Local whiskey, honey among treats at West Overton Village Makers Market

Heavy rains can’t dampen the desire for local spirits.

Dozens of thirsty visitors jammed into the small tasting room in the brick barn at West Overton Village on Saturday afternoon to sample rye whiskey and take a short indoor break during the annual Makers Market.

Weather made for some muddy conditions. But that didn’t appear to prevent any perusing of the nearly 90 vendor booths filled with hand-crafted wares and other products spread out along the gravel patch on the 40-acre grounds of historic East Huntingdon site.

“We sold out in about two hours,” said Chad Seibel, president of the Laurel Highlands Beekeepers Association whose jars of locally produced honey was a festival highlight. “We brought about 45 pounds of honey. We’d put a little on a finger and once they got a taste they wanted to buy it.”

Honey may have been a sweet treat for market-goers outside, but it was the whiskey that served as the major attraction of the daylong festival.

West Overton’s signature Monongahela rye whiskey, distilled onsite in the facility’s two-story brick stock barn, was served to visitors with a taste for the past.

“I’m hoping to score a bottle of Old Overholt Whiskey. I figured it was a good day to come because of the rain,” said Christine Stull, 58, of Yukon.

Patrick Bochy, co-executive director of West Overton Village, said sales of whiskey bottles, samples and cocktails boomed throughout the afternoon.

“The rain is a bummer, but it hasn’t kept people from coming out,” Bochy said. “We’re celebrating our new season here at the museum and at the distillery. This is a town that once had a grist mill, coke ovens and a distillery. We’re telling that story.”

In 1803, three years after relocating from across the state from Bucks County, Henry Overholt purchased 263 acres along what is now Route 819 between Scottdale and Mount Pleasant. The family raised livestock and distilled rye whiskey.

Over the next decades the family expanded its footprint in what is now West Overton, which since 1922 has served as a historical enclave to commemorate the region’s rich industrial and agricultural roots. The village currently occupies about 40 acres of the Overholt enclave, including 19 original buildings. The location serves as a stop on the American Whiskey Trail.

For visitors such as Jennifer Baumgardner, 54, of Mt. Pleasant Township and her mother-in-law, Sandy Baumgardner, 74, of Meadville, Makers Market is about more than the whiskey.

“This is the first year we’ve come to this event,” Jennifer Baumgardner said. “I love that the rain didn’t keep us away because there’s a lot of great vendors here.”