1 of 2 A computer model of the planned tasting room for Ponfeigh Distillery developed by Wildman Chalmers Design, LLC. Courtesy Photo Using an old whiskey barrel as a table, Max Merrill and staff with First Commonwealth Bank sign on an agreement needed for a $4 million loan for his distillery project. By David Hurst dhurst@tribdem.com SOMERSET â On a wooded edge of his farmland in the years following Prohibition, Max Merrillâs great-grandfather often welcomed railroad barons, mine bosses and Somerset County leaders to his hidden hunting cabin. They came to fish, hunt and, most of all, enjoy the kind of rye whiskey their ancestors made centuries earlier when they settled in Somerset County.