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Correction 3/14/22: A previous version of this article named Iceland as a Scandinavian country. Iceland is not part of Scandinavia.
An ancient food, butter remains a fascination and obsession for home bakers and Michelin-starred chefs alike today. Julia Child famously said that "with enough butter, anything is good," and she is partially responsible for bringing the ingredient back in fashion for American home cooks who, according to Mental Floss, had been misled to eschew butter for margarine in the name of health in the early 1900s and then later found margarine an acceptable butter replacement during World War II when butter became a scarce commodity.
Thankfully, though, butter is back en vogue in the American kitchen and, per Statista, consumption continues to trend upward. Not only are fabulously imported butters from Europe and Australasia becoming easier to find in America, several revered butter brands have emerged in the U.S. as well. Some of these newer American brands are using traditional European techniques and small-batch production to produce star-quality butter that sells out in minutes, leaving us with a wealth of options in supermarkets and specialty stores alike.
We've ranked 20 fancy butter brands to help you discover which products are worth the money — and, for some, the effort to track down — for your at-home culinary ventures. Some of these names sit on grocery store shelves nationwide while others have long been secrets of professional kitchens and bakeries. Those who earned the highest rankings found the sweet spot of being easy enough to purchase without being too widely available to where purchasing the product doesn't feel as special. These brands also featured a deep, memorable flavor without being too funky for swapping in your favorite recipes.
