Yeah, I’m kind of puzzled as to what ‘good’ butter is going to gain him in a bowl of pre-packaged microwave macaroni and cheese.
Guys, I’m not asking for gourmet butter. :rolleyes:
Whole Foods house brand is quite good and pretty reasonably priced. Trader Joe’s house brand is my usual butter - much better than typical supermarket brands - but that’s only because I shop there much more often than at Whole Foods.
Now, neither of them compare to the REALLY good stuff of course.
Not a gourmet butter but I’m just back from a hiking holiday in Austria and at one of the mountain huts for snack I had some Kasebrot. Just a simple slab of rye bread with a nice smearing of butter and a slab of cheese on top. It was utterly wonderful. All of it was home made, bread included. The cheese and butter were made from unpasteurised milk and the butter itself was unsalted and pretty bloody wonderful.
Nothing beats fresh baked bread… ever.
Kerrygold. So much better than your standard Tillamook or LandOLakes for eating on things like toast.
Oh, I see. You want the tastiest butter made by non-gourmets.
Define what you mean by “gourmet.” Almost all the answers in this thread are commonly available commercial butters.
I always thought butter was butter and the only real difference was salted or unsalted. The cool thing about Land O Lakes has always been the folding trick.
Beyond salted and unsalted, there’s also “sweet cream” butter and “cultured” butter where the cream has been left to ferment slightly before being turned into butter. Within the range of cultured butters, the choice of culturing techniques can bring out certain cheese like notes in the butter.
Industrial butter is made from commodity milk and blended to be consistent but small batch butter will vary in color and flavor over the year as the animal’s diet changes.
High quality butter is a niche product but the taste is markedly different from commodity butter. I served some at a brunch once and a guest asked me where I got my fabulous cheese from before I politely informed her she had just scarfed down half a stick of butter.
Cultured vs uncultured is the other big difference. (There are others, too, but those are the main general categories.) It’s kind of like the difference between regular milk and buttermilk. There’s a tang and, I dunno, nuttiness or cheesiness or something to cultured butter that makes it stand out. I remember first discovering it with a simple baguette and butter as part of a cheap hotel breakfast in Paris. My expectations were set real low (I mean, seriously, who works up enthusiasm for a baguette with butter?) but holy shit did I discover that morning how good bread and butter could be, even in shit-ass cheap hotel.
First things first: Are you using actual butter? Going from Country Crock or I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! to actual real butter butter is going to be a much bigger improvement than you’ll see going from one brand of real butter to another.
It ain’t butter, but Mangalitsa lardo is ridiculously delicious.
I actually don’t care much for Kerrygold. It always seems a bit greasy, as if it’s been overchurned…more akin to ghee (which is nice for cooking, though). For slightly nicer butters, I like the Amish kind that comes in a fat roll instead of sticks, and Beurre de Chimay when I can get it. The first time I had the latter, I ate half a round on crackers before I caught myself. :o
Otherwise, I keep good old Land O’Lakes around.
Kerrygold is my default “better butter”. It’s affordable and available. The best butter I ever had was Organic Pastures cultured raw butter. Amazing flavor, but not kind to the pocket book.
It’s real butter, none of that oleo crap. I didn’t find any garlic butter so I just got that Walmart butter. 
Well I’ll be darned. I had no idea. Thanks. Great story on the guest eating butter. Eww.
LOL! Too bad you didn’t have a camera to get that look on her face.
Jesus, who was your guest – Paula Deen?
I came into the thread to mention this. It’s very nice and a fairly decent price.
Other than that, I tend to use Tillamook butter.