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RECIPES
From the Drawing Board to the Cutting Room
In December 1999, Tom and Kristi Johnson made the first batch of their unique Rustic Blue. That batch, after four months of aging, was shipped to market in late March, 2000. Tom’s and Kristi’s journey into artisanal cheese making was round-about. Early on, Tom owned an educational video production business. He sold the business in favor of earning his masters degree in watershed science at Colorado State University, and subsequently managed a river restoration task force in Colorado Springs. From there, he made his transition to cheese, bringing along some sound business experience plus a new appreciation for sustainable business practices. Kristi was a patent attorney in her pre-cheese life. She helped universities obtain rights to their agricultural inventions, keeping one foot in science and one foot in law. With a vision similar to Tom’s, Kristi wanted something more basic and tangible. She wanted to create a thing that she could hold in her hands. While deciding whether to take themselves and their two children into the uncertain realm of artisanal cheesemaking, one question kept cropping up: why hasn’t this been done before in Colorado, despite the success of the microbreweries? Excellent milk supply, equipment, and facilities were not the answer -- these were available. What they discovered provided the impetus to finally go for it: without a proven tradition of cheesemaking in the Rocky Mountain region, few had ever thought to try it. They took up the cause and became part of a movement, taking their place with the few American producers of exquisite, small-batch cheeses. One taste of Bingham Hill Rustic Blue and it’s obvious Tom and Kristi knew exactly what they were doing!
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