Old Quebec Reserve 7 year Cheddar

This is the Old Quebec Reserve, a Canadian white cheddar aged a minimum of seven years and made from the milk of cows grazing in the Saint Lawrence River Valley. The paste is firm and dense, pale ivory, and breaks into clean crumbly shards under the knife, shot through with the fine crystalline crunch of tyrosine that only comes with this kind of aging.

On the palate it leads with a real sharp cheddar bite, peppery and concentrated, and then pulls into toasted hazelnut and brown butter through the middle. Underneath the sharpness there's a savory umami depth and a quiet sweetness on the long finish that keeps the cheese from feeling one-note. Seven years is a long time for a cheddar to hold together this well, and what you taste is the concentration, more salt, more nut, more crunch from the crystals as the paste tightens.

This is a sharp cheddar in the proper sense, made for people who want their cheddar to actually taste like something.