A Baltimore City visitor center includes a retail shop, a tasting room, Sagamore Spirit products, and information on Maryland's whiskey industry, which was in full swing for decades and then mostly faded away. The response of this new brand of whiskey has been good, and on any given day, their tours sell out.
Even If you don't get in on a tour, you can visit their Baltimore Peninsula location for a drink at the Nineteen O'Nine Whiskey Bar. Sagamore Spirit is served in handcrafted cocktails just steps away from where the whiskey is made.
The Visitor Center is open Thursday-Sunday. You can find the hours of operation and tour reservations on their website, www.sagamorespirit.com. At the time of this writing (June 2024), the Rye Street Tavern next door close to reopening under the management of Clyde's, a well-known DMV-area restaurateur.
Sang Froid Distilling
5130 Baltimore Ave, Hyattsville, MD 20781
Located in the Art's District of Hyattsville, MD, Sang Froid a micro-distillery that specializes in making craft fruit brandy, rye whiskey, spelt whiskey, warthog wheat whiskey, Dutch-style gin, foraged citrus gin, coffee liqueur, negroni, and the Big Apple (a Manhattan made with their apple brandy).
Like Sagamore Spirits, Sang Froid uses locally grown grains for its whiskey, which it gets from CGA member Migrash Farm. It also uses only no-spray chemical-free fruit and owns an apple orchard near Cumberland, MD. The pears it uses for the pear brandy come from a small farm north of Gettysburg, PA.
Sang Froid is a fun place to visit whether you're coming to pick up their products or grabbing a seat at their bar on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. The bar is in view of the distillery equipment that made the brandy and spirits you'll be drinking. Parking is easy at the public lot, half a block behind Sang Froid. If you get hungry, the staff at Sang Froid knows the area well and can recommend a place to eat, like Franklin's Brew Pub across the street.
Maple and Rye
9 W Potomac St Unit A, Brunswick, MD 21716
Abby Levine is the whole grain baking star behind the brand-new bakery in historic Brunswick, MD. Maple and Rye is located at 9a W Potomac St. in a row of early 20th century shops that was once a booming marketplace in the heyday of railroads. With a bakery this good, visitors have a reason to put Brunswick on their map.
Abby excels in baking some of the best whole grain pastries you’ll find anywhere. She sources her grains from local places like Wade’s Mill and Castle Valley Mills. Don’t miss the whole grain croissants, fruit hand pies, or anything else in the bakery case the day you visit. While in the area, consider a ten-minute drive to Wheatland Springs Farm Brewery in Lovettsville, VA. On Saturdays, WSFB has a farmer’s market with several small producers, including Maple and Rye Bakery. On Sundays, Maple and Rye attend the Frederick City Market. The WSFB market runs from May to October, and the Frederick Market from May 12 to November 24.
Want to pick up some local grains to enjoy at home? Check out these additional MD CGA members:
Grab a loaf of artisan bread and other baked goodies made with love at Heart in Hand Bread, a local microbakery in Baltimore with Saturday pickups and deliveries. Keep an eye out for their pizza pop-ups & markets until they re-open for regular weekly pick ups in late August.
Shop for Purple Mountain Grown’s flours, small grains, and heritage beans at the Local Growers Alliance at the Bethesda Farmer's Market, and from their pop-ups at the Takoma Park Farmers Market.
Order online and pick up in person a wide variety of local grains directly from Next Step Produce’s scenic farm in Newburg, Maryland.
Shop for local grains at Hex Superette, alongside a curated selection of fermented foods and other local products. Hex Superette is a one of a kind tasting room and local marketplace located at 5718 York Road in Baltimore.
Keep an eye out for when Migrash Mill returns to home deliveries and farmers markets in the Baltimore - DC metro area.