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This month's box begins in the pastures of southern Georgia at Sweet Grass Dairy - a family creamery that started with a grandmother making cheese in her kitchen and grew into one of the most awarded dairies in the country. Three cheeses, a Jam Duo, and a board full of Southern flavor await you. We built this box around the tastes that define Georgia: peach, bourbon, pecans, and a little heat.
Make your curdbox a feast with these quick additions
that will take your experience to the next level
The Story Behind the Box
featuring Sweet Grass Dairy
We don't often include only one producer in our monthly boxes. However, Sweet Grass Dairy is very special to us and this year is their 25th anniversary. Their delicious award winning cheese deserve the full spotlight.
There's a stretch of southern Georgia just north of the Florida line where the winters are mild enough that cows can stay on pasture year-round. The grass grows thick, fed by one of the largest aquifers in the country. It's not a place most people think of when they think about world-class cheese. That's exactly why we love it.
In 1993, Al and Desiree Wehner transitioned their conventional dairy farm in Thomasville, Georgia into a rotational grazing operation — moving the herd to fresh pasture every 12 hours and letting the fields regenerate behind them. It changed everything about the milk. After a couple of years of Desiree making cheese in their family kitchen, Sweet Grass Dairy was born in 2000 — and this month, they are celebrating their 25th anniversary. Twenty-five years of building something from a grandmother's kitchen into one of the most awarded dairies in America, with over 30 domestic and international awards and distribution across more than 38 states. But they're still in Thomasville. Still using milk from the Wehner family farm. Still making cheese the slow way.
When Jessica and Jeremy Little joined the family creamery and eventually purchased the business, they didn't overhaul the vision — they deepened it. Jeremy trained directly with Desiree and with Jean-Marc Maysonnave, a cheese consultant from the Pyrenees Mountains of France, learning to apply old-world technique to Southern milk. The cheeses they make today are named for their children, their hometown, and the rolling landscape of Thomasville.
What's in your box — and why we chose it
We built this month's box around the flavors that define Georgia: peach, bourbon, pecans, and a little heat. Here's what you're working with.
Pimento Cheese This isn't the pimento cheese from a plastic tub. Sweet Grass Dairy makes theirs from shredded Thomasville Tomme — their own raw-milk farmhouse cheese — blended with Sir Kensington's mayonnaise, sweet Spanish piquillo peppers, and a warm touch of smoky pimentón. It took 1st Place at the American Cheese Society and scored 99 out of 100 in the flavored cheese category. Rich and familiar at first, it opens up with gentle spice, a little tang, and a spreadable texture that makes it impossible to stop at one cracker. Spoon it into a small bowl and let people dig in. The Sourdough Crackers stand up perfectly to this creamy cheese dip delight.
Thomasville Tomme Named for the town it calls home. This farmhouse-style cheese brings a Southern lens to a traditional French tomme — a natural rind, semi-soft texture, and buttery depth that comes from pasture-raised Jersey cow milk. There are gentle grassy notes, a light tang, and a clean savory finish. Slice it thin or break it into rustic chunks. It's the backbone of the board — the one you keep coming back to.
Georgia Gouda Styled after a traditional Gouda but rooted in South Georgia, this one has a deep golden color and smooth, gently firm texture that gives way to nutty, buttery notes with a mild tang and the soft sweetness of fresh cream. It's your crowd-pleaser and your bridge cheese — plays beautifully with everything else on the board. Slice it thin or cube it for easy grabbing.
NEW- The Jam Duo
Naked Peach Jam & Red Pepper Jelly from Blake Hill Preserves We included two jams in this box on purpose, and here's the logic: one is sweet, one has heat. The Naked Peach is pure fruit — smooth, bright, the kind of ripe peach flavor that tastes like Georgia in July. The Red Pepper Jelly is its counterpart: sweet red peppers with a lively, building heat that feels right at home in a Southern kitchen.
They're great on their own. But here's what we actually recommend: mix them together. Equal parts, stirred in a small bowl. What you get is essentially a homemade peach pepper jelly — the sweetness of the peach, the warmth of the pepper, a little complexity that neither one has alone. Spoon it next to the Thomasville Tomme or the Georgia Gouda and you'll understand immediately why this combination has been on Southern tables forever. This is the pairing move of the month. Honestly- I couldn't find a peach pepper jelly that was good enough- so we made one ourselves :)
Maple Bourbon Pecans from Q's Nuts Pecans are Georgia. A mellow maple glaze, a hint of bourbon smoke, soft vanilla, and a crunch that unfolds slowly rather than all at once. These are the finishing touch on the board- perfect crunch, sweetness, and the maple really pops— tuck them into every corner.
Sourdough Crackers from The Sourdough Project These crackers are really special. Slow fermented and made by hand, these crisp sourdough crackers from The Sourdough Project offer a tangy depth and lightly toasty bite that feels simple and thoughtfully crafted. Their intentionally cold & slow fermentation process develops such a deep, rich, full cracker that puts other crackers to shame. Produced using organic heirloom Texas wheat, olive oil, and sea salt, they reflect a quiet Southern respect for honest ingredients and patient methods.
Building the Georgia Board
Start with the pimento cheese in a small bowl — your anchor. Arrange the Thomasville Tomme and Georgia Gouda on either side with some breathing room. Add a small bowl with your mixed peach pepper jelly or place the mini jars on either side of the pimento. Fan the crackers around the edges, scatter the pecans into the gaps, and you're done.
The Georgia on My Mind Playlist
We built this month's playlist the same way we built the box — Georgia first, then everything it influenced. Ray Charles (obviously), Otis Redding, Gladys Knight, and a few surprises that felt right when we were putting it together.
[Listen on Spotify → Here
BUILD A BITE Three ways to eat your way through this board. In order. Trust us.
Georgia Stack -Take a sourdough cracker. Spoon on a generous layer of pimento cheese. Add a little of your mixed peach pepper jelly on top. Crown it with a second cracker. Press gently. Eat in one bite if you can manage it. This is the whole box in a single moment — creamy, spicy, sweet, tangy, and unmistakably Southern.
Peachy Pecan Bite A slice of Georgia Gouda. A small spoonful of Naked Peach Jam draped over the top. One maple bourbon pecan pressed in. That's it. The sweetness of the peach pulls out the butterscotch notes in the Gouda, and the pecan adds just enough crunch and warmth to make it feel intentional.
Tomme & Heat A slice of Thomasville Tomme on a sourdough cracker with a small spoon of Red Pepper Jelly on top. The natural rind, the grassiness of the Jersey milk, the gentle farmhouse funk — the pepper jelly cuts right through it with heat and sweetness. This is the bite that makes people ask what they're eating.
GEORGIA TRIVIA Things worth knowing
Georgia produces more pecans than any other state in the country — roughly 100 million pounds a year. The pecan you're eating tonight almost certainly came from within a few hundred miles of where your cheese was made.
The peach is Georgia's official state fruit, but did you know Georgia actually ranks third in peach production in the US? South Carolina and California both outproduce them. Georgia just tells the story better — which, if you think about it, is a very Georgia thing to do.
Thomasville, Georgia — home of Sweet Grass Dairy — was one of the most fashionable winter resort destinations in America in the late 1800s. Wealthy Northerners, including several US presidents, wintered there to escape the cold. The town's rose collection is still one of the finest in the Southeast.
Sweet Grass Dairy's Thomasville Tomme takes its name directly from the town. Their Green Hill cheese — the bloomy rind that made them famous — is named for the Wehner family's first rotational grazing farm. Every cheese they make is named for something real.
Pimento cheese is so embedded in Southern culture it's sometimes called "the caviar of the South." It's been served at Augusta National Golf Club — home of The Masters, just two hours north of Thomasville — for decades. Sweet Grass Dairy's version just won 99 out of 100 at the American Cheese Society. Make of that what you will.
And if you get some photos — tag us @curdbox and our partners @sweetgrassdairy, @blakehillpreserves, @the_sourdough_project, and @qsnuts. We love to see it.
Forever dreaming of cheese. — Julianne & the Curdbox Crew
