Producer

In 1997, Adrian Buff’s parents moved his family from their dairy farm in Switzerland to Ava, Missouri. As an adult, Buff returned to Switzerland to learn the craft of cheesemaking. After five years, Buff returned to the family farm to start Grison Dairy & Creamery. In October 2018, he started selling cheese made from milk from his family’s dairy cows, which he produces at Terrell Creek Farm in Fordland. Currently, Grison Dairy & Creamy offers two types of cheese: Ozark Mutschli and The Grisontaler.

Ozark Mutschli is a semi-hard pasteurized cheese that uses a special blend of cultures. After brining, Buff washes it daily, then tapers off to three washes a week with a brine solution of different cultures, salt and water. The cheese is aged at least one month; when ready, it has a creamy flavor and texture. The Grisontaler, meanwhile, is a hard cheese made with raw milk, so it has to legally age for at least 60 days. The cheese is aged in a warm cave where it develops eyes, the characteristic round holes in Swiss cheese that are caused by the formation of carbon dioxide due to microbial metabolism.

The Grisontaler is more characteristic of traditional Swiss cheese and has a nutty flavor, with a more intense aroma and flavor profile. The cheese is named after the farm, as "taler" translates to "of the valley" and "Grison" is the name of the canton (a member state of the Swiss confederation) where the Buff family lived in Switzerland.