How to match drinks with cheddar

One of my favourite pairings was the Davidstow three-year with Bullbeggar cider from Somerset. This community-produced cider is made in and by the village of Lamyatt, where the inhabitants work together to produce the drink using traditional methods. Matured in old rum and whisky barrels, the cider contains plenty of dry tannins from the apple skins – a unique flavour only present in cider made using a traditional apple press. Cider, like cheddar, was traditionally made on the farm, and as such has always been drunk with this cheese. Even dry ciders offer a wonderful sweet/tart balance to the salty umami of the cheese, while the fruit's acidity cuts the richness.

Another fantastic pairing was the softer, eighteen-month cheddar with a gorgeous pink sake, Nanbu Bijin Ume Rose, a gently alcoholic drink (9%) made in the northernmost region of Japan, using ume plums. Lightly sweet, fresh and delicate, this liqueur-style sake was a revelation all by itself, and alongside the fruity character of the eighteen-month cheese its cherry blossom flavours were lifted. Another pairing that plays off the salt of the cheese, it reminded me of quince, a more traditional cheese accompaniment.

I also loved the three-year cheese with a honeyed Madeira, Boal Reserva NV, made using traditional methods and aged in oak for five years. Madeira takes its character from the unique ageing process it undergoes, where the wine is gently heated and cooled dozens of times, while also being exposed to oxygen. This process, which caramelised sugars, takes place over anything between three months and one hundred years. It mimics the sea voyages that Portuguese wine took back in the 1600s and 1700s, where wines travelling in the hold would be heated and cooled as the ships passed through the tropics. This sea-ageing became known as vinho da roda (wine of the round voyage) and Madeira is now purposely made under similar conditions. The result of this process is a deeply caramel wine, with notes of date, toffee and marmalade, which offers a richly sweet counterpoint to the flavourful bursts of crystal found in the mature cheese. Again, the acidity of the fruit – this time grapes – helps temper the fats in the cheese and adds freshness to the pairing.

A wide variety of drinks can be matched successfully with these mature cheeses; we also touched on beer, whisky and other liqueurs during the class. While some of these matches were familiar to me as an enthusiastic consumer of cheese and alcoholic beverages, others were very new and all the more interesting for it. The rose sake, in particular, was a completely unexpected success. Something to consider when putting together your next creative cheeseboard.

You can also get creative when deciding how to serve the cheddar. A piece of cheese needs nothing more than bringing to room temperature, but such wonderfully savoury cheddars also make a flavourful addition to many other drink-worthy nibbles. Chef Nathan Outlaw put together a few, perfectly executed suggestions – my favourite was barely anything more than bread and cheese, and yet so very much more. Light and airy sourdough enriched with cheese and huge dollops of a remarkable Fresh herb and cheddar mayonnaise. Although I love home-made mayonnaise, I would never have thought to flavour it with cheese. Here it softened the bitterness of the parsley, chives and rocket which were also blended into the dip and rounded out the flavour of the whole mayonnaise beautifully. The stunning Crab and cheddar tarts, crafted so delicately by a man who has made his name working with fish at the highest culinary levels, were also an education in the limitless flavour potential of a cheese like cheddar.

The message of this class was certainly that you should feel free to experiment – that when pairing cheddar with drinks or other ingredients there is much to be discovered beyond traditional flavours and combinations. So experiment away!