Barn First Creamery
On a sunny day in June, our team adventured to northern Vermont to visit Barn First Creamery. Tucked down a dirt road in Westfield (10 minutes from Jay Peak and 15 minutes from the Canadian border) Merlin Backus and Rebecca Velazquez run a goat dairy and creamery. We were greeted by Merlin, and the bleating of more than two dozen baby goats who were born in March. Merlin’s and Rebecca’s dedication to their work quickly became apparent with the tidiness of their operation and their attention to detail.
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This year, they chose a nautical theme for naming the kids, with a focus on pirates - Parrot and Rumbottle were among the young goats. Past years’ themes have included space, birds, and pasta. Playful naming themes provide enough name options for all of the kids and encourage Merlin’s and Rebecca’s own children to get excited about the process (though they admit this has only marginally worked.) While the naming themes categorize the kids by birth year, they also use the names to keep track of genetics by beginning each kid’s name with the same letter of the mother goat’s name.
Prior to Barn First Creamery, Merlin and Rebecca lived in New York City where they enjoyed eating delicious Vermont cheeses. They would purchase them at Saxelby Cheese Mongers, and bring them back to Westfield, VT for Merlin’s family to enjoy. Even though Vermont was producing exquisite cheeses, they weren’t readily available in stores, or easy for Vermonters to purchase.
Goats and farming found the pair when they moved back to Merlin’s hometown; though Merlin was surrounded by farming and animals from a young age, he didn’t have experience with dairy, and neither Merlin nor Rebecca initially had a plan to start a creamery. A longtime family friend of the Backus family, Laini Fondiller, of Lazy Lady Farm, had two pregnant goats (Nikki and Patches) that needed a new home. She reached out to Merlin, he said “sure we’ll take them,” so when they arrived in Vermont, there were two goats in the original barn on the property. Rebecca’s enthusiasm for cheese led to her working for and learning from Laini, and the rest is history.
The pair started the farm in 2013, casually milking a few goats. Merlin was working for his dad; Rebecca worked for Laini by day while experimenting with cheesemaking on the stovetop at home. In 2016 they became a licensed dairy and built a barn with a big cheese room at one end and an apartment above to live in.
Currently, Merlin is the head goat wrangler and Rebecca focuses on cheesemaking. Though all of their goats are descendants of the two original goats from Laini, Merlin’s and Rebecca’s diligence with genetics and husbandry has led to a healthy goat herd. This season, they are milking 96 goats, and have another 34 young goats who won’t be milked until their second year. While some farmers milk goats at one year old, Barn First waits until the kids are two years old before milking, which they say leads to healthier animals. They also milk the goats during their natural cycle, avoiding the bitter cold winter months when milk production is greatly reduced. Their star milk producer, Ernestine (pictured below with Merlin), produced over 4,400 lbs. of milk in each of her last five seasons of lactation!
The creamery produces seven different varieties of cheese, and they are all cave aged. Many goat cheesemakers focus on fresh goat cheese, but Rebecca wanted to explore all the different cheeses that can be made and create a “whole cheese plate” from goat’s milk. Their cheese has won numerous awards, including the Yankee Food Awards, American Cheese Society, and has been featured in Cooks Illustrated and the New York Times.
In 2019 they started bottling their milk, and selling it in independent stores and food co-ops across Vermont. This allows them to milk more goats without worrying about having to use all of that milk in cheesemaking, and Vermonters can enjoy their milk. Due to the perishability of milk and how traditional distributors work, Rebecca says, “[our bottled milk] can only exist because of our relationship with Farm Connex… It’s not something we could find distribution for otherwise; it’s sort of a niche product, but there are all these co-ops that want it.” With Farm Connex logistics and transportation, the storage time for products between the farm and consumer is minimal. Barn First bottles the milk at the farm, it goes on the truck the next day, and it arrives at its final destination within two to three days. In 2024, Barn First began selling bulk milk to Vermont Creamery, which has allowed them to have a market for all of their excess milk.
You can find Barn First Creamery milk and cheese at co-ops and stores across the state, and you can find Rebecca selling cheese at the Burlington Farmers Market during the summer season. You can also find their cheese at Saxelby Cheese Mongers (in stores and online) and other specialty cheese shops around the country.
All Barn First Creamery photos by Kelly Bogel Stokes.