This has been in my drafts forever. I am a very bad cult leader, not sharing my wisdom; I will endeavor to do better.
So, it turns out that once you’ve got a good recipe to start with it’s pretty trivial to make your own pickles; they come out far better than you’ll get off the shelf, and unless you’ve got some mad Rabbi, crafty Slav or elderly Mennonite brewing them up in a kitchen near you, you’re unlikely to find better.
The vinegar in that recipe is enough; you should skip the boil-the-jars-with-pickles-in step since it softens them up, but that recipe scales right down if you want to make a small batch to try it out. And the eight-week waiting period is unnecessary – they improve, but a week or two is fine. Small batches in Mason jars are easily done, and pretty great.
But this point is key: Dill pickles? Old news, boring. What you want are basil pickles. They’re awesome. Not as awesome on their own, arguably, but when used as, say, a hamburger topping? A huge improvement. Use more garlic than they recommend and a quantity of fresh basil instead of the dill (maybe even throw in a hot pepper, if you’re so inclined) and you will not be disappointed.