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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Cheese. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
A software developer and a real estate agent seem like unlikely candidates for creating handcrafted gourmet cheese, but that is exactly what happened in 2005. Brothers-in-law Tim Welsh and Pat Ford traded in their fast-paced lifestyles to churn milk into award-winning, artisan style cheeses.
In the past three years, Beehive Cheese Co. has won a number of awards – including the top three places at the American Cheese Society Competition in the summer of 2008. The Beehive Cheese Company has also won best of state in their home state of Utah, and has been featured on The Food Network. Very few cheese companies in the country still produce all of their cheese by hand, but the Beehive Cheese Company is one of them.
We decided to try their most popular product online, the Box-O-Cheese for $55. We were sent a sampling of their top-selling cheeses:
- Barely Buzzed – Espresso and Lavender Rubbed – This cheese is extremely complex, hand-rubbed with a blend of coffee and lavender buds, then aged on Blue Spruce racks so the cheese is infused with a variety of unique flavors.
- Promontory Cheddar – Aged for at least 8 months, this cheese is created with whole Jersey cow’s milk and leaves a sharp taste in your mouth. We loved this cheese with pasta.
- Promontory Smoked with English Walnut Shells and Apples – Here, the Promontory Cheddar is smoked with walnut shells and apple slices, giving it a smoky fall flavor.
- Uintah Jack – This jack cheese is named after the town that the Beehive Cheese Company calls home, and is aged at least 12 months to create a snappy addition to your favorite Mexican dish. We loved it in Chicken Quesadillas.
- Promontory with Habanero – This cheese was my husband’s favorite. The cheddar is infused with habanero flakes, making it a hot and spicy treat.
- Squeaky Bee Curds – The boys loved these cheese curds, they were a perfect after-school snack!
- Squeaky Bee Curds with Flavor – We received the Habanero curds (selections include Habanero, Rosemary, Cajun and Dill), so they were left for my husband, who enjoyed them with crackers and a tall glass of milk.
After trying this cheese sampler, we have found it hard to go back to standard grocery store cheeses. Our tastes became accustomed to these high quality selections, so we will be ordering this sampler box again – and very soon!