Milk: Cow, Vegetarian Rennet
Country: USA, UT
Accompaniment: Coffee, tea, bolder reds
In 2005 brothers-in-law Tim Welsh and Pat Ford turned their backs on corporate America and struck out on their own by taking over an ailing dairy in Ulintah, Utah. They started the Beehive Cheese Company and never looked back. The dairy gets the milk from local farms that have committed not to use hormones, antibiotics nor chemical fertilizers.
Barely Buzzed, a name resulting from a naming contest, is a cheddar style cheese that is hand-rubbed with a Turkish grind of dark-roasted coffees with ground lavender seeds thrown in for good measure. The mixture is then brought to a liquid by adding some olive oil.
The resulting cheese is smooth in texture, nutty in flavor with quite distinct notes of butterscotch and caramel.