Official Illinois Makers

Congratulations to our Newly Announced Illinois Makers!

Dollinger Family Farm - Channahon

Dollinger Family Farm makes family fun and beautiful memories! Illinois is the nation's leading pumpkin producer and Dollinger Family Farm sells all of their pumpkins on the farm. They also make their own fudge, donuts and kettle corn. Even their delcious honey sometimes has a faint pumpkin flavor!

The farm has been in the Dollinger family since 1852. It was the original site of the town of Dresden platted in 1836. Grandma's house was a stop on the stage coach line and the Mule Barn was used to switch mule teams on the I & M Canal which runs along the farm. Dollinger Family Farm is a woman-owned business.

(Currently closed for the season and will reopen in 2024!)

Millstone Bakery - La Salle

Millstone Bakery opened in 2022 as a community bakery serving the Starved Rock Country of Illinois and is located in historic downtown La Salle. They make a variety of baked products, all made by hand from-scratch, created each day in the bakery kitchen. They specialize in breads and pastries, performing their own lamination. The bread embraces the hearty crust and the pastry embraces its flake. Most products involve a number of steps and can take several days to make from start to finish.

The bakery is in an old two-story commercial building that still has the original tin ceiling and maple floors. As soon as you open the front door, you're greeted with the smell of flour and ovens. The counter’s glass shelters croissants, flavored-danishes, muffins, scones, cookies, and other treats. Shelves along the wall hold a variety of daily and rotating breads, including the coveted sourdough. A cooler contains rotating treats and beverages, often cream puffs or salads. A large espresso machine straddles the counter and processes Starved Rock Coffee’s beans into specialty coffee drinks. The oven and kitchen beyond is visible through openings in the kitchen’s wall where several bakers are working throughout the day to get ready for the next. They collaborated with local artist, Emily Maze, to add artwork of millstones, wheat sheaves, and rolling pins. The walls feature pictures of the area's historic graineries, flour mills, old bakeries, and the region's ethnicities whose baking traditions they carry on. Millstone Bakery is an LGBTQ-owned business.

Illinois Makers in Heritage Corridor Destinations

Boggio's Orchard - Granville

Boggio’s Orchard & Produce is a family-oriented owned orchard and produce. The bakery opens at 6:00am and the market is open 9:00 to 5:00pm, Monday-Saturday, and Sunday 6:00 to 4:00 pm. May is spring bedding plants, summer is fresh picked vegetables and fruits. After Labor Day, on weekends, pumpkins, pedal cars, pony and wagon rides, corn maze, animal barn, jumping pillow, food stands and the last weekend in Sept., a Craft Show with live music and over 100 crafters.

Fine Field Pottery - Streator

Gavin Finefield of Fine Field Pottery strives to make pottery fun, functional and and artistic to fill your home with joy. Gavin loves lots of color in his art and the glazes he uses strive to reflect the colors he gravitates to in the world. The glazes are also named to show his love for nature: Redsea, Greenwaterfall, Ancient Oak, and Earth are just a few of his most favorite glazes. All Fine Field Pottery is dishwasher, microwave and oven safe and is meant to your bring joy to your meal, holiday gathering, or just sitting in front of the T.V. with a bowl of ice cream. Fine Field Pottery makes wonderful gifts for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, retirements and graduations.

Hollingworth Candies - Lockport

Hollingworth Signature toffees and candies are locally handcrafted with the finest and freshest, natural ingredients. Pure ingredients. Pure indulgence. Pure Bliss. Hollingworth Candies has been making its own delightful signature toffee in Lockport for 30 years. It all started with founder Margaret Carlson in the comfort of her own home. She then began selling her tasty treats around the region and now, many years later, have a store front in Lockport, IL. She has now welcomed her daughter Wendy Carver into the business. Their products have expanded to include sea salt caramels, the ever-popular Chesters, caramel apples and other molded chocolates.

Illinois Sparkling Co. - Utica

The Illinois Sparkling Co., located in North Utica, is said to be the ultimate destination for acquiring the fullest appreciation of pop culture. Who knew the relatively inhospitable soil of the Illinois valley would prove key to growing the hardiest grapes required to craft award-winning sparkling wines? Founders Mark Wenzel and his wife, Teri, knew this land, in combination with arduous craftsmanship, would make a superb bottle of bubbly. These tough Midwestern soil conditions also ensured a more resilient stock of local grapes and ultimately a product certain to be the toast of the town.

The sparkling wine-making process is not for the weak of spirit. Mark and Teri spent years perfecting the production of these highly acidic grapes grown in fields just down the road from where Mark’s grandfather, August Engelhaupt, tilled clay-loam soil on the family’s first farm. As fortune would have it, the combination of cold Illinois winters in the region where his grandfather first broke ground, provides the ideal conditions for their white grapes to thrive — conditions every bit as fertile as those found nearly 4,000 miles away in the acclaimed growing regions of Champagne, France.

If you’re looking for a wine with hints of green apple and honey plus a little dash of history, try their extra-dry Blend 786. It’s the same number taken from the submarine, USS Illinois (a vintage of this bubbly that also christened the sub’s launch on October 10, 2015). Or imbibe in their popular Extra Brut, a crisp, gold, Silver Medal-winning sparkler that offers notes of pear and lavender. While you’re at it, pay a visit to their tasting room on Mill Street or sample, to your palate’s content, the finest sparkling wines now gracing the menus of top restaurants and bars across the land, including the world-famous Pops for Champagne in Chicago.

Star Union Spirits - Peru

Star Union Spirits is a craft distillery that manufactures small-batch spirits from locally sourced fruits and grains. Founded by longtime winemaking friends, Bob Windy and Jeff Yosowitz, the distillery has a public tasting room where guests are able to view the entrancing copper still and the wonders of spirit distillation and production. Curious visitors are able to sample Star Union Spirits' delicious hand-crafted spirits along with artisanal cocktails. Star Union Spirits also offers facility tours that illuminate the art of fruit-to-bottle processes, the history of the historic Westclox building and has a museum dedicated to artifacts associated with the history behind our name. Our space also is available for special events.

Starved Rock Hot Glass - Ottawa

Minutes away from Starved Rock State Park, take home an amazing, handcrafted ornament, decoration or piece of art. Starved Rock Hot Glass is a glassblowing studio and gallery in Ottawa, Illinois specializing in original hand-blown art glass, jewelry, and cremation glass. Christmas ornaments, flowers, vases, are more!

Tangled Roots Brewing Company - Ottawa

Tangled Roots Brewing gives back to its community. First by harvesting local flavors from it, then serving it outstanding beers. Not every independent brewery can claim to grow their own hops, but a local harvest is at the heart of Tangled Roots Brewing. Located in Ottawa, a town at the confluence of the Illinois and Fox Rivers, Tangled Roots makes use of the fertile surroundings to plant, cultivate, and harvest their own hand-grown hops and barley just south of the brewery's home base. Led by Louie Rizzo, the team is one of only a few breweries nationwide to grow 100% of their own hops and barley—a fact once commemorated in a special small-batch beer titled “Forty1 Eighty8,” referring to Ottawa's coordinates. As a trophy beer for everything that Tangled Roots stands for, it was a local beer down to its very label.

That fresh-off-the-farm spirit stays true at Tangled Roots' brewpub, The Lone Buffalo. Occupying a massive theater building from the 1800s, the facility repurposes a historic venue for a more modern craft—its rustic decor pairs well with views of working vats and other brewing equipment. Local farms are essential to the food there, too, as The Lone Buffalo stuck up a partnership with Slegel Family Farms (a well-known livestock farmer) and other local produce suppliers to strengthen the bond between the restaurant and region at large.