Animal Farm Butter will be restocked Friday, 4/26, at 3 PM EST!
If you know, you know: Animal Farm Butter is some of the best in the world! Every few weeks, Saxelby Cheesemongers has the privilege of bringing you this sought-after butter straight from the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
Animal Farm Creamery, founded by Diane St. Clair in 1999 and presently run by Hilary and Ben Haigh, is a haven for its small herd of Jersey cows. For 22 years, St. Clair cared for her prized herd of ten, turning their milk into exquisite butter. Last year, though, the time came to move the girls to new pastures. Their new home wasn’t far, only seven miles down the road. Now, at the Haighs’ Rolling Bale Farm in Shoreham, they enjoy a wooden barn on a grassy hill, and have three new bovine friends.
Following the creamery’s 2022 transfer of ownership, Hilary continues to make the butter with the method Diane taught her, the same one she had used since 1999. First, Hilary skims the rich Jersey cream by hand, keeping its precious fat globules in pristine condition. She cultures the cream for 24 hours, using buttermilk as a starter. The final steps, churning and kneading, are also done by hand, until Hilary arrives at a product that she deems fit for the table. In many ways, Animal Farm Butter is the image of careful, small-scale dairying’s magic, and a testament to handmade products’ ability to persist despite the surrounding industrial landscape.
Most of this exquisite butter goes to some of the best restaurants in the country: Per Se in New York, The Inn at Little Washington in Washington DC, and The French Laundry in Napa. Saxelby Cheesemongers is the only place you can buy it online!
Each package contains one pound of sweet cream butter (4 balls at 4 oz each). The unsalted butter can be eaten fresh (which is what we recommend!) within ~2 weeks of arrival. If you can’t get through all of it in 2 weeks, make sure to throw it in the freezer!
Want to learn more about the creamery, its current owners, and storied history? Check out our conversation with the Haighs on our blog, and Melissa Clark’s New York Times article about Animal Farm’s persistence.
