My mother and grandmother traditionally just used a boston pickling cucumber for all of their pickles including bread and butter pickles. It's only been the last few years that we've been trying some different types of cucumbers. I think my mom may have tried a type of english cucumber before but those were for eating fresh, not for pickling.

She has been experimenting with some of the new cucumbers as pickles and has been finding out which ones make a good pickle and which ones are better eaten fresh in a salad or just eaten by themselves on the side. I mostly stuck to cucumbers that looked like they were well suited for pickling just for the fact that you can only eat so many fresh cucumbers in a season.

There were some white cucumbers called white wonders that look just like a boston pickling cucumber but they are white. Mom made dill pickles with them and they turned out a really light green, I'm assuming from the dill. As far as taste and texture go, I couldn't tell the difference from her regular pickles. I assume if they work as dills they'd be fine for bread and butters as well.