This Week's Tasting: May 30, 2017

Every week at Dairymaids we select six cheeses to include in our free cheese tasting. Whenever we are open, we are tasting cheese. We stock over 150 cheeses, so if these 6 don’t please you, we will find you the cheeses that do.

A Dairymaid favorite, Red Hawk won 2nd Place Best in Show at the American Cheese Society Awards in 2009. Made with organic milk at the Cowgirl Creamery in California, Red Hawk is a big, beefy washed rind with a lovely sweet buttermilk finish. As it ripens, it softens near the rind to a tongue-coating creaminess.

From Baetje Farm in Missouri, Bloomsdale is inspired by the traditional French cheese Valencay. Like Valnecay, Bloomsdale is a ripened goat's milk cheese dusted with ash and shaped like a pyramid with a flattened top. The Baetje's named it for their town, Bloomsdale.

15 Fields comes from a farmstead dairy in County Waterford, Ireland. The name refers to the 15 paddocks where the cows graze on fresh green grass. The Lonergan family only makes cheese from April to October, when the cows are grazing. Aged by Sheridan's Cheesemongers for over 8 months, the flavor is bright and grassy with meaty notes. 

Drunken Monk, from the Eagle Mountain Cheese in Lipan, Texas, is a small Trappist-style round that is washed in a brine solution. The soluntion is spiked with "Rumble" from Balcones Distillery in Waco, Texas which is crafted from fermented Texas wildflower honey, mission figs and turbinado sugar, it is twice distilled in traditional copper pots then artfully matured in premium oak casks. The key to Drunken Monk's delicious flavor and creamy texture is the high qualtiy Swiss Brown cow's milk the Eagles use to make it.

Husband and wife, Juan Carlos and Maria Carmen make Quesuco Ahumado, a smoked cow’s milk cheese, in the Picos de Europa in Cantabria, a famous cheesemaking region of Spain. The small wheels of Quesuco are smoked for 24-36 hours on juniper wood,which gives  a wonderfully subtle smoky flavor to the buttery, smooth cheese. 

Rogue Creamery started making Oregon Blue on the west coast over half a century ago. Made with cow's milk and cave-aged for over 90 days, Oregon Blue has a firm but buttery paste with veins of mellow, earthy blue mold throughout. Its flavor is clean and briny with notes of sweet cream.

Our wine of the week is the Mathilde Chapoutier Rosé from France.

Our pairing of the week are Effie's Homemade Oatcakes from Boston, Massachusetts.