As you already know, Vermont is famous for many things: from the autumn leaves to the snowy peaks, from Ben & Jerry’s to maple syrup, it’s simply the greatest state in the Union. Visit Vermont and you will find your taste buds singing the delightful praise of culinary rigor mixed with Grandma’s comfort food.
We all know, however, that there are two things that improve any gustatory experience: bacon and cheese. Add bacon to a WhistlePig cocktail and you’ve got a breakfast fit for champions. Add cheese to a WhistlePig cocktail and, well, we actually wouldn’t recommend it.
That said, we’ve put our taste buds to good measure combining four magnificent local cheeses with our 10 Year whiskey. If you’re lucky enough to find yourself on the Vermont Cheese Trail we highly recommend visiting these dairy farms, otherwise you’ll be hard-pressed to locate these delectable bites outside our home state.
Cobb Hill, Ascutney Mountain
One of the most delicate and subtle of the cheeses we recommend pairing with our 10 Year Straight Rye Whiskey, Cobb Hill‘s Ascutney Mountain is a delicious testament to small farm production. It is an alpine-style natural rind cheese developed from a Swiss Appenzeller recipe. Aged 7-8 months, it is the oldest of the cheeses we list here.
From their website, “Cobb Hill is an intentional co-housing community comprised of people learning to live lightly on the earth and building community among ourselves and with our Hartland neighbors. The intention of sustainability underlies the living, farming, land stewardship, learning and teaching activities across all components of the community. We bought the 260 acre farm and forest in 1997. By 2002 we completed construction of 23 homes.”
Jasper Hill Farm Bayley Hazen Blue
In our experience, you either love blue cheese your you hate it. The benefit being, if you surround yourself with friends who hate it, you’ll have more Bayley Hazen Blue all to yourself.
This cheese is a Jasper Hill Farm original made from high-quality whole raw milk and named for an old military road commissioned by George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Though no battle ever took place, the road brought Greensboro its first settlers and continues to be used today.
Jasper Hill Farm is similar to WhistlePig in that they take leftover whey from the cheesemaking process and feed it to heritage breed pigs. Our own heritage Mangalitsa and Kunekune pigs might even get a little jealous.
From their website, “Bayley has developed a loyal following because of its fudge-like texture, toasted-nut sweetness, and anise spice character. The paste is dense and creamy, with well-distributed blue veins. The usual peppery character of blue cheese is subdued, giving way to the grassy, nutty flavors in the milk.”
Paired with our 10 Year Straight Rye, the pepper notes in both really come to the front. Instead of highlighting the sweetness of our rye, this cheese emphasizes the spice, giving a kick to any cheese lover’s palate.
Twig Farm Crawford
Although the label of this cheese simply says “Cow”, its official name comes from Scapeland Farm (or Crawford Family Farm) in Whiting, VT, only 7 miles from our property. It’s made from raw cow’s milk and aged for about 75 days, but you’ve got to be lucky to find it since it’s only produced in the winter months.
Most of the cheeses from Twig Farm are goat’s cheeses, and they treat their 50+ herd like valued employees. Goat cheese is one of the oldest known dairy products, with evidence suggesting its emergence at 7,000 BC (although we doubt Twig Farm has been around quite that long).
This wheel has a very powerful rind, but the cheese itself is silky and almost buttery, pairing extraordinarily well with our 10 Year. It’s bolder than the Crottina, and hits the sides of the tongue while our whiskey cascades down the middle. Truly an enjoyable experience.
Blue Ledge Farm Crottina
From their website, Blue Ledge Farm “began as a dream in Florence, Italy where Greg and Hannah met while studying the art and culture of Europe. In 2000, at the tender age of 23, the two began the work of transforming an old cow dairy farm back into production with goats.”
They began milking four goats at Blue Ledge Farm in 2000, and began processing cheese two years later. Today they milk over one hundred goats and produce eleven types of cheese, from very fresh to semi-aged bloomy rind cheeses, to harder cheeses aged three months. True to their mission, their focus is always on sustaining a high-quality, consistent product with lots of attention and gentle handling.
The goat’s milk Crottina is “the cheese that ‘put us on the map’ when it took a first place award in the American Cheese Society competition in 2006.” It is aged for three weeks, has a velvety, smooth texture, and a white mold exterior. It pairs well with white wine and honey, and when enjoyed with WhistlePig 10 Year it brings out the sweet caramel notes of the whiskey. A smooth cheese for a smooth whiskey, it’s definitely something to look out for.
