Irish Food Writers Guild Award for Abernethy Butter

Abernethy Butter in Northern Ireland has won a prestigious Irish Guild of Food Writers Award for its award-winning range of butters, lemon curd and handmade fudge.

The  company, which is based at Dromara in county Down, has won business throughout the UK and the Republic of Ireland especially its range of handmade and hand rolled butters which have also won acclaim from celebrity chefs such as Heston Blumenthall, Marcus Wareing and Nigella Lawson.

Abernethy Butter’s Will and Allison Abernerthy were described by the guild as “custodians of a near-lost tradition of handmade, hand-rolled butter in Ireland, having begun producing Abernethy Butter around 10 years ago and growing it into the award-winning brand it is today, with a variety of flavours as well as handmade fudge and lemon curd.

“A unique dairy product, commercially unlike any other in Ireland in terms of process, their small-batch, slow-churned, hand-rolled butter shaped with wooden pats is made using Lisburn’s  Draynes Farm grass-fed, single-herd cream, which Allison and Will found to be the creamiest cream, resulting in the driest, best butter.

“Abernethy Butter is frequently listed on menus and a star ingredient in dishes of the best restaurants in Ireland and the UK, with a slew of stockists and their walls covered with prestigious awards.

Offering a variety of flavours (Dulse Butter, Black Garlic Butter, Smoked Butter, Chipotle Chilli and Smoked Paprika Butter), their unsalted and salted butters are their signature, and ‘Abernethy Gold’ should surely be added to the colour chart for that unmistakable, rich shade each roll bears.”

Speaking after hearing of the award, Allison Abernethy said she and her husband Will were “absolutely delighted and very honoured to be chosen”.

“It is lovely that the Guild have recognised the tradition of hand-made butter” she said.

The IFWG Food Awards are unique.  No business or individual can enter, nor do they know if they have been nominated or shortlisted for an award.  The guild is the sole nominating and decision-making body* whose members nominate and anonymously buy products for tasting. Proportional representation voting is then undertaken at a guild tasting meeting. Winning products must be produced in Ireland and the main ingredient must be Irish grown or produced.

Will and Allison Abernethy of Abernethy Butter in Dromara, county Down