Vermont's best butter gets a shout-out in the new season of the critically acclaimed TV show "The Bear." (Spoiler alert! Rich details ahead.)

In the third episode of the series' third season, Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto — a young, talented chef running a high-end restaurant in Chicago — has an argument about food costs with Uncle Jimmy, his main investor.

"I have a bill in my hands for $11,268 for butter," an outraged Uncle Jimmy says. "Buddy, what is it, the fucking rare Transylvanian five-titted goat? We cannot fucking keep this up."

Carmy replies that the butter is "Orwellian."

"It's dystopian butter?" Jimmy responds.

No, Carmy says, it's butter from Orwell — Vermont. An invoice from the butter company flashes on screen, revealing it's from Old Major Butter Farms, a reference to the rebellious pig character in George Orwell's novel Animal Farm.

While Old Major Butter Farms is fictional, the scene is an homage to the real-life Animal Farm Creamery, founded in Orwell by Diane St. Clair. In 2000, St. Clair started handcrafting butter from a small herd of happy cows; it soon became the most sought-after butter in the U.S. The biggest customer is celebrity chef Thomas Keller of high-end restaurants the French Laundry in California's Napa Valley and New York City's Per Se. In 2022, St. Clair retired and sold the operation to Hilary and Ben Haigh of Rolling Bale Farm in Shoreham.

The farmers milk 12 Jersey cows to make just 100 pounds of butter per week; it retails for $60 per pound. ("Normal" butter at the grocery store costs about $4.20 per pound.) The farm also sells buttermilk, which is available at co-ops, natural food stores and farmstands around Vermont.

Hilary Haigh told Seven Days that she thought Keller, who makes several appearances in the show, might be behind the bit. She noted the address on the fictional invoice was almost identical to that of the original farm in Orwell.

"The scene itself was written so well, and it's hilarious," Haigh said. "It was portrayed really well, and ... we just felt really excited to have been mentioned."