Traditionally made Irish cloth-bound cheddar from Co Cork aged for one year. Firm texture, nutty relatively mild, but still cheddary piquant flavour tones. Cow’s Milk.

Brothers Dan and John Hegarty are the fifth generation of Hegarty dairy farmers.  Both brothers wanted to stay on the family farm at Whitechurch in North Cork with their respective families and needed to find a way of increasing farm income to support two families. In 2000 they began expermenting with cheese, yoghurt and smoothies and marketed all three products for a few years before eventually deciding to concentrate their efforts on traditional cheddar production. Dan is now in charge of cheese whilst John deals with milk production from the Hegarty herd of 250 cattle, 90 of which are milking.

The first wheel of Hegarty’s cheddar hit the market in 2002. The brothers make their cheddar using traditional methods; milling and salting the curds by hand and wrapping the cheese in muslin and lard. The cloth rind allows the cheese to breathe as it ages and dry gently. This gives a cheddar with a distinct earthy flavour and a really pleasant slightly crumbly texture. Younger wheels can have a lactic/ lemony flavour. Only summer’s milk from their own herd is used in production.