Rustling Wind Creamery tour...

..it took all of about 12 minutes, but me and Sa went on a motorcycle ride over to Falls Village and hit up Rustling Wind Creamery for the tour and a block of cheese. We ended up talking for a while with the woman who owns and runs the place, who also happens to be the head cheese maker. It's kind of a one woman show, I think. Here's what we found in the fridge that followed us home:

I just cut off a very small piece to try while watching Gary Vey-ner-chuck on Wine Library TV's artisan cheese segment. Consider me blown away. I've never had raw cows milk cheese before, but this is the duke! This cheese so TOTALLY captures the real, well.. for lack of a better word, rawness of the milk this animal made. It's *so* pungent, and huge in taste. It takes but a 1/2 centimeter square cube to really get a big punch in the face flavor that lasts well over 5 minutes. This is really an eye opener for someone just stepping foot in the cheese making area. Very exciting!

In somewhat related news, I just found a place yesterday (a dairy, of course..) that sells raw cows milk, Holsteins in fact, to the public in a timely fashion and at a decent price. And weirdly, it's open 24hrs a day.. cause it's 'honor system' style stuff, I can swing by after my evening shift of work and bring a couple gallons home for cheese making on the weekend.. sweet! The pieces are falling into place, I can see it now.

In brewing news, I just scored a fitting from McMaster Carr last night that's gonna enable me to yet again fine tune the brewery to bring it to the next level. This is evolutionary, but it's going to really make for an ease of use model that will be hard to top. Brew partners, stand by.. you're gonna love this thing!