• Michael Gebert
  • Andy Hatch with Rush Creek Reserve at Uplands

Four years ago this fall I was on a cheese junket, a tour of Wisconsin cheesemakers arranged by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board (being so perishable, milk’s only shot at wider markets comes in cheese form). We were at Uplands Cheese Co. near Dodgeville, makers of Pleasant Ridge Reserve, which had just won Best of Show at the American Cheese Society’s annual competition for a record third time. We were offered tastes of it, a wonderful nutty aged Alpine cheese a bit like Gruyere. But there was another cheese ripening then which, despite our best and most shameless efforts, we were not able to convince Mike Gingrich, the owner, or his young cheesemaker Andy Hatch to let us try. It was an attempt at a European-style soft cheese, despite FDA rules which required American cheesemakers to age raw milk cheeses twice as long as their European counterparts typically do. A couple of months later that cheese, Rush Creek Reserve, would hit the market and earn acclaim as one of the best soft cheeses America has produced.

As Wisconsin cheese blogger Jeanne Carpenter put it, “The death of Rush Creek Reserve should act as the canary in the coal mine for all American raw milk artisan cheeses, because just as our great American artisan cheese movement is in serious full swing, the FDA has basically declared a war on raw milk cheese.” I spoke with Hatch about what happened; today we’ll talk about what made Rush Creek Reserve so special as an example of artisanal cheese making in America, and tomorrow we’ll talk about how regulators doomed it—and maybe much of the artisanal cheese movement in this country.

  • Michael Gebert
  • Rush Creek Reserve from Uplands Cheese Co.

What are the characteristics of the cheese?

We sold the first batch of it in 2010 and it was a big hit, as much as a cheese can be in a big country like this. It got a lot of publicity, and pretty quickly it was all gobbled up. Ever since then it’s been pre-allocated, kind of like buying wine futures. We’ve made almost as much as we could in this facility, and we’re still unable to satisfy demand. But it was a style of cheese that a lot of people hadn’t seen before, and it also happens to be sold at a time of year when you feel like you can be indulgent. I mean, it’s a fairly gluttonous experience, to eat one of these cheeses, and it usually takes two or three people. So it’s perfect for late autumn, the holidays, sharing with people.