Sugar House Creamery in Upper Jay, NY: Crafting Memorable Adirondack Cheeses
It’s all about the cows. Photos courtesy Sugar House Creamery.
A tiny Adirondack farmstead with a big flavor story.
High in the shadow of the Adirondack High Peaks, on a steep hillside in Upper Jay, sits a farm where time seems to slow down just enough to let milk become something extraordinary.
At Sugar House Creamery, a small herd of cows grazes beneath wide mountain skies. Inside a sturdy Dutch gambrel barn, milk becomes cheese—slowly, deliberately, and with remarkable attention to craft.
Twelve cows. Twenty-three acres. A one-eyed barn cat named William.
And some of the most distinctive farmstead cheeses are being made anywhere in the Adirondacks.
For visitors exploring the region’s growing farm-to-table scene, Sugar House Creamery offers something increasingly rare: food with a clear sense of place.
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From hillside pasture to handcrafted cheese.
Sugar House Creamery began with a simple but ambitious vision.
After meeting in college in 2008, Alex Eaton and Margot Brooks spent nearly five years working together at a goat dairy in Vermont. They learned the craft of small-scale cheesemaking and became enamored with the old European model of farmstead creameries—places where milk from grazing animals is transformed into cheese right on the farm.
In 2012, they found their opportunity in the Adirondacks.
Sample Sugar House Creamery’s delicious chesses.
The farm they purchased in Upper Jay wasn’t perfect. The pastures were overgrown. The soil lacked nutrients. But the bones were good.
Two solid farmhouses. A handful of sturdy outbuildings. And, most importantly, a handsome gambrel barn with twelve cow stalls—just right for a milking parlor, creamery, and aging space.
The location sealed the deal. Sitting within easy reach of Lake Placid and the High Peaks, the farm offered the perfect setting to create value-added dairy products for both locals and visitors.
Eaton and Brooks rolled up their sleeves, wrote a business plan, secured a loan, and began transforming the farm into the compact creamery they had imagined.
A team shaped by passion and good timing.
The early years were intense.
Building a creamery from scratch requires relentless work—milking cows, managing pasture, making cheese, aging wheels, hauling product to farmers’ markets, and doing it all again the next day.
By the winter of 2014, exhaustion was setting in.
Then came a fortunate twist of fate.
Casey Galligan, fresh from Peace Corps service in Panama, arrived looking for exactly this kind of life. Her own journey into cheesemaking had taken her through France and Vermont before landing in the Adirondacks.
The cheese cave.
The timing proved perfect. Galligan joined the operation, and the three quickly became a tight-knit team sharing the many responsibilities of farm and creamery life.
In 2017, the farm welcomed another new arrival—Harriet Wren Eaton Brooks.
Her presence added a fresh reminder of why the work matters: building a life connected to land, animals, and food made honestly.
Cows, pasture, and the Adirondack growing season.
At Sugar House Creamery, the cheese begins with the cows.
The herd includes Brown Swiss, Jersey, and Montbéliarde cattle—breeds known for producing rich, flavorful milk well suited to cheesemaking.
From roughly May through November, the cows graze fresh Adirondack pasture daily. Winter brings a diet of hay and non-GMO grain.
That seasonal rhythm shows up in the milk—and ultimately in the cheese.
Every wheel becomes a small time capsule of the farm’s land and weather in that particular moment.
Cheeses that capture the farm's character.
Sugar House Creamery produces a small but distinctive lineup of cheeses, each expressing a different personality.
Brown swiss cow.
One standout favorite among Adirondack cheese lovers is Dutch Knuckle, an aged raw-milk cheese inspired by traditional Appenzeller styles.
We were first introduced to this cheese during a pizza-making class at Triple Green Jade Farm, and now it’s one of our favorites.
Aged eight to twelve months, it delivers deep savory notes often compared to rich beef broth, with crystalline crunch and a pleasantly lingering finish.
The flavor evolves as each batch matures, making every wheel slightly different.
For something softer and more approachable, Poundcake offers a supple, washed-rind cheese with cultured-butter flavors and mellow nuttiness. Its grapefruit-colored rind signals the careful brining that encourages its creamy interior to develop.
Then there’s Little Dickens, a youthful, snowy-rinded cheese aged just 10–14 days. Silky and lactic when young, it ripens into something richer and more complex with aromas reminiscent of rising bread dough.
Each cheese reflects the same philosophy: preserve the milk's flavor and let time do the rest.
A farm store worth the scenic detour.
Visitors to Sugar House Creamery can experience the results firsthand at the farm’s charming on-site store.
Alongside the creamery’s cheeses, shelves often feature raw milk, meats, and goods from neighboring Adirondack farms and artisans. The atmosphere feels refreshingly unpolished in the best possible way—more like a working farm than a curated tasting room.
Outside, the view stretches toward Ebenezer Mountain.
Inside, there’s usually cheese.
See How Sugar House Creamery Makes Its Adirondack Farmstead Cheese
This short video introduces visitors to Sugar House Creamery and offers a behind-the-scenes look at how milk from Adirondack pasture becomes handcrafted cheese.
Cheesemakers Alex Eaton and Margot Brooks share the story of Sugar House Creamery in Upper Jay, showing the cows, pasture, and traditional methods used to produce their Adirondack farmstead cheeses.
Located in the High Peaks region near Lake Placid, Sugar House Creamery has become a favorite stop for travelers exploring the Adirondack food and agriculture scene.
A small future by design.
In an era when many businesses chase growth, Sugar House Creamery is intentionally choosing something different.
The goal isn’t expansion.
It’s refinement.
The team continues to focus on improving soil health, reducing waste, shrinking the farm’s carbon footprint, and fine-tuning the cheeses they already make.
For Adirondack food lovers, that philosophy means something reassuring.
Sugar House Creamery isn’t trying to become bigger.
It’s simply working to become better.
And in a quiet hillside barn in Upper Jay, that commitment shows up in every wheel of cheese.
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