Havilah: New Jersey’s Award-Winning Answer to Alpine-Style Cheese

In this episode, we dive into Havilah, an award-winning Alpine-style cheese from New Jersey made by Cherry Grove Farm. Crafted from raw, pasture-based Jersey cow’s milk, Havilah reflects the seasonality, terroir, and careful cheesemaking that have earned it national and international recognition, including wins at the World Cheese Awards.

You’ll hear a full tasting breakdown—bright citrus and pineapple, toasted nuts, savory roast notes, and a caramel-like finish—along with pairing ideas ranging from wine and beer to cocktails and non-alcoholic options.

I also share personal anecdotes from my time working with Cherry Grove, offering behind-the-scenes insight into the farm, the milk, and what makes this cheese so distinctive. Whether you’re a cheese professional, food lover, or just curious about American artisan cheese, this episode is a deep, delicious look at one of New Jersey’s true standouts.

🧀 Cherry Grove Farm – Official Sources
https://www.cherrygrovefarm.com/
https://www.cherrygrovefarm.com/shop-all/p/havilah
https://www.cherrygrovefarm.com/our-farmstead-cheeses

Other
Floral Fromage – Cherry Grove Farm Havilah listing:
https://www.floralfromage.com/product-page/cherry-grove-farm-havilah
Edible Jersey – Cherry Grove Farm feature / holiday cheese boards:
https://ediblejersey.ediblecommunities.com/shop/shop-fresh-cheese-cherry-grove-farm-lawrenceville/

NJ Cheese Guild: https://www.njcheeseguild.org/

Pairings
https://www.karmakrackers.com/product/obsessed-onion/
hhttps://spread-mmms.com/

🏆 Awards Referenced
World Cheese Awards (general site):
https://worldcheeseawards.com/
Good Food Foundation (Good Food Awards):
https://goodfoodfdn.org/
American Cheese Society Awards:
https://www.cheesesociety.org/awards/

Transcript

Hi cheese friends, welcome back to Curd is the Word, the podcast where I break down fancy cheese for not so fancy people. I'm your host, Brittany, and today we are talking about a cheese that's incredibly near and dear to my heart. Havilah from Cherry Grove Farm in Lawrenceville, new Jersey. As many of you may know or may not know, I actually got my start in the cheese industry at Cherry Grove Farm. So this cheese is very special to me. We're going to talk about it. We're going to pair it. And I'm also going to slip in a couple of anecdotes from my time spent on Cherry Grove Farm. It all started back in twenty twenty two, when I noticed a job for a different dairy farm in new Jersey. I think the job was titled like Cheese Operations Specialist, and I had just begun, you know, my journey into cheese and didn't know what I wanted to do. And I applied for this job. I wrote them this email saying, hi, my name is Brittany. I'm looking to leave corporate America. I love cheese, I love animals, I just want to help out and work and got rejected right away. So as I was telling my hairdresser this story, she looked at me and said, but aren't there other dairy farms in new Jersey? And I swear, this thought never even crossed my mind. I put so much effort into this email I sent to them that it was literally just like one track. I had to work at this dairy farm or bust. And with her tidbit of advice, I started googling all the dairy farms in new Jersey and just emailing them. Hi, my name is Brittany. I'm willing to do whatever. I just want to work with cheese. I want to work on a farm. It's not my usual M.O. I have no experience and kind of like wet pasta. I just threw them all to a wall and Cherry Grove was the one that stuck. They completely took me under their wing. I did so many random odd jobs for them. I made cheese, I organized their office, I taught mozzarella, making classes. I ran a couple farmers markets for them. I swapped out the water for the baby cows. I fed the goats. I mean, I really I just was so happy to be on a farm after so many years of sitting behind a desk that it was truly, truly life changing. So now that you know why Cherry Grove has such a soft spot in my heart, let's get into Havilah. Havilah is Cherry Grove's alpine style raw cow's milk cheese. The cows are grass fed. They're all living on the pasture on the farm in Lawrenceville, and it's deeply tied to each season. So they only make this cheese from May to October, when the cows are eating the summer, spring and summer pasture, which also contributes to its very yellow color, as we can see. Look at that. She's gorgeous. Couple of tyrosine crystals in there too. Actually, when the cows are done milking for the year, they have an annual cow parade where they bring the cows down from the farms and they get to wear these beautiful flower necklaces. And if this is sounding somewhat familiar to my Ossau   Iraty episode, guess what? You're absolutely right. These cows get a break because of this time frame. When it comes to making the cheese, this cheese is a specific representation of the land itself. And yes, ha ha. There's more to new Jersey than just mafia and bagels. In fact, every season we sometimes get a slight variant of the cheese. And I remember when I was, you know, I think coming back from a farmer's market or just happened to be there one Friday afternoon, we decided to taste one of the wheels of Havilah at the time and kind of go around in a circle and say a couple of words as to what the cheese tasted like. And I'm telling you, I was very, very new in the cheese world. And people were saying things like pineapple toasted nuts. And I was just kind of like, I don't know, this just tastes like really good cheese to me. Also, like, you know, you've only given me one small piece, so where's the rest of it? And this was my first experience ever where someone actually took, uh, a t ion into the wheel, turned it, pulled it out, and then covered it back up, which is something that happens to cheese while it's aging. So you can make sure the cheese is on the right trajectory to become what it needs to become. And I just I was just absorbing it all. I was taking it all in. And I just remember hearing all these words and these flavors. No idea that I was going to end up with a podcast where I talk about the same thing, but it just that moment in time, we were standing in the back room of their farm store just talking about cheese, and I couldn't believe that everyone had such a unique representation of their own palate per se. Whereas someone was like, oh, it tastes like this. And everyone else just agreed. It was actually a very constructive conversation about something that is so individualized, I guess, and I will never forget that moment, because it clearly left a lasting impression to the point where I just want to taste cheese for a profession. So as I said before, this cheese has a beautiful yellow color. As I mentioned before, we noticed that this cheese has a beautiful golden yellow hue. I believe Crayola would call this probably goldenrod if we were to give it a crayon color. And that is because the cows on this new Jersey farm are Jersey cows. Insert a couple lyrics from Alanis Morissette's Ironic here. Jersey cows milk tends to be really rich in beta carotene, which is actually stored in their milk fat, which is the result is giving us this yellow color. Fun cheese trivia fact when goats are milked, their beta carotene intake is actually transformed into a colorless vitamin A, which is also why goat's milk cheese tends to be super white in color. I can also let you in on a fun cheese tip. Any kind of yellow cheese will yellow artisanal cheese made from Jersey cows. It's usually a great sign right away that you're about to indulge in a high quality cheese. It's funny, as I'm telling you, all this information about cow's milk and goat's milk and beta carotene. I'm also like, I hope I can retain all of this because I am planning to take my certified cheese professional exam this summer, and I know that's an important part of it. Okay, Havilah, I said it before, this is an alpine style cheese. And for those of you who are unaware of what that is, we can go back to my favorite context clues. The word ALP is in there. So right off the bat, you know there's going to be some rich, traditional alpine cheese style making happening here. If you're confused on that, I do have an episode called It's Not scary, it's just dairy, the Swiss, where I break down a couple different alpine style cheeses so you can understand what the concept is. This cheese also has a really gorgeous how disgusting am I just touching this? But check out this natural rind. This literally is like flavors of the earth. Um, it's again, this is completely edible. It's totally up to you whether or not you choose to eat it. I like to eat it with a piece of the paste on the inside to kind of mellow out that super earthy, you know, flavors of Lawrenceville, new Jersey. However, if you don't like it, you are more than welcome to toss it. You can feed it to your dog, you can cook with it, but that's a whole nother category for another day. So here we have the OG Havilah, which has been aged about eight to thirteen months. However, they also have another Havilah called Havilah Reserve, and that's usually aged between like sixteen to twenty four months. And with the raw cow's milk cheese, the only difference between the reserve and the regular is really just the complexity of the flavors. You know, how deep do they go when it's aged for longer? Sometimes you get different notes of things. Sometimes you get a deeper taste of, you know, the earth, the toasted nuts, the pineapple, whatever that may be. And what's great is that they have two different Havilah, as Havilah is one of their oldest cheeses in the line, it's kind of their pride and joy of Cherry Grove. As someone with some Cherry Grove Farm experience on her resume. I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit that I had no idea what Havilah was. However, the cheese makers let me in on a little tip. Havilah is actually the biblical land featured in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. It is the land of like richness, of abundance. Sometimes it's referred to as the land of gold. So you can kind of see why we are using this with a very golden golden rod type of cheese. Also, when it comes to the landscape of the Cherry Grove Farm itself, it definitely has a couple of parallel similarities with the biblical land filled with just like a rich pasture. It sits on top of five hundred acres. They have multiple different animals. Visiting in the spring and summer is always so much fun. They've got chickens, they've got goats. You can feed or get little like, you know, nibble kisses from. They usually have their baby cows. You can go visit. They have their mama cows, you can see. And it's really just I mean, you kind of go in on this, like, bumpy little farm road all the way down. They've got a beautiful old school farm store. And I'm telling you, we are not even seeing, like, two percent of this land. It's just a sliver of the farm we are seeing. So I can only imagine just how beautiful and dense with, like, wildflowers and pasture and grasses that these cows are able to just graze and roam all day long. Over the years, Havilah has earned a slew of awards. We've got good food awards, we've got American Cheese Society awards. And last year both Havilah and Havilah reserve placed in the World Cheese Awards. Now, if you haven't been able to guess or know this about me. I was raised in new Jersey. I still live in new Jersey, and Jerseyans are known for their pride. This, to me is like the coolest thing. The pride to me knows no limits. We are not just an industrial park eating Taylor ham or pork roll arguing over giants and eagles. We actually know how to make some seriously delicious cheese. And on the topic of new Jersey, there's actually the beginnings of a new Jersey cheese guild. What started as a potentially scary situation turned into something truly powerful. After a year of confusing and aggressive regulations regarding small cheese producers, a group of new Jersey farmers and cheese makers knew something wasn't right. By coming together, they were able to stand up for themselves, protect their businesses, and create real change. If you're interested in learning more about the new Jersey Cheese Guild, I will leave their website as well as a contact email in my show notes. As someone who's also been a part of the New York State Cheese Guild, there is so much more than what meets the eye, and this is a wonderful opportunity for producers, cheese makers, even some, you know, retailers to find out what's really going on and how to protect all different parts involved in the cheese world, because having cheese from your land is incredibly important. And it just it's become kind of a trend of, you know, families not wanting to inherit the cheese making business or the cheese shop or so on and so forth. And we're unfortunately seeing a couple smaller producers retire, rightfully as they've earned. However, we want to make sure we're protecting these really good cheese and keeping it around for as long as possible. Okay, I've overloaded us on the have love for one one, so let's get to tasting it. And I will say two. Just because I'm sitting here staring at this cheese, it's starting to condensate a little bit and that's totally okay. Um, I will quote a couple of my friends from Murray's. If it's sweaty, then it's ready again. Some people have a weird thing with texture when their cheese starts to sweat. However, for me I'm like, great. Havel is at room temperature. Time to get the perfect bite and get all the tasting notes available. The flavor molecules are getting their own space, so let's get into it. So Havilah comes in these gigantic wheels. I know, because I used to buy the wheels, break them down, sell them at farmers markets. But today we just have this cute little wedge. And the great thing about these wedges is that you don't really need to do much when it comes to putting it on a board. The texture is incredibly smooth and supple, yet still pretty firm where I can slice it down the middle. I can make triangles, but I can also do my little flick crumble, which feel free to go back to my last episode where I discussed this cheese cutting process. So let's just take a little corner piece so we can get some rind and some paste. Look at that. Direct quote from Housewives. Right off the bat we are getting some earthy smells, but at the same time, something a little bit lighter. Wow, this cheese kind of smells like sunshine. I know that's not very descriptive when it comes to an aroma, but it's getting like high dairy smells. Not so much yogurty, but more like a glass of whole milk. But at the same time still grassy and very Flora esque. I don't want to say herbal because it's not, but that smell of just like a fresh garden in the summer. That's what I'm gonna. Yeah. A glass of milk in a fresh garden in the summer. Now let's try it. Wow. Right up in the front. I'm getting some citrus vibes. Pineappley vibes. Definitely getting hit with some salt as it finishes up a little bit. First of all, it's. I did not have a big bite, but it's already all over my mouth. It's kind of like jumping from place to place, from cheek to roof to tongue, and I'm getting kind of a roasted nut yet very meaty kind of flavor. Maybe it's from the salt. I'm not sure. It's really hanging out the I guess it's not so much mouthfeel, but aftertaste. It's definitely feels like I ate something almost sweet towards the end, even though it came on very bright and salty in the beginning. Depending on what season of milk you're getting in here, people have also mentioned they get high butter taste. Roasted leeks and sometimes even raw chives, which is thanks to the allium rich spring grass. Mm. It's tangy in a way, not in a goat cheese kind of way at all. Tangy is in a buttermilk, perhaps, but way more muted. But definitely getting that sharp pineapple aspect to it definitely stands alone as an alpine cheese. I find that some of the alpine cheeses are way more similar to each other, but this cheese itself is really stands alone and is incredibly unique. If you have the reserve, it is known to be a little bit more nutty, a little bit more oniony assuming spring milk, of course, and the tyrosine crystals, not salt, are even more present and crunchier. I bet it would even be a little bit saltier too. You know, when I first started podcasting, I tried to make a thing happen called Diet Coke cheese, and that was basically like a cheese that was so good, so easy, so simple, that I could just stand by itself on a plate. No accoutrements, no nothing. With a can of Diet Coke and my favorite TV show reruns. And I would say that this qualifies for a Diet Coke cheese. It doesn't really need a ton of accents. However, that wouldn't be fun in my pairing playground, so we are not going to stop there. We're going to keep on going and see what to pair this cheese with. So for Havilah, I find that we can go two ways. We can go sweet and we can go savory. And in the time of the holiday season, you might as well just go both, right? So for savory, I like to bring out more of the savory flavors. Uh, this would be the grassy notes, the oniony notes, like the raw chives. And in that case I present you with some Davina caramelized onion jam. We also have some. We also have some spreads locally made in New York. Savory orange marmalade also made with apples and olives. We've got some Carmel crackers and onion. And these crackers are so good. I just had them for the first time yesterday, and it's like someone took saltines and buttered them and then put different, like, seasonings on top of them. I had the spicy ones yesterday. And these are those kind of crackers where once the bag is open, it's the perfect excuse to have one hundred and thirty six of them, like, oh, well, the bag's open. Might as well have another. I will say you don't want to go too, too onion heavy. So what we're going to do here is split the onion apart. So we'll start with the onion cracker. We will take a slather of spread which you can find on the spread EMS website. Also some other specialty cheese shops in the tristate area carry it and we will place a small piece of Java right in the middle. Bon appetit. Mhm. Right off the bat, the saltiness of the cracker mixes really well with the saltiness of the cheese. And then you get a teeny bit of sweetness with the orange marmalade. The orange is really coming through. However it pairs so well with this cheese with the grassiness of both the marmalade as well as the cheese. And of course, the onion flavor from the cracker is really just the onions, the grassy, the flora, the salt. It's really just delightful, savory, meaty pairing. Now for my caramelized onion jam. I personally don't think we need any kind of carbohydrate with this. We can just go straight cheese, straight caramelized onion jam and call it a day. Mhm. Okay, I lied when I said that my Diet Coke cheeses needed nothing. This onion jam with this cheese might be the perfect, easy light bite. Throw that on any kind of plain cracker and you will have all of your holiday guests singing Jingle Bells until New Year's. I find two with the savoury pairings, especially with the marmalade. We want a darker alcohol cocktail. I have here a classic old fashioned minus the orange peel because we had no oranges in the house. And I do apologize now to my husband that I do know how to make old fashioneds, because those are his favorite, but he just continues to drink whiskey neat because it's faster. However, I think with this cheese I just need like a cozy fireplace. Something along those lines. So let's give this a try. Again, I am not a huge dark. I'm not a huge whiskey fan, but I find this pairing feels like the holidays, right? That goes down so smooth. Oh, just passing my velvet robe and plaid slippers. That is delightful. You might want to leave that out for Santa this year. If you really want to get what's on your gift list if you want to go sweeter. I also have this ice wine, which clearly I've never opened or tried. But ice wine is a classic pairing, and ice wine is made when the grapes are frozen on the vine, allowing them to be concentrated into a syrup that is so incredibly sweet and delicious, giving off citrus, stone, fruit, apricot vibes to it, which in a way goes perfectly with this cheese. And in addition to the ice wine, this cheese also goes so well with dark chocolate, which I have here with some almonds. I've also got some fig jam as well as some raisin rosemary crisps. Now, I'm not saying that the raisin rosemary crisps are too sweet. However, the raisins give it such a nice hint of sweetness and I will just do it with a dollop of fig jam. Also, don't hate me. I feel like fig jam is kind of a cop out when it comes to pairing with cheese, because it kind of goes with all cheese. It's that sweet and savory balance that your tongue is just like I can't get enough of. It's, you know, two opposites attract. And quite frankly, it's just delightful. So here we've built this adorable little taster. The cheese kind of takes on a very creamy, sweet, buttery vibe when you pair it with sweeter foods. I also find that the rosemary in these crisps really highlights the grassy notes of the cheese, and then the raisin the fig get together. And it's like the Havilah is the glue that bridges the salty and sweet together. Oh shoot, I forgot the chocolate. I guess we'll have to cut another piece. I think in this case, I'm just gonna do straight cheese and chocolate. Which, by the way, cheese and chocolate. Coffee and cheese. These are really, really good pairings. I personally love to teach cheese tasting class at a brewery because I use chocolate stouts with blue cheese, and it kind of gives this Oreo milkshake effect. You have to try it to believe it. This is a fun one. I think the piece of chocolate I just ate was a little too big, because it's overpowering the cheese a little bit. But we're getting super salt for the almond, and the salt for the cheese is going together so well, and the bitterness of the dark chocolate is really help balancing out this entire flavor. Definitely tastes better when a piece of chocolate is smaller. And it's like the Havilah takes on this buttery effect of the chocolate, making it just even smoother. Yeah, balancing out the bitterness of the chocolate, adding some extra salt. Delightfully fun pairing. Great for when you're pulling out your cheese course as dessert. That's a fun way to get people you know to eat like the French. And of course, you can absolutely taste and pair your Havilah with something other than alcohol. I have here a Harney and Sons Celebration Tea, which is a fruit and nut tea blend, also highlighting the fruit of the cheese. And you know, the nuttiness of the cheese all coming together. That's so good. I actually once went to a cheese and tea pairing class at the Random Tea Room in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hosted by the Random Tea Room and Madame Fromage, and one of the teas that she used was a Lapsang Souchong, which is an incredibly smoky tea. And I think that would go really, really well with this and with the Havilah Reserve as well. Just bringing out those, you know, salty, umami flavors together. My tea really brings out the nuttiness of the cheese, and it's kind of similar to how the savory orange marmalade brings out the, you know, fruitier notes of the cheese. Again, we got some citrus, and now this is more giving like apple orangey vibes to it. It's really just delightful pairing. And I do love tea with cheese because I find that the cheese is saltier and tea is, you know, brewed water with tea leaves. So it's kind of quenching your thirst, while at the same time allowing the salt, the saltiness of that cheese to totally shine through. I also think with my specific tea or maybe a smoke tea, I don't know. Jury's out, but like an apple butter would be fantastic here. Or a cherry jam. Just something to really give that. I keep saying, like roundabout flavor. It's almost like you want to view this cheese in a circle and it's like, okay, cheese is one third. Now we want something either sweet or savory, and now we want something else totally complementary to kind of like glue them together. That's kind of sometimes how I think about things. I will say also, Havilah is so great, not just on your cheese board, but it's also really nice to cook with. As you know, I love to say what grows together goes together. So imagine a grilled cheese and jersey tomato in the summer with this cheese. You can also make a tomato soup and grate it over that. I've personally had that. It is delicious. You can dunk your grilled cheese in the tomato soup. That's also amazing. I've also seen and heard people grading this cheese over roasted vegetables. I also have heard a rumor. Yes, again, I've been at Cherry Grove a little bit. I know a couple things. People have folded this into their pie crust and then made an apple pie with it. They also, when you go to their farm store, they have these beef sausages called the Philly cheesesteak, and they have bits of Java in them. They are amazing. I have had them. They're so creamy and delicious. And it just goes to show you that this cheese is so versatile, whether it's on your cheese board, sweet and savory, whether you're cooking with it. I could also see it being really good in a salad. It just it just doesn't have any limits to it. It's classic. It's delicious. It's hitting all the points of cheese that we want. It's salty, it's buttery. It's also beautiful aesthetically, although we know looks aren't always what's most important. But this one has a great look to it with the natural rind is so beautiful. Honestly, it feels like whatever you choose to snack on with this cheese, it'll be no problem and it'll just taste really good with it. Imagine this on a baguette with some prosciutto. That's a great sandwich. Maybe a little Dijon or a little bit of butter. That sounds fantastic. At the same time, you could do nothing. Or you could just drizzle it with some honey and add a couple pear slices. And you have an absolutely exceptional treat that is delicious. Twelve months of the year. Havilah is clearly very special to me, as Cherry Grove Farm will always and forever be the farm that took a chance on me and my budding cheese journey. I also learned a bunch there. Whether it was that cows give kisses like dogs, or that I do not personally enjoy cheese making. But with the history of Cherry Grove and all the awards this cheese has won, I can't help but feel prideful that I not only live in this state, but that I get to be friends with the people behind Havilah. Every bite of this cheese you're tasting knowledge of the cheese makers. You're tasting the lush lands of their farm and just happy cows in every single bite. You can order it through their website, which I will also link in the show notes. And I can't encourage you enough to attend their cow parade, one of their many other events with their mozzarella making classes. Or if you don't have this at your local cheese shop, bug your mongers. And if you do try it, please, please tag me in your boards and your pairings. I would love to know what you're eating this with. I'd also love to know what you're sipping on with it. And remember, please savor every bite. This is not a cheese to be rushed through, even if you're washing it down with a Diet Coke. And as always, if there's a cheese you want me to try or break down, just shoot me a DM. You can send me an email. You can also reach out to me through my website. Curtis the word podcast.com. And until next time, stay curious, stay cultured and stay cheesy.