Plymouth Artisan Cheese

The Oldest Cheesemaker Still Working in America

Colonel John Coolidge — father of the future president Calvin Coolidge — started the Plymouth Cheese Factory in 1890, up in the Green Mountain village of Plymouth Notch, Vermont. At the time it was one of dozens of small farmstead operations in New England, and nothing about it stood out: local farmers pooled their milk, a cheesemaker turned out granular curd cheddar, and people ate it with bread and beer. Then the rest of them closed. Plymouth kept going through both world wars, the Depression, and the industrialization of American dairy that shut down nearly every other village cheese operation in New England. Calvin Coolidge grew up here, and the presidential library sits across the road. He left the White House in 1929, came home to Plymouth, reopened his father's dairy after a brief lapse, and the factory has run continuously ever since. That makes it the oldest continuously operating cheese factory in the United States.

Modern Plymouth is still small, still using the original granular curd method the Coolidges used a century ago. Local Vermont Holstein dairies within a short radius supply the milk, and Plymouth uses it raw — unpasteurized — which is where the complexity comes from. Raw milk carries a native microbial population that develops during aging into the sharp, tangy, almost-blue notes that separate a good farmstead cheddar from a factory one. The line runs from the flagship Original Plymouth Cheddar through smoked and herbed variants (Smoked, Hunter, Sage), plus hot-pepper and specialty releases like Black Truffle and the sambal-chile hybrid. Every cheese in the line is raw-milk Vermont Holstein, made in the same building where Colonel Coolidge started it in 1890.

Plymouth's Cheddar Line

The Original Plymouth Artisan Cheddar is the anchor of the range: aged, granular, raw-milk cheddar with the sharp bite and crumbly texture of the American farmstead tradition. It works as a table cheese, a cooking cheese, or the base for a good grilled sandwich. Farmer Fred's Favorite Vermont Cheddar is the same cheese aged longer and sold in whole-form wholesale wheels, which is what a serious cheese shop or restaurant kitchen would buy. Smoked Plymouth Cheddar is the flagship cold-smoked over apple and hickory wood, giving it a bacon-adjacent aroma without cooking the cheese. Hunter Cheddar and Sage and Herbs Cheddar are both flavor-infused variants for anyone who wants their cheddar to bring more than one flavor to the plate. East Meadow Cheddar is an aged raw-milk variant sold as a whole 5-pound wheel, which is what you buy when you're catering an event or feeding a crowd.

The hotter and stranger end of the range brings in cheeses that a factory of Plymouth's age might not be expected to make. Sambal Cheddar folds Indonesian chili paste into the raw curd for a sharp, sweet-heat variant that pairs beautifully with a hoppy IPA. Hot Pepper Cheddar adds jalapeño for a more familiar American chile heat. Black Truffle Cheddar folds Italian black truffle into the aged cheddar base — an odd pair on paper, but the funk of the truffle and the tang of the aged raw-milk cheese land in the same register. All the Plymouth cheeses ship well and hold their character for weeks once cut.

Cooking, Pairing and Storage

Plymouth cheddars work as table cheeses first and cooking cheeses second. On a board, cut into rough irregular pieces rather than neat cubes, and serve alongside good bread, apple slices, and a Vermont IPA or a hard cider. The Original, Smoked, and East Meadow versions all pair well with sharp mustard, chutney, and cured meats like Vermont-style summer sausage. For cooking, Plymouth cheddar melts beautifully on grilled sandwiches, mac and cheese, and a proper Welsh rarebit. The Sambal and Hot Pepper versions do particularly well in queso and cheese dip applications where the heat can spread through the sauce. Keep the Black Truffle Cheddar off the stove — heat kills the truffle aroma. It's a board cheese.

Store cut Plymouth cheddar in the refrigerator wrapped in cheese paper or a breathable cheese storage bag, which lets the cheese exchange air without drying out. A well-wrapped piece keeps three to four weeks refrigerated. Cheddar also freezes reasonably well for cooking applications, though the texture crumbles slightly on thawing — grate or shred before freezing if you plan to use it in melted preparations. The wax rind that appears on some Plymouth cheeses is food-safe but not eaten; cut it away before slicing for a board.

Also Worth Exploring

Plymouth sits in the broader American farmstead cheddar tradition. For side-by-side comparison across the aged-cheddar family, the cheddar cheese collection covers everything from Vermont farmstead to English clothbound. For Vermont-specific farmstead cheese including Jasper Hill Farm's washed-rind and blue cheeses, the Jasper Hill Farm collection is worth browsing. To shop the full American producer roster — Point Reyes, Cypress Grove, Rogue Creamery, Beecher's, Vermont Creamery — the American cheese collection covers the full 100+ domestic selection. And for building a Vermont-style cheese board around Plymouth, the honey and mustard cheese pairings collection includes the maple, chutneys, and grainy mustards that Vermont cheddars naturally want.