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Butter is one of those little things that make life worth living. Whether it’s the real thing or a plant-based alternative, a touch of butter is a touch of the sublime.
At Wisconsin’s World Championship Cheese Contest earlier this month, a modestly priced butter from the U.S. was judged most sublime — beating out established dairies from Europe to secure the creamery crown.
If you know your dairy products, you know the brand: Cabot, a cooperative of dairy farmers based in Vermont. Their Cabot Creamery Cooperative Extra Creamy Sea Salted butter, from one of their partner dairies in Massachusetts, won the award for best salted butter with a sky-high score of 99.65.
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Cabot Extra Creamy barely edged out the salted butter by Isigny Sainte-Mère, a storied brand out of Normandy, France. That butter scored 99.6 from the judges.
Nevertheless, please note: A half-pound of Cabot Extra Creamy Sea Salted butter rings up at about $4. The Isigny Sainte-Mère? $11.99 for 8.8 ounces.
Judges for the Cheese Contest (no, butter isn’t cheese, just go with it) rate each item in several categories, including flavor, salt, color, texture, finish and packaging.
Each product starts with 100 points and judges make deductions based on the flaws they detect. That means the Cabot Extra Creamy was extremely close to perfect, and it won the gold medal for the category.
Cabot landed another product in the top three salted butters this year, too, earning a bronze medal for a separate version of the Extra Creamy Sea Salted.
Cabot didn’t fare quite as well in the unsalted butter category, bested by brands from Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark and France — plus another New England brand, Vermont Creamery, which placed second.
But no matter! Salted butter is the butter we use for our morning toast, our crusty baguette, our fresh slice of banana bread. It’s the butter of the people, and Cabot came out on top.
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Their gold medal stands until the World Championship Cheese Contest returns in 2026. By which time I will have hopefully figured out how to sneak in and discreetly raid the samples.
***Correction 3/15/2024: The original version of this story misidentified the Cabot cooperative’s home state, which is Vermont.
About the Author
Kathleen was born in Iowa, but has spent most of her life in Colorado - with stints in Chicago, New York and Wyoming for variety. She’s written about things like music, food, nightlife, medical news, motorcycles, animals, bargain shopping, strip clubs and plants for publications like The Denver Post, Esquire, The A.V. Club, and Scripps' Simplemost and Don't Waste Your Money. More.
