As the calendar turns to 2020, it will mark the arrival of a new year, new resolutions, a new decade and old cheese.
In 2020, for only the second time, Hook’s Cheese in Mineral Point will release a 20-year cheddar. Though the cheese won’t hit the market until Memorial Day weekend, the company will begin taking orders for it on Jan. 1.
Cheesemaker Tony Hook isn’t worried about being stuck with the cheese that will retail at $209 a pound. It’s just that he’s already fielding so many inquiries about the cheese he decided to start taking orders.
“We sold it out in five days last time,” he says with a laugh, still surprised at the frenzy his cheese created in 2015, similar to the way his 15-year cheddar made news around the world in 2009.
This time around, there is a little more available. The Hooks aged 500 pounds of it, up from 450 in 2015. Restaurants and distributors placed their orders earlier this fall, and it was a little less stressful than when the cheese made its debut in 2015, Hook says.
“We started talking to distributors and restaurants and told them what we were going to do and they should let us know if they were interested,” Hook says. “For maybe two weeks we didn’t hear anything and we thought, ‘Oh no, what have we done?’”
It all worked out, and Tony and his wife, Julie, donated $40,000 — half of the cheese’s profits — to the Babcock Hall/Center for Dairy Research renovation project at UW-Madison. This time, half of the profits will go to a dairy education initiative, and the Hooks are still working out details.
Part of the allure of the cheese isn’t just its scarcity, it’s the flavor. Cheddar gains bitterness and bite as it ages in its first five years. Then it becomes more smooth and creamy in taste but gains the crunchiness from the calcium lactate crystals that form over time. At 20 years, it’s a creamy, crunchy, crumbly dairy delight.
“A lot of people think it’s going to be sharp but it’s just the opposite,” says Fromagination owner Ken Monteleone. “As it ages it becomes smooth and buttery.”
This second batch of 20-year cheddar celebrates Tony Hook’s 50th year as a cheesemaker; he began as an apprentice at a small factory in Barneveld. He and his wife, Julie, also a cheesemaker, opened Hook’s Cheese in 1987 at its current Mineral Point location.
Initially, the Hooks made cheese by the pallet load and sold it under various names and labels, and the apex of aging was the one- or two-year cheddar they made for Borden. But after their kids graduated from college and risk-taking was easier, the Hooks started aging their cheeses and selling under their own name.
“Nobody in the U.S. was doing anything beyond two years,” he says. “We just decided we’d really go out on a limb and age something to five. Then we expanded to seven, then 10 and just kept going.”
The cheddar is sampled at least once a year to see if it’s developing as it should.
“It’s not like you stick it somewhere for 20 years and think, ‘That should be good,’” Hook says.
He has some cheddar set aside now that has already gone past 15 years, and has a 15-year-old batch that has developed really nicely. The fate of those cheeses remains unknown. At age 67, Hook figures he might be retired when that decision is made, likely by his nephew, Brian, who will take over the business one day.
“Maybe down the road Brian will have some 25- or 30-year,” Hook says. “You never know.”
To order Hook’s 20-year cheddar, email hookscheese@gmail.com or call 608-987-3259 and leave a message.
