Sorry! This is Stinking Bishop - they look very alike! I neglected to take a photograph before scoffing the cheese.
A washed rind cheese from Gloucestershire, bought from Neal’s Yard Dairy.
Very exciting! An FT cheese exclusive! I can’t find a mention of this sheep’s cheese anywhere on the internet. It’s a new cheese by the people who create Stinking Bishop. A variation on their infamous washed rind cheese, it’s made of sheep’s milk and it has a wonderfully surreal name. Apparently, once upon a time, the nuns of Caen had a bit of a yen for Double Gloucester, and it was shipped over to them regularly. This cheese is from Gloucestershire. It’s a spurious connection, but the name makes me grin.
Covered with a soft, damp orange rind, this cheese is pale – almost white – inside, and dotted with little holes. I don’t have to get my nose too near the cheese to get a snoutful of its aroma. It’s got a pungent, foot-ish whomph, cut with a boozy, alcoholic note that gets up my nose when I inhale too deeply. When I eat some, it’s soft and smooth in the centre, coating my mouth but not clinging too long. The rind’s crumbly. It tastes wonderful – the extra richness of the sheep’s milk means that it’s wonderfully creamy and luscious and sweet. It tastes of salted cream fudge, and butter, and apples and pears (I bet it’s washed in the same perry as its ecclesiastical sibling.). There’s a very mellow, soothing woodiness around the edges. Its smell (and it’s not the whiffiest of cheeses, I promise) is very much worse than its taste, stench-wise. This cheese is smooth and sweet and mellow, and incredibly more-ish.
that does sound delicious
We got a sample of it t-other day. I reckoned it better than Stinking Bishop myslef. better balance of flavour.
This post is top hit on google right now.
It was delicious – I think the lovely rich creamy (surprising!) toffeeness of it puts it well ahead of Stinking Bishop. More sheepy washed rinds, please! (And more goaty ones – like lovely Cardo, too, please!)
This is such a stupid question but is the rind… crispy? It looks a little as though it would be from that photo and I’m imagining a cheese version of those Viennese truffles from Thorntons.
It’s not at all crispy – damp and with a slightly crumbly biscuity texture. I am now trying to think of how I might make a cheese truffle, though!
Bought a quarter of it today from La Fromagerie in Marylebone. Absolutely delicious. I love the Bishop and this didn’t let us down on the pong (had to leave a bookshop as people were looking at me). Just had it on a fresh baguette, with some salad leaves on the side. Perfect summer lunch.
Just bought some from county cheese in topsham .. amazing
awesome !