By Austin Coe Butler
Last, but not least, in our six-week series celebrating American Cheese Society Award Winners is Sequatchie Cove Creamery! Sequatchie Cove Creamery won in the following categories:
Cumberland – 1st Place – American Made/International Style made from cow’s milk
Cumberland – 2nd Place – Best in Show
Coppinger – 3rd Place – Washed Rind Cheeses made from cow’s milk
Having been raised in the South, I can’t help but rejoice at seeing a Tennessee-based creamery coming in 2nd for Best in Show. In fact, of the six different creameries we’ve featured so far, Sequatchie Cove had the biggest wins of the bunch. And while this may be the first time some of you have heard of Sequatchie Cove, they’ve spent more than a decade working diligently at their craft.
In the late 90s, Nathan and Padgett Arnold met at Crabtree Farm in Chattanooga, Tennessee, an urban farm dedicated to sustainable agriculture and community access to food. The two fell in love and spent several seasons on the farm as their interests in food grew and developed. Nathan eventually went to work for Bill and Miriam Keener on a nearby organic farm just northwest of the city named Sequatchie Cove Farm. In 2004, the Arnolds and Keeners went to Terra Madre, a biennial Slow Food conference in Turin, where their interest in cheesemaking was sparked by French alpine cheeses like Tomme de Savoie and Morbier.
Nathan and Padgett moved quickly. By 2010, after years of travel, tutelage, and licensing, they bought the farm from the Keeners and converted it into the creamery it is today, and by 2012 they had their first category award from ACS for Dancing Fern. The last three years have been astonishing in growth for Sequatchie Cove. Nathan and Padgett went from hard-scrabble cheese makers trying to balance labor shortages, milk access, cheese sales, and the pandemic, to requiring months-out preorders for their cheeses. Last year saw the massive renovation of the creamery to better meet demand.
Sequatchie Cove has made many cheeses over the years, but they’ve settled into a rhythm with the following four. Cumberland is inspired by Tomme de Savoie, and just like that humble cheese, it is the ultimate snacker and a workhorse in the kitchen. Beneath its suede-like rind is a springy paste with straightforward and tangy flavors that make Tomme style cheeses so craveable. Coppinger, a Morbier inspired cheese with its decorative ash line and washed rind, has the fruity, yeasty flavors of a Saison with a deeply satisfying fudgey texture that will fill your head with intrusive thoughts that you should take a bite directly out of the wedge. (Go on, do it.)
Sequatchie Cove also makes the delectable, boozy Shakerag blue that is wrapped in fig leaves and soaked in Chattanooga whiskey. Padgett, the resident horticulturalist, goes out into the Tennessee woods to gather fig leaves that she trims, cooks, stacks, and macerates in whiskey before they are intricately wrapped around the cheese. The result is a blue that is crumbly yet creamy, bold and boozy, with a sweetness reminiscent of sugar cured bacon, root beer, or sasperilluh’ (sarsaparilla), and may even rival Rogue River Blue.
Lastly, Sequatchie Cove also makes a Reblochon-inspired cheese named Walden, a smaller format of their now discontinued cheese, Dancing Fern, which put them on the map. With its delicate flavors of walnuts, button mushrooms, and cultured butter, and a pudgy, mochi-like spring that made it go viral when we posted a video on our Instagram.
We’ll be promoting Sequatchie Cove Creamery cheeses all weekend long, so stop by the shop to pick up a wedge or two of some incredible cheese for 15% off and savor the calm, cool days of autumn.