Rivers Edge Chèvre

Rivers Edge Chèvre’s bloomy rind cheese is a true surface-ripened cheese, like those produced in the French countryside. “Surface-ripened” means the surface mold grows and affects the interior of the cheese. When young, the cheese is smooth and dense; as it ages, it becomes creamy, and at peak ripeness the interior will have the consistency of cream, and be full-flavored, but with no ammonia aroma. Much of the bloomy rind cheese in the U.S. is being made with Geotricum as the “surface mold.” Geotricum does not affect the interior of the cheese. The Geotricum cheeses dry out and get a flinty texture, and have a completely different texture and flavor than our cheese. When the cheese is fully aged, cut the top off the cheese, rather than slicing into it, and use the rind as a ready-made bowl to contain the fully developed cheese inside.

To make our Up In Smoke, we start by wandering through the woods that border the pastures, gathering big-leaf maple and vine maple leaves, often with the company of the goats, who are always curious about what we're doing out in the fields with them. We wash the leaves and smoke them for several hours to dry them out, then we hand-shape our fresh artisanal chèvre into balls and smoke them over the same alder chips. After they've picked up that marvelous autumn aroma, they're ready to be wrapped in the smoked maple leaves, which we've spritzed with a bit of bourbon for flexibility and that additional hint of smoky flavor.