Got farmstead milk?
If you’ve never tasted glass-bottled farmstead milk, you’re missing out on one of the greatest moments ever in beverage consumption. The first few times I bought farmstead milk (don’t worry – it’s pasteurized, meets all the Wisconsin food safety laws, etc.) and brought it home, my family almost didn’t believe it was milk. We’ve all grown so used to drinking milk out of plastic jugs or plastic bags, that we don’t realize what really fresh milk is supposed to taste like – really cold, really crisp and no “plastic” aftertaste.
While I currently have the unfortunate luck to live about 2 miles from the nearest farmstead milk home delivery route in Wisconsin, that may all change once Nick Kirch of Blue Marble Dairy comes online May 1. Nick is a dairy farmer near Barneveld and last July broke ground on his own $500,000 farmstead milk bottling facility. He’s going to offer cream-line mlk, bottled directly from his 70-cow dairy herd. He’s hoping to sell his milk through local retail outlets and establish a home delivery route (yay!). He’s also working with a group of Southwest Wisconsin dairy artisans to establish an “artisan delivery network” that will specialize in home delivery of milk, meat, honey, maple syrup, cheese, egs and almost any other locally produced Wisconsin product. They’re hoping to have deliveries start in June.
So if you live in southwest Wisconsin, odds are you may have a chance to buy fresh farmstead bottled milk before summer. For those of you living elsewhere in the state, here are the other bottlers that I know of – some are doing home delivery – some offer retail outlets – contact them for more info (most of these folks are too busy to design a website, so just call).
· Castle Rock Organic Farm, Osseo, 715-597-0085
· Crystal Ball Organic Dairy, Osceola, 715-294-4090
· Davis Farm, Kennan, 715-474-3454
· Lamers Dairy, Appleton, For delivery info, phone 920-887-9288
· Tetzner Dairy, Washburn, 715-373-2330
· Weber Dairy, Marshfield, 715-384-5639
· Wisconsin Organics, Bonduel, phone: 920-475-7606
· Sunshine Farms, Portage – Goat’s Milk, 715-526-1752.
