It's been a great summer for the Shatto Milk Company. Fresh off its win at the Missouri State Fair, the dairy's chocolate milk was named
third best at the World Dairy Expo.
"My wife thought we should have come in first," jokes Leroy Shatto. "I never dreamed this could happen when we sent samples up there [to Madison, Wisconsin]. We were competing against the big boys and there's not too many of them that still milk their own cows."
Over the phone, I can hear a cow bleating agreeably in the background at the farm Shatto runs with his wife Barbara.
"We've received so many congratulations with people calling and posting messages to our Facebook account. I just have goosebumps. This is what gets me ready to wake up at 3 a.m. and go to work in the morning," says Shatto.
And yet, he can't help but talk about all of the other things happening around the farm. As he prepares for a local launch of artisan cheeses, Shatto has been trying to perfect gouda and 20-pound rounds of cheddar.
"The cheese is just fun. It's exciting because it's something
different. It also provides some balance to the milk. Because if we
have too much milk next summer, we can always make cheese," says Shatto.
He's
also experimenting with a series of different flavors -- attempting to
age his cheese in everything from chocolate cocoa to Boulevard beer. Maybe even a cheese rubbed with coffee grounds, a result of work on a new milk flavor.
Shatto is
currently testing Coffee Milk, flavored with coffee from The Roasterie. And since we've moved into fall, he's gearing up for
the holiday season and that means egg-nog.
"The eggnog cows are coming shortly," says Shatto, "So get ready for pumpkin spice egg-nog. It tastes like pumpkin pie."
Until then, you'll just have to settle for one of the best chocolate milks in the world.
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