Vermont: Cheese, Beer, Cider and Farms

What’s Included in Your Culinary Retreat Tickets:

• Cheese: A private tour + tasting at Jasper Hill Cellars
• Beer: A tasting and dinner at Hill Farmstead Brewing
• Cider: A private orchard tour + seasonal apple tasting + cider tasting at Eden Ciders
• Farms: Two private farm tours and workshops at Chandler Pond Farm and Firefly Farm
• Food: Four lunches, two dinners, two breakfasts, three tastings and more

Tickets purchased here are for the Cooking activities only and do not include lodging. See below for more information on lodging.

About the Retreat

Join Milk Street’s Director of Education Rosemary Gill to learn about cheesemaking, brewing, orcharding and farming in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont—a rural, remote and beautiful slice of New England. You’ll spend four days visiting producers of some of the world’s best (no hyperbole here—they have the awards to prove it) cheese, beer, cider, grass-fed beef and vegetables. At each farm, we’ll learn by doing: Walking fields, tasting flights of cheese, cider and beer, getting our hands in the soil, going berry picking (if the season allows) and asking questions.

The retreat starts at Chandler Pond Farm to learn about 100% grass-fed beef, flower CSAs, blueberries and the life and economics of small-scale organic agriculture. We’ll have a picnic, followed by a farm tour and hands-on workshop led by Dahlia Dill, owner and farmer at Chandler Pond. That evening, we’ll meet up in East Burke where Rosie will cook you dinner featuring Chandler Pond beef and vegetables from local farms.

Day 2 is all about cheese and beer. After breakfast together in Burke, we’re off to Greensboro to spend the day at Jasper Hill Farm and the evening at Hill Farmstead Brewery. At Jasper Hill, we’ll learn about their innovative cheesemaking and community-focused business model, taste their cheeses, meet their animals and visit their cellars. Each cheese in their collection is made from a single herd of cows or goats, and aged in one of seven specially calibrated vaults. They also ripen cheese made by several other producers, as their business model provides affinage (aging expertise), as well as distribution and marketing services, for local cheese makers. Hill Farmstead makes Rosie’s favorite, and often “the world’s best,” beer and we;ll go there for dinner, but first we’ll have a little guided tasting of their seasonal pours.

On Friday, we’ll head north to Eden Ciders where Eleanor and Albert Leger grow rare tannic and heirloom apple varieties grown expressly for cider making. The results are special ciders that range from dry to sweet, with different methods of production that use single varieties and blends. We’ll start in the orchard to taste how cider apples differ from Galas, Pink Ladies and even heirloom eating apples. We’ll learn how to press fresh cider and then taste a range of their fresh and hard ciders, before having a big homemade late lunch together on their farm.

On our final day, we’ll head over to Firefly Farm, a small family farm committed to working with nature to grow produce, raise animals and tap maple trees. After a tour and a little field work, we’ll cook off some pizzas in Ben’s one-of-a-kind wood-fired oven and eat them with salads made with Michelle’s pristine produce. We’ll say our goodbyes on the farm.

Note: This is not a cooking retreat, but it is a treat for cooks. And eaters.

We offer only a small handful of these retreats per year. This one is limited to just 12 students. Get your tickets now.

If you are a local NEK resident or an employee of the Kingdom East School District, please get in touch for special rates.

About Jasper Hill Farms: Jasper Hill Farm’s mission is to make world class, cave aged cheese in a way that supports Vermont's working landscape. With a focus on melding traditional methods with sustainability-minded technology, they are driven to be the standard bearer of quality and innovation in the artisan cheese industry while promoting a regional taste of place.

About Eden Orchards: Eden Orchards is an acclaimed boutique cidery in Newport, Vermont. Founded in 2007 by Eleanor and Albert Léger, they are celebrated as America's first commercial producers of ice cider, using over 35 varieties of biodynamically grown apples from their own Holistically managed orchards

About Hill Farmstead Brewery: Hill Farmstead Brewery is a highly celebrated, brewer-owned brewery located in Greensboro Bend, Vermont, in the rural "Northeast Kingdom". Founded by Shaun Hill in 2010, the brewery sits on ancestral land that has been in the Hill family for eight generations

About Firefly Farm: Firefly Farm is a family owned and operated diversified farm, located in the hills above Burke Hollow, VT. Sustainability, resilience, and community are at the center of how we farm. We draw from both traditional practices and modern science in order to grow and raise food in a way that honors and supports the animals, plants, and land on which we work, as well as the people we feed.

About Chandler Pond Farm: Dill family promotes stewardship of the limited land base available today, provides honest, quality food for the community, and maintains a lifestyle of solid work ethic, appreciation and understanding of the limited resources available in a world where much of the population is removed from its food system.

LOCATION: The retreat is centered around Burke, Vermont. Our breakfasts and dinner on Day 1 will take place at The Farmhouse, located at The Village Inn in Burke. The farm visits are all within a 30-40 minute drive of The Farmhouse. Students are responsible for securing their own lodging at the location of their choice.

TRANSPORTATION: Tickets for this retreat do not include transportation. Students are responsible for their own transportation to, from and during the retreat. Students will need to get themselves to The Farmhouse in Burke, Vermont, and to each of the farms we visit. Milk Street cannot provide carpooling services.

LODGING: Tickets for this retreat do not include lodging. You are expected to find your own lodging in or near Burke, Vermont. We recommend The Village Inn, The Wild Flower Inn and rental properties managed by Liv & Wilder Real Estate.

DIET: We can accommodate most dietary requests with advanced notice. Please clearly note your dietary preferences and requirements on the Order Form.