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$60-a-pound cheddar?
I've never claimed to be on the cutting edge of cheese (yuk yuk), so let's admit up front that neither you nor I are shocked that it's taken me a while to finally taste the 15-year cheddar that folks began raving about in 2009.
This year's ultra-vintage cheddar was released by Mineral Point's Hook's Cheese Company at the start on November and I recently got a sample – and a remarkably generous one, too, if you ask me, considering the stuff retails for $60 a pound.
This cheese is worth its weight – and the wait – in gold. Almost literally.
Tony and Julie Hook make nearly three dozen cheeses from Wisconsin milk, but the 15-year cheddar is their bread and butter from a publicity standpoint.
But believe the hype. Their 15-year cheddar – the most mature available – is complex, crumbly and very flavorful, which will come as a revelation to folks used only to supermarket "cheddar."
Why is it $60 a pound? Before I visited Henning's in Kiel this year, I'd have guessed it was more to do with the cost of warehousing cheese for a long time. Silly me.
Thanks to Kert Henning, I learned that cheesemakers set aside some cheese annually for aging. But as time passes, the cheese is tested regularly, because no one really can guarantee how a cheese will age.
But experts like the Hennings and Hooks can tell when a cheese is peaking in quality. If that happens after a year, it is packaged and sold as one-year cheddar. If it happens after three years, they pull it and sell it as three-year. And so on.
But it makes the cheese not only storage-intensive, but also labor intensive. Additionally, the cheese shrinks as it ages, Henning told me. So, it you put aside 100 pounds of cheese today, you won't have 100 pounds in three years and you will have even less in 15 years.
The Hook's clearly have a knack for this process, since no one sells a cheddar older than their 15-year. And, it's not a gimmick. This is damn good cheese and I'm proud to say it's from Wisconsin, naturally.
Wanna try it? It's for sale locally at Wisconsin Cheese Mart Downtown, Larry's Market in Brown Deer and West Allis Cheese.
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