Should you pair cheese with mezcal? Short answer: Yes! A guide to finding the perfect cheese to pair with tequila, how to pair raicilla with cheese, what to pair with a pechuga, what to pair with añejos, what not to pair with añejos, and more….
Set aside your wine. When it comes to cheese pairings, agave spirits are actually way easier to pair. In fact, cheese and agave is one of my all time favorite culinary and beverage pairings. The fat and salt in cheese makes it an ideal pairing for high ABV spirits, bringing out the underlying complexities and nuanced flavors. You could go into any cheese shop, close your eyes and point, and probably come up with at least a decent pairing option. But there’s always more to learn, with endless experimentation that is fun and delicious every time. The selections below are specific cheeses (mostly available to order online) that also represent their respective style within the canon of cheese, so feel free to take some liberties and work with what is accessible.
A few basic rules on how to pair cheese with mezcal and other agave spirits:
- Avoid pairing smoky cheeses with traditional mezcal or any agave spirit that has a smoke element; the two smoky elements can clash or cancel each other out, which can actually decrease overall flavor and balance in both the cheese and the spirit.
- Let your cheese come to room temperature to enjoy the best flavors; take the cheese out of the fridge for at least an hour before pairing with mezcal.
- Shop at reputable purveyors of quality cheeses. Consider selecting cheeses with denominations of origin or similar designations. It makes a difference.
Meredith’s Dairy Marinated Feta
This fresh sheep and goat milk cheese is marinated in olive oil, herbs, and peppercorns. It is soft and spreadable, tangy and creamy, and bursting with flavor. This may be my favorite cheese to pair with agave spirits. Meredith’s Marinated Feta is a good companion for everything from bright, sweet, grassy blanco tequilas to caramelized and roasty espadins, to umami-rich raicilla. It is delicious served straight up on a cheese board, spread on bread or a cracker, or even whipped into a dip. Pro tip: use the leftover oil in your next pasta dish.
Named after the famous French gourmand, this triple cream cow’s milk cheese is soft and gooey. Perhaps unsurprisingly, triple cream means there’s extra added cream, making the butterfat content even higher than butter–creating extra indulgent texture and flavor. Brillat Savarin is in the brie family of cheeses and has a soft white mold rind that is not only edible, but contributes to the flavor, with notes of button mushroom that complement the other notes of sweet cream and butter. Slathered on a piece of crusty bread for an added textural contrast, this makes for an easy all purpose pairing for any type of agave spirit, especially those with high ABV.
What to pair with a reposado or mezcal that’s been rested in glass? A classic in its category, this young cheddar is made from cow’s milk and has a sweet, creamy profile. It is an all around people pleaser, with roasty and fruity flavors that pair particularly well with lightly smokey agave spirits that have caramelized notes. Because of the slight toastiness, this cheddar also works with lightly aged agave spirits. While I typically prefer a sharper cheddar for snacking, I find the milder cheddars to be a more successful pairing across a wider range of spirits.
Another crowd pleaser, this sheep milk gouda is aged 12 months to create a semi-firm yet creamy texture and flavors of nuttiness and brown butter toastiness. What’s the best mezcal to pair with aged gouda? The caramel and toffee undertones make this cheese a good candidate to stand up to spirits that are full-flavored, including aged expressions and pechugas. The profile of this aged gouda is especially good with deeply concentrated flavors that often appear in mezcals made from wild agaves, mezcals made in desert regions, and agave spirits with lactic notes.
This cow’s milk Alpine cheese is on the firmer side. In my experience, this is the number one crowd pleaser. The flavors are complex yet craveable, with so much going on that almost everyone can find something to love about it. Challerhocker is on the savory side, reminiscent of spring onions and sour cream. Yet it also calls to mind sweet and nutty toffee, and somehow it all works together. When paired alongside agave spirits that are similarly complex, it creates a real explosion of flavor.
Another Alpine cheese made from cow’s milk, this is a favorite among cheesemongers and it’s easy to see why. Alp Blossom is wrapped up in flowers and herbs from the meadows where the cows graze. The rich umami flavor of the cheese is enhanced by the floral and herbal coating. Although your first impulse might be to pair with an herb-forward mezcal, Alp Blossom is best paired with spirits that feature fruity flavors–a good pechuga would be perfect. That said, this cheese pairs well with most agave spirits.
A favorite from Jasper Hill Creamery with a bit of a cult following, Harbison is a seasonal soft rind cow’s milk cheese that is wrapped in spruce bark. The gooey cheese is imbued with subtle hints of punchy and smoky spruce, creating a super umami flavor bomb. For those who like savory more than sweet, this is an excellent option to pair with piquant and bright agave-forward spirits. I would stay away from aged expressions with this one, as the wood treatments of the cheese and spirit could clash.
What to pair with raicilla? This is a young, semi-firm, blue cheese made from cow’s milk. For a blue cheese, it’s on the milder side. The tanginess and sharpness of the blue veining is tempered by creaminess and a distinct mineral quality that keeps it from being too high-toned like some other blue cheeses. If you’re not a fan of blue cheese, I doubt this will change your preferences, but it does work nicely as an all-purpose blue for agave spirits. If you want to be extra like me, you can schmear it on a graham cracker coated in dark chocolate. My favorite way to pair blue cheese is with Raicilla or a high acidity mezcal from Michoacan, though a classic espadin with smoky roasted agave notes works well too.
Leave a Comment