I recently purchased some cheese from Murray's, a specialty place in New York. I reviewed some of their yellow cheddar awhile back, and I decided to splurge and ordered three more cheeses from them, this will be a breakdown of how the taste testing of the three went.
I bought this cheese per request of my mother, who volunteered to be my fellow cheese tester, as it's a beloved taste from her childhood.
We both tried a sample of it neat (we did this for all three to get the most unbiased opinion), and I found it very tangy and creamy, but not so tangy it didn't have a nice counter note of sweetness to knock the edge off. My mother found it especially smooth in texture and we both enjoyed savoring the flavor on the way down.
Since I bought extra for her to use for cooking, she definitely intends to make some macaroni and cheese with it (fun fact, Thomas Jefferson came up with mac and cheese), and I for one will be a willing eater at that table for sure.
Now, I must admit I prefer harder and more acidic cheese over "sweet milk" cheeses, but I'm not going to knock this, it was good.
For those not aware, "sweet-milk" cheeses are not allowed to become nearly as enriched with lactic acid as cheeses like cheddar as they age. While giving them a milder taste and a creamy texture, this is not necessarily good for those with lactose intolerance (which my mother has, she had to take her lactose meds before taste testing to be sure), as it retains a higher degree of lactase, or un broken-down milk sugars.
That all said, it's a very agreeable, very creamy cheese that will just melt on the tongue. The maple smoking (via cold-smoking to avoid cheese deformation) adds a nice hint of a bite to what is otherwise a mild cheese, and this is definitely a good cheese for a melted cheese dish for sure due to these qualities.
I have saved the best for last. Unlike the other two cheeses, which are cow milk cheeses, Manchego is a cheese made of sheep's milk.
A bit of background on sheep and goat milk. Unlike cow milk, they typically lack an enzyme called "cryoglobulin", which causes the milk fat layer to clump and congeal quickly. It's for this reason it's very hard to make sizable amounts of butter from these milks. However, this doesn't inhibit their ability to be refined into cheese very much.
Queso Manchego is a cheese of very wide renown in her native Spain. As a Spanish friend confirmed to me, it is a cheese with a very high reputation, even mentioned in famous works such as Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quijote. It's been a fixture of Spanish agriculture since its Bronze Age origin, being made of the milk of Manchega ewes.
The taste is distinct. It has a noticeable yet pleasant nuts and grain-like taste, though this is offset by a mix of creaminess and saltiness that will give the tastebuds a wonderful explosion of flavor that is worth savoring.
It's worth noting this cheese has the Spanish Denominación de Origen (Designation of Origin), awarded in 1984, meaning this was actual Spanish cheese as approved and affirmed by their agricultural authorities. Only cheese made using milk from the Manchega ewes of the La Mancha region has any right to be called Manchego, and I was pleased and honored to sample some of the finest delicacies of Spain's sons and daughters, it was a very worthy purchase.
Notes
Like the last time I ordered cheese from Murray's, it was shipped well-packed with ice packs and packing material that kept the cheese both cool and snug while being shipped. I found the cheese to be fresh, undamaged, and as noted above, I noted no off-flavors or any other disagreeable notes about any of the items purchased. I would certainly buy more cheese from them, albeit after my pocket book recovers from how much this set me back, quality does have a price, but given how well it tasted, worth said price.
