Rush Creek Reserve - Wisconsin Uplands Cheese

Pleasant Ridge Reserve is a common sight on menus across town.

This will never be true for Uplands' second cheese, Rush Creek Reserve.

It's not for lack of excellence. Rush Creek, from Wisconsin's Uplands Cheese, is a stunner. It's a silky, supple round produced in the style of Vacherin du Haut-Doubs, French Vacherin made from unpasteurized milk.

But the cheese, released for the first time last winter, is a strictly seasonal, limited-production affair.

The season's first batch hit shelves at Provenance Food and Wine and Pastoral last week–and promptly sold out. Provenance restocked on Friday and has more arriving the first week of December, and Pastoral is taking preorders; call to reserve a wheel ($26) when the next shipment arrives.

If you get your hands on this bloomy gem, let it sit at room temperature for an hour or warm in the oven for the full custard-like effect. Then bring on the spoons, for this is a rich, faintly funky treat made for scooping and dolloping. We're partial to garlic-rubbed toast and slivers of apples.

And for the lag between Rush Creek deliveries, Provenance will begin stocking a similar specimen: Harbison, a pasteurized round from Jasper Hill in Vermont.