Barely Buzzed, Not Actually a Reference to Alcohol

Every now and then you hear about a cheese that sounds, well, gimmicky. Like a little too much work went into the concept phase and not enough into the actual making of the cheese itself. I would say that this trend, especially as it applied to Cheddars such as today's piece, began with the adding of all manner of spices and other sundry bits to what's basically an English Cheddar and calling it things like Cotswold. Don't get me wrong, Cotswold is great stuff and one of the tastier snacking cheeses out there, but many of these cheeses, especially from her Majesty's territories, suffer from being too much added nonsense and not enough good honest cheese to start out with. This will not do.
With that foreboding introduction let us look at Barely Buzzed, a Cheddar from interior of the US that incorporates ingredients from as far away as Turkey and France. I think. It is made in Utah and rubbed down with a mixture of Turkish coffee grounds and French lavender buds, giving this otherwise normal recipe cheddar a whole new spin. But is it good?

Origin: Utah, USA

Milk: Cow, pasteurized

Rennet: Vegetable

Affinage: It's a young cheddar, in the 6 month range I'd say.

Notes: Aged on Utah Blue Spruce aging racks. When I get around to making and aging cheese I'm going to either age it on something really pretentious or really ridiculous, not sure which yet. I'm thinking either boards ripped loose from the ballroom floor of the Titanic or Legos.

Thoughts: Not surprisingly, the flavor the coffee and the lavender gives the flavor of the cheddar a run for its money. The cheddar, by itself not particularly strong or sharp, comes through only just barely alongside the thick coating of espresso and lavender. The taste is unlike anything else and almost belongs to a different category altogether, but is savory and peculiar enough to keep you coming back. My complaint here is that there just isn't a whole lot going on flavor-wise to catch my interest apart from the obvious coating, which is never going to be enough to prop up a cheese by itself. Give me a strong or memorable flavored cheddar and then coat it with this or that or the other but not before. It is a great party piece, it is an interesting excercise in flavor combination possibilities within a single cheese, it is not even a bad cheese, it's just so much less than it could be. 

Caution

If something seems too good to be true, it just may be. The Prince from Nigeria only wants your money, you're not actually the 1,000,000th visitor to the site, your friends on Facebook did not actually get a free iPad 2 just for completing a survey, and not all that sounds funky on a cheese label is gold. 

I feel like that one got away from me at the end there...