LOCALadk Magazine

34 Summer 2015 LOCALadk Magazine LOCALadk A Classic Alpine Creamery in the Adirondacks By Justin A Levine Pulling up the driveway of Sugar House Creamery in Jay is kind of like driving into a commercial for butter or sour cream or cheese. There are rolling hills, old farmhouses, huge barns, and of course, dogs loping through the fields, all lending an air of idyllic old world farm life. And that's a good thing, because that's exactly what Alex Eaton and Margot Brooks are trying to create. The Brown Swiss Cows that they're milking originated in the Alps, where pretty much every town or valley has its own creamery. The creameries in France and Switzerland, and Sugar House Creamery, don't try to be all things to all people. They are concerned more with creating a quality product than with producing a lot of different products. "We want to do one thing really well," says Brooks. That attitude stems from a lifetime of dairy farming, combined with the practice and experience of working under a professional cheese maker for several years. Margot grew up in Central New York, where her family owned a dairy farm. And even though Alex had a decidedly less cow-ori- ented upbringing, they both wanted to have their own little piece of pas- toral paradise. After meeting in college, Eaton and Brooks went to Vermont where they worked at the Brooks' family farm for a short time. They were then able to land jobs at a cheese-making dairy, where Margot started to learn the fine art of making cheese. As the cheese-making operation in Vermont started to expand, Margot and Alex realized that they wanted something a little smaller in scale and maybe a little higher in satisfaction. They started shopping around for farms in Vermont and New York and stumbled upon an old dairy farm in Jay, just across Route 9 from the Ausable River. The old farm they found is just shy of two dozen acres of rolling hills and old buildings. Alex and Margot holed up in the old sugar house (thus the name of the creamery), which had been converted to a livable house. Their sole full time employee lives in an apartment in what was the orig- inal farm house, and the old chicken coop works as a small store where you can buy not only the cheese and milk from the creamery, but also produce and meats from other farmers in the area. Alex and Margot have worked hard to cultivate a feeling of community around their farm, and it shows. Each spring they hold their Green Grass Getdown, where the cows are finally released back into the pasture af- ter the long winter. While the cows frolic, people can see exactly where their cheese is coming from, while enjoying a spring-time farmer's mar- ket right there at the creamery. Although there have been inquiries as to selling their cheese in larger markets like Boston and New York City, they plan to stay small and sell locally. Through their chicken coop turned store and other local outlets, the pair has found that they can make this endeavor successful. That suc- cess is helped along by their gregarious natures, and their ability to not only make a wonderful product, but to sell that product through their own genuine passion for the cheese. The cheese is exceptional, and every aspect of the farm is geared towards that goal. The original milking parlor is still in use every day, and as Alex is quick to point out, whoever built it was also really passionate about what they were doing. Alex and Margot continued with that theme by adding a new barn, state of the art cheese-making equipment, and even a cheese-aging cave. Every morning and evening, the cows are brought from the barn to the milking parlor, where they are milked while contentedly munching away on hay. After being cooled, the milk is then transformed into one of three cheeses that Margot focuses on. She makes two soft cheeses known as the Little Dickens and Pound Cake, and a hard cheese that goes by the hearty moniker Dutch Knuckle. You could look at basically any aspect of their endeavor and say to your- self "that's where the magic happens." The cows are clean, content, and well fed. The cheese-making room is a wonderful mix of modern and classic. The cheese cave is earthy and cheesy, but in a good way that makes your mouth water. And the passion for the entire enterprise shows through not only in their personalities, but also in the final prod- uct. By focusing on the entire process from breed selection to cheese selec- tion, Alex and Margot have created their own little slice of bucolic heav- en right here in the Adirondacks. They are seeking to strike the perfect work/life balance. And that is a task that is easier said than done, espe- cially when your work is your home. But other than fighting the alarm clock each morning, Alex and Margot have made Sugar House Creamery their dream come true. Alex Eaton

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