We’re serious about butter. Puddling in grainy pockets and sneaking into the smallest crannies of toast. Dripping down the sides of a ribeye, leaving behind freckles of parsley. Developing a golden brown glisten, swirling on the bottom of a stainless steel pan.
So we butter-lovers stopped in the middle of eating our daily burnt toast when our Shop told us about the Quarterly Grass-Fed Butter Subscription we’ve launched. Let me repeat those words again: Butter. Subscription.
For a year’s time, you’ll get a butter delivery every three months, for a total of four deliveries. Each package will include 5-ounce blocks of an anything-but-plain sea salt butter, a roasted garlic butter, and two compound butters: typically one sweet butter and one seasonal savory butter.
Here’s the detailed run down of what you can look forward to:
- Fall: Sea salt, cinnamon, roasted garlic, balsamic fig
- Winter: Sea salt, dark chocolate, roasted garlic, sorghum butter
- Spring: Sea salt, lavender butter, roasted garlic, lemon chive
- Summer: Sea salt, sorghum butter, roasted garlic, smoked sea salt
This magical dairy delivery is courtesy of Banner Butter in Atlanta, Georgia, experts and wizards in all things butter. Banner is Drew and Elizabeth McBath, who started their journey in 2012 with the goal of making and selling butter with a richer flavor and farm-friendly practices. A few 19th-century dairy journals and a mixer later, they started churning out (literally) their superior, simple butter.
Banner Butter is different from the usual sticks you find in the local grocery store. Here’s why:
- The cream comes right from local grass-fed cows so it’s spanking fresh. The happy cows graze freely and are never treated with hormones. Bonus: A healthy diet of grass increases vitamin E, beta-carotene, and omega-3 fatty acids in the milk they produce.
- Banner Butter has a higher content of butterfat than other butters (think whole milk versus 2%). You don’t need us to tell you what more fat does to flavor (okay, it makes it better).
- The churning process Banner uses is complex and takes time. The fresh cream is allowed to ripen (or slow-culture) for up to 36 hours at a very specific temperature, building good bacteria. That bacteria is what gives the butter all of its earthy, grassy, nutty, sweet nuances. Then the butter is churned slowly in small batches, allowing tweaks along the way. Small adjustments are made for taste and consistency until the butter is absolutely 100 percent perfect. This method produces Cultured butter. Many mass market butters are labeled Sweet Cream butters, butters whose cream hasn’t gone through the ripening process to develop flavor. These companies may add “natural flavoring” to the butter to imitate the deep, buttery taste. At the end of the day, it takes Banner 20 times longer to make their butter than companies mass producing butters. Trust us—it’s worth the wait.
Butter’s not the only thing you can subscribe to around here. We’ve got hot sauce, salami, coffee, wreaths, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pasta subscriptions, too!
What’s your go-to brand of butter? Divulge below.
(via Food52)
