Happy Thursday, Buncombe County!
💡 Buncombe Fact: The Buncombe Turnpike, built between 1824 and 1828, ran 75 miles from the South Carolina line to the Tennessee line, through Asheville and along the French Broad River. In 1849 a traveler named William A. Lenoir wrote that he spent the night at an inn south of Asheville with 5,000 hogs and seventy-five people.
In today’s edition:
A cheese festival takes over a Black Mountain distillery
A family-friendly haunted trail that feeds neighbors
Two-step lessons in a Fairview barn
Hayrides and a horse show at Black Mountain Home
Artists open their studios in Kenilworth
Tonight at the Grey Eagle, and sidewalks for Swannanoa
The potters on Weaverville’s Main Street
Let’s get to it.
— Sean Kolina
🧀 A Cheese Festival at a Black Mountain Distillery
The Carolina Mountain Cheese Festival fills the grounds of Oak and Grist Distilling in Black Mountain on Sunday, and it is a fundraiser for the WNC Cheese Trail, the nonprofit that promotes the region’s artisan cheesemakers. The makers themselves are the draw. The organizers list Looking Glass Creamery, Blue Goat Dairy, Boxcarr Handmade Cheese, French Broad Creamery and Meadow Creek Dairy among the creameries attending, plus winemakers and specialty food vendors. Meet the people behind the cheese, sample as you go, and buy plenty to take home.
Tickets are tiered by entry time, and the earliest levels are already sold out. As of Wednesday morning the 1pm level had only a dozen tickets left, while the 2:30pm level still had plenty. Online sales close Friday at 10pm, and the organizers say tickets will also be sold at the door, including $5 tickets from 4 to 5pm with shorter supplies and longer lines. Everyone ten and older needs a ticket, and pets are not allowed other than service animals. It runs rain or shine.
📍 Where: Oak and Grist Distilling Co., 1556 Grovestone Rd., Black Mountain
📅 When: Sunday, October 11th | 1pm – 5pm
💲 Price: $35 for 1pm entry, $20 for 2:30pm entry (plus a $1 online fee) | $5 at the door, 4pm – 5pm | Ages 9 and under do not need a ticket
🎃 A Family-Friendly Haunted Trail for MANNA
The 14th annual Haunted Trail from Asheville Plays opens its run Friday at the Adventure Center of Asheville, and it is built for families with kids. The organizers describe a live trail with more than fifty actors, kept spooky and quirky rather than gory, and recommend it for ages 3 to 12. Around it you will find pirates and an escape room, a glow zone, monster-sized games, a Lil’ Ghouls play area, and a festival tent with local vendors, pizza and drinks for the grown-ups. Friday nights add live music from the Asheville Rock Academy Kids Band.
The trail has raised more than 100,000 meals for MANNA FoodBank in five years, and that partnership continues this season. Online tickets stop at 6pm each night, and the door sells until 8:45. The Adventure Center’s glowing aerial courses are a separate combo ticket for ages four and up.
📍 Where: Adventure Center of Asheville, 85 Expo Dr., Asheville
📅 When: Friday, October 9th – Saturday, October 10th | 6pm – 9pm
💲 Price: $20 | 3 and under free
🤠 Two-Step Lessons in a Fairview Barn
Hickory Nut Gap Farm holds its October Barn Dance on Saturday with Fancy and the Gentlemen, a honky tonk band the farm describes as bringing a southern gothic vibe, with storytelling and wailing vocals. A two-step instructor will be on hand to show folks the moves before the dancing gets going.
The farm runs a bar with local beers and non-alcoholic drinks, and Silly Willies Food Trailer is griddling the farm’s hot dogs. There are picnic tables, benches and patio sets, but the farm suggests bringing a backup folding chair or picnic blanket because it can get packed. Buy online and you go on the will-call list, checked in at the Cabana. Four-legged friends have to stay home.
📍 Where: Hickory Nut Gap Farm, 57 Sugar Hollow Rd., Fairview
📅 When: Saturday, October 10th | Food 5pm – 8pm, music 6pm – 9pm
💲 Price: $12 per person | 5 and under free | Season passes available
🍂 Hayrides and a Horse Show at Black Mountain Home
Black Mountain Home for Children opens its Lake Eden campus for a free Fall Festival and Open House on Saturday. The day includes festival games and bounce houses, the Ridin’ on Faith Horse Show, live entertainment, a car show, hayrides, cottage tours and a silent auction with online bidding.
It is also a chance to walk the campus and learn about the Home’s ministry to children, youth and families. Rain is possible, so dress for it.
📍 Where: Black Mountain Home for Children, 80 Lake Eden Rd., Black Mountain
📅 When: Saturday, October 10th | 10am – 3pm
💲 Price: Free
🎨 Visit Artists in Their Kenilworth Studios
The Kenilworth Artists Association’s annual Studio Tour is self-guided, and the studios are the artists’ own welcoming homes in Asheville’s historic Kenilworth neighborhood, where bending streets and odd intersections have shaped an artistic community of real range. Come ready to love the work, and bring some home: you buy original pieces straight from the people who made them.
The association publishes a printable map of the stops on its tour site, so grab it before you go and plan a route through the neighborhood.
📍 Where: Kenilworth neighborhood, Asheville | Map on the tour site
📅 When: Saturday, October 10th – Sunday, October 11th | 10am – 5pm
💲 Price: Free to visit | Prices vary by artist
Around the County
Buncombe is a lot bigger than downtown, so this is where the rest of it lives.
🌳 Tonight at the Grey Eagle. Fruition plays the Music Hall with doors at 7 and the show at 8, all ages, with tickets at $27.86. Tomorrow night The Mother Hips play with Sounding Arrow, same times, at $27.66. Fruition tickets | Mother Hips tickets
🌳 The Swannanoa Market is back Saturday. The Swannanoa Resilience Hub hosts it from 10am to 1pm with fresh food, local makers and live music, plus a sponsor-supported SNAP and EBT token program. The market’s page lists only two 2026 dates, September 12 and this Saturday. Market details
🌳 Swannanoa sidewalks get state grants. Two state Small Business Infrastructure grants, a Helene recovery program, total $1.76 million: $979,069 for sidewalk work on Whitson Avenue and $786,291 for Railroad, Alexander and South streets. The N.C. Department of Transportation will manage construction on both projects. Read more
🌳 A coffee porter with a Black Mountain connection. Highland Brewing’s seasonal Thunderstruck Coffee Porter is brewed with coffee from Dynamite Roasting Co. in Black Mountain, and it is on tap through February. Read more
One to Know
A quick one every Thursday. Our full small business features run on Tuesdays, so think of this as the short version, and it is never paid and never sponsored.
🏺 Mangum Pottery, Weaverville
Rob and Beth Mangum come from a family of potters, and their studio and gallery sits on Main Street in Weaverville, about seven miles up I-26 from Asheville. It is set up so you can watch the artisans work the clay and see the glazing and firing process, then browse the finished pieces in the showroom. The shop sells bowls, mugs and cups, dinnerware and home decor, and the site is currently showing new songbird sculptures and a new Primavera glaze for the dinnerware.
The shop is open Monday through Friday from 9 to 5 and Saturday from 10 to 4 at 16 N. Main St. Call 828-645-4929 if you want to check before you drive up.
📣 Know a business that belongs here? Hit reply with a name and we'll check them out!
Other fun notes…
😋 Weekly Appalachian inspired recipe: West Virginia Soup Beans and Cast-Iron Cornbread — a slow-simmered pot of pinto beans with smoked ham hocks, served with jalapeño cornbread, and a good supper for the first cold snap. It serves six.
🎵 Who we are listening to: Fruition - Wild As The Night — the title track from the band’s release of the same name, and Fruition plays the Grey Eagle tonight.
💛 Local Nonprofits. Appalachian Community Relief — a free, client-choice grocery store in Black Mountain, open Thursdays and Fridays from 10 to 6 and Saturdays from 10 to 2.
🙏 Positive News Around the Globe: Lulingu, a gorilla rescued from the wildlife trade as an infant and rewilded after a program of more than five years, has given birth in Virunga National Park. Read Article
✨ Cheese in the afternoon, a haunted trail after dark, and a barn full of neighbors learning the two-step. Here's to a weekend with a little of everything.
🗳️ One quick question, and it genuinely shapes what goes in here:
What is the one fall food you can't skip in Buncombe County?
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