Scotch whisky is every bit as diverse, intricate, and nuanced as cheese, so it helps to know which whiskies go best with which cheeses. With that in mind, we partnered up with our pals at The Macallan to put together this definitive guide for pairing their whiskies with the best possible cheesy companions. Without further ado, we present The Macallan Whisky & Cheese Pairing Guide:

Triple Cask Matured 12 Years Old

Nose: Complex with a hint of fruit and heather honey
Taste: Soft and malty, balanced with oak and fruit
The Perfect Pair: An extra aged gouda, such as Roomano
Here’s why: Triple Cask Matured 12 Years Old’s unique and complex honey sweetness enhances the caramel and toffee notes for which this cheese is so beloved.
Also pairs well with:
– A classic Comté , such as Murray’s Comté
– A creamy cheddar, such as Milton Creamery Prairie Breeze

Double Cask 12 Years Old

Nose:  Creamy butterscotch, candied orange, vanilla custard
Taste:  Honey, spices, and citrus, balanced with raisins and caramel
The Perfect Pair: A young manchego, such as Murray’s Young Manchego
Here’s why:  This sheep’s milk cheese is rich yet mellow, cutting through the citrus and spice notes within Double Cask 12 Years Old while enhancing the notes of honey and vanilla custard.
Also pairs well with:
– A French sheep’s milk cheese, such as Brebis du Haut-Bearn
– An earthy, truffled pecorino, such as Murray’s Pecorino Tartufello

Sherry Oak 12 Years Old

Nose:  Vanilla with a hint of ginger and dried fruits
Taste:  Smooth, rich dried fruits and sherry, balanced with wood smoke and spice
The Perfect Pair: An aged Alpine Gruyère, such as Murray’s Cave Aged Gruyère
Here’s why:  Alpine cheese typically leads with hints of caramelized onion, roasted garlic, and sweet, nutty notes. These flavors pair particularly well with the mellow wood smoke and dried fruit notes in Sherry Oak 12 Years Old.
Also pairs well with:
– An American Alpine-style cheese, such as Jasper Hill Farm Alpha Tolman
– A Swiss Alpine-style cheese, such as Annelies or Challerhocker

Triple Cask Matured 15 Years Old

Nose:  Full with hints of rose petal and cinnamon
Taste:  Intense rich chocolate, notes of orange and raisin
The Perfect Pair: A mellow blue cheese, such as Castello Traditional Danish Blue
Here’s why:  The salty, buttery flavors found in this blue cheese provide a refined contrast to the Triple Cask 15 Years Old’s floral and citrusy notes. It’s a perfect example of opposites attracting.
Also pairs well with:
– A Bavarian blue, such as Chiriboga Blue
– A buttery blue, such as Jasper Hill Farm Bayley Hazen Blue

Rare Cask

Nose:  Vanilla, raisins, and chocolate, followed by citrus fruits and spices
Taste:  Nutty spices, tempered by raisin and citrus
The Perfect Pair: A rich Camembert, such as Murray’s Camembert Fermier
Here’s why:  This funky, bloomy-rinded cheese has sweet, floral notes that bring out the Rare Cask’s qualities of maple syrup and candied nuts. The vanilla and citrus in the Rare Cask also help to cut through the cheese’s richness.
Also pairs well with:
– A woodsy, creamy bloomy rind, such as Jasper Hill Farms Harbison
– A soft-ripened triple creme, such as buttery blue, such as Delice de Bourgogne

And just like that, you’re ready for a fine dram and its perfect partner in cheesy refinement. In terms of the best way to enjoy your Scotch: you’ll get the most out of it by sipping on it at room temperature either neat or with a drop or two of water. Ice will chill the spirit, locking up both its taste and its aroma. A tiny bit of water can act to release new properties in the whisky, but a little bit goes a long way. With stuff of this quality, its best to appreciate it in its purest form.

Slàinte mhath.

Recently, we were approached with the suggestion of a type of cheese we’d never heard of before: Night Cheese. No, it doesn’t come from an obscure Vermont farm where the goats are only milked at beneath the moonlight, nor is it cheese that’s black as the midnight sky (although we do sell such cheeses, like this and this). No, as far as we know, Night Cheese comes from everyone’s favorite mid-to-late 2000’s NBC show, 30 Rock. “Working on my Night Cheese!” Liz Lemon sings, alone, to herself, in what looks like a Snuggy™ (did we mention this was the late 2000’s?). We’d link to the clip, but the GIF below basically sums it up:

Why such a long-winded discussion of a 2 second moment from a show that hasn’t been on TV in years? Like most people, we don’t think about Night Cheese often, if at all, but then we were approached by Carey Polis, the Digital Director at the food publication/juggernaut Bon Appetit, who wanted to do a class about Night Cheese.

The obvious question we had for her was just what the hell Night Cheese was. The answer was surprisingly simple: Night Cheese is that cheese you pull out at the end of a long day to pair with Netflix and your favorite beverage. No fuss, all deliciousness. We were sold, and set up a class to explore the deepest reaches of what Night Cheese is and what it can be. Here is just some of what we enjoyed that night. The photos are sized for a phone screen, as they came from our popular Cheese 101 Instagram Stories (if you haven’t already, throw us a follow!) :

First up was Murray’s La Tur, a creamy, luscious cheese that is so delicious, it’s easy to lose track of how much you’re enjoying. Luckily it’s nighttime, you’re alone(ish), and judgment over amount of cheese consumed means absolutely nothing. The caption says it all—this is cheese meant to be eaten far past its serving size.

Later on, we tried the cornerstone of the Night Cheese pantheon: Boursin. Because we’re human beings, we love Boursin in all its herby, garlicky, spreadable glory. However, we don’t sell it. Our executive chef, David Elkins, whipped up this homemade Boursin just for the class and it was even better than the original. We aren’t selling his creation, but we DO sell a spreadable cheese that hits all those Bourin-y flavors you’re looking for, and it happens to be one of our favorite snacking cheeses (read: Night Cheeses) right now: Meredith Dairy’s Marinated Feta.

In addition to cheese nicely laid out on our boards for tasting, we also had a wheel of Jasper Hill’s Harbison on each table accompanied by potato chips, because you can’t talk lovable cheeses without Harbison, which literally comes in its own bowl, and can be warmed up to make a single serving fondue (we know, it’s a life-changing move).

Night Cheese is now a permanent part of our lives, thanks to Carey, and we’re proud to have devoted a night to it. If you want to drink and eat delicious cheese, or love the idea of learning about cheese, check out our upcoming class schedule here, and be sure to follow us on Instagram for more glimpses into future classes!

 

Editor’s note: A few weeks ago, we posted about our recent visit to Consider Bardwell Farm in West Pawlet, Vermont. After our visit, we made our way north to Greensboro, home of Jasper Hill Farm. We were going to do a write up on that too, but a young lady at Jasper Hill asked if we’d post something she wrote. So instead, we will be featuring her as a guest blogger. Her post is below.

Hello.

My name is Maple, and I like you. A lot. Please pet me.

I am, how do you humans say? Ah yes, The Best. And the prettiest. And the humblest too. Also, I am very young. Just six months! It’s so lovely to be young and pretty, isn’t it? It can easily go to your head. At least I’d imagine. I’m too humble for that. Tee hee!

I am the first heifer to be raised at Jasper Hill. It’s a great place to grow up! If you’d allow, I would like to give you a tour of my home.

Great!

This is where I live:

Beautiful, no? I spend most of my time hanging out in the open space between the two barns. Well, it’s much more than just hanging out; I suppose I was being humble again. Really I spend most of my time in that open space studying. I want to learn to make the best cheese possible, and I take my duties very seriously. And I’d probably be much more productive if I didn’t share the space with a pair of frenetic goats. There’s always kidding around. That was a pun. They are teaching me a little how to joke. Ha ha!

Most of my mentors live in the blue barn. My goal is to one day grow up to provide milk as rich and flavorful as theirs. And I tell ya, the folks at Jasper are doing a real good job turning it into incredible cheese. Just look at what’s happening in their caves!

 

Such wonder in those cellars! That’s Bayley Hazen right when it’s pierced, and then as it’s getting its blue on. And then stacks on stacks of Cabot Clothbound Cheddar. And finally, my pal Joe wrapping green Harbisons in spruce cambium. When you walk into his cellar, there’s soothing folk music bouncing off the walls, with the most pleasing acoustics. I certainly do not take for granted that I get to live at one of the most state-of-the-art, innovative, standard bearing artisanal cheese facilities in the whole country. I’m a real lucky duck. Joking again! As you know, I’m actually a cow.

At the very end of January, some humans from Murray’s came up to visit. They were tasting through all that Cabot Clothbound, selecting the batches that they want to sell. One of the things I’ve learned in my studies is that we here at Jasper actually have four distinct flavor profiles for our Cabot Clothbound. For example, one profile is Umami & Roasted, and it has a spidergraph that looks like this:

You can, in fact, read all about those flavor profiles here.

Murray’s, however, hand-selects their own wheels, not based on our profiles but rather on their own. They look for a deep, caramelized, almost candied sweetness. And they come up to the farm every quarter to do just that. Which is exciting for me, because everyone who visited was so great! Especially the copywriter, who is so cool and fun and has toned muscles.

I’d love to tell you more, but I want to hit the books some more before the sun goes down. Better get a moo’ve on. Ha ha! I had a lot of fun writing this letter to all you fine people and hope to get invited to do another one soon. Thanks for reading!

Curdiously,
Maple

Bloomberg seems to think that Camembert is going extinct – not if we can help it! While it’s all but impossible to find a raw wheel of French Camembert here in the United States, Murray’s has your back. We’re glad Bloomberg mentioned our Murray’s Camembert – pasteurized but just as delicious as the French fave from across the Atlantic.

Domino is worried about a Camembert shortage as well. Luckily, our expert cheesemongers were there to help the Camembert-lovers to some great alternative cheeses to get their fix. From Bries to Harbison and American Camembert’s, we’ve got a cheese to fix your Camembert-craving!

Want to learn more about Camembert, its history, and the best ways to enjoy it? You can find out a little bit more in our Camembert feature!

“When you think of French cheeses, we wouldn’t be surprised if your mind immediately went to Brie. It is, after all, one of the oldest cheeses to survive over the years and make it onto your cheese plate. But if we’re being honest, we’re enamored with Brie’s younger brother – a farmhouse Frenchie with the earthiness and toastiness that we love in a spreadable French cheese: Camembert!”

We aren’t afraid to say it: we love the stinky stuff. The stinkier the better! But, how does a cheese get it’s funk? Well Matt Spiegler from Cheese Notes, one of the best cheese blogs out there, gives us the run-down on how these stinkers are made in this month’s Edible Brooklyn.

Matt brings up one of the most important factors in making a stinky cheese, the washing of the curd in booze. This is what gives this family of cheese its name — Washed Rind. Wheels of cheese are washed in many different styles of alcohol, ranging from beer and wine, to even absinthe and cider. While this does not necessarily impart the flavor profile of the booze, it does have some interesting effects on the rind of a cheese. It introduces a new set of bacteria and yeasts. As Matt explains:

The best known are the Brevibacterium linens, which impart red and orange hues and distinctive aromas — meaty, wet grass, broth, barnyard, even “gym sock” — to prized washed-rind cheeses like nose-searing Époisses or funky, custardy Taleggio. But not all washed rind cheeses are “stinky”; some range toward fruity, floral, pleasantly sour and yeasty; others might not even read as “washed” at first taste, so subtle is the influence.

Matt calls out some of his all-time favorite American washed rinds, and Murray’s was lucky enough to get a shout-out for our Cavemaster Reserve Greensward (pictured above)! This cheese starts its life as Harbison from Jasper Hill Farm, but comes to us very young, where we bathe it in booze and develop its orange rind. Matt describes Greensward as “rich, milky and meaty, with bacon and caramelized onion notes and a distinctly woodsy infusion from its time in the bark belt.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.