Born in 1967, Highland Fine Cheese has been slowly yet surely carving it place on the British Cheese scene. With its quirky named cheeses and a memorable cheesemaker, Rory Stone, you will surely have heard of our stinky Minger or mellow Fat Cow by now.
Our Blue Murder is another one of our smelly things, Often described as meaty with fine threads of blue running through the creamy, white paste, so satisfyingly SWEET AND VELVETY that a mouthful can even take non-Blue cheese lovers to heaven!
But do you know the story behind our Blue Murder? Be prepared to be surprised … we do like a crazy story here at Highland Fine Cheeses.
Our Founder and Cheesemaker Rory Stone steps back in time to retrace with you the creation process of one of our best selling product:
“Blue Murder was born out of a collaboration between a trio of 3 passionate cheese lovers:
A Cheese Guru: Juliet Harbutt was a great friend to UK cheese and cheese-makers alike. The British Cheese Awards was very much her thing, helping to bring British Cheesemakers all together and giving them a platform from which to shout.
A Rock Star: None other than bassist and beauty of the Blur line up, Alex James. In between fumbling with 4 heavy strings and keeping the class “A”’s at bay he also developed a love of all things cheese.
A dishevelled and sleep deprived workaholic cheesemaker : Yours truly, Rory Stone.
Back in 2017, Alex teamed up with Juliet to create a tailored range of speciality cheese scoping the producers to find the best partners.
Alex while the judging at the BCA decided Highland Fine Cheeses’ Strathdon Blue was near to what he looked for in a mould ripened cheese. Juliet soon reached out tasked me to come up with an independent blue for Alex’s range. Juliet believed that a cubic blue would be something quite different and after some trials with a biscuit tin (honestly!) that I had drilled holes in for drainage we had something almost edible.
Next task was to name the cheese and then things got messy: Juliet and I had fun but weren’t particularly inspired ; there was Gordon Blue, Highland Blue and – wait for it – “ye-canna-whack-it”. Alex picked “E minor 7” which I believe was his favourite blues chord and then said “what about Blue Monday” the eponymous dance anthem from New Order in the 1980’s and we basically said YES.
As with all good Rock band stories, it was fun for a time but things went down in flame; Juliet and Alex parted company and it became “Alex James” presents. Alex and I then fell apart soon after when he registered the name of our cheese as his own. We brought the technology, the manufacturing, ripening, packing and distribution but had no say in the brand and I suggested that this was not a good way for a partnership to behave, I likened it to Alex registering the name Blur as his own and how did he think the rest of the band would react.
At this stage, lawyers got involved and I received a demand for £10k worth of unpaid royalties which felt surprisingly Rock’n’Roll. That was a strange day and so we simply had to move on and in a rush. Our Blue Cheese couldn’t be called Blue Monday anymore and we needed an alternative. I was a touch anxious, £10k would have sunk us then. I sort of got angry with the ridiculous behaviour and someone said “Blue Murder?” and that really suited my mood.”
Not what you expected? This is what we are all about at Highland Fine Cheeses, delicious little smelly things with a quirky story!
Find out more about our range here: https://2ly.link/1zhXr