It is my fervent belief that the ultimate adventure food is food (gimme a slice of cold pizza over an energy bar any day) and that the ultimate food food is a peanut butter and jelly or peanut butter and honey sandwich (or, now that I’m 100 percent plant-based, peanut butter and agave).
This was a lesson learned early, as my entire elementary school lunch career was built around PBHs, but it was relearned when I mountain biked the San Juan Hut System from Telluride to Moab. The huts are stocked with heaps of calories, from food food to energy bar food, and each morning before heading to the next hut I’d make twin double-decker PBHs. Done right, the honey would saturate the middle slice into a sugary confection of wheaty texture. Done wrong, well, there was no way to do it wrong, and those sammies fueled my 350-mile, six-day ride like nothing else could.
Almond butter is the grown-up version of peanut butter, but I’ve long stuck to goobers, being from Virginia and all. (When I was a kid, I even had a peanut grinder in the shape of Mr. Peanut.) That is, until just recently, when I discovered that Gu Energy Labs has just launched a new brand of almond butter blends called Boon. They are nothing short of incredible.
The first one I tried is called Espresso Bean, and yes, they had me at “Espresso.” It contains just five ingredients: organic almonds, ground coffee, coffee cherry pulp, vanilla extract, and sea salt. The coffee serves as a foundation, almost a bass line, while the vanilla brings a highlight. It takes almond butter, which I’ve never seen as much of an improvement over peanut butter, and launches it into the stratosphere of heavenly tastes.
And yet, the experience is still subtle. My palate is a blunt-force object; I would add Tapatio to Tapatio if it made it spicier. But all the Boons strike a lovely, low-level harmony between their primary (almond) and secondary flavors (coffee, chai, ginger, cinnamon) that leaves even a food pagan like me impressed and inspired. Let’s put it this way: I went through four 10-ounce jars in less than three weeks and that would have been a lot shorter if I’d succumbed to the desire to eat straight from the jars with a spoon. I’ve already bought a couple more jars, coffee (of course) and sweet ginger.
$15 • eatboon.com
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almond butter and honey mixed into a jerry tube is awesome backpacking food. I usually bring dehydrated apple slices and squeeze this delicious mixture onto each slice.
Ooh. Can’t wait to try this.
A slightly different take on PBH got me through many a day on the Great Divide. Peanut butter spread on a flower tortilla and drizzled with honey (and if available, a sprinkle of cinnamon), then rolled up. Probably had at least one of those every day of the ride and somehow never tired of them. My mouth is actually watering thinking of it now. Generally packed two or three in a quart-size freezer bag each morning. Freezer bag being the important part, ’cause you don’t want a thin sandwich bag with honey in it tearing apart in your pack.
These days I’d probably try to find a way to carry them that generates less plastic waste, but even then I typically re-used the same bag for at least a week…
Almond and peanut butter are great foods as honey is. But when you buy you need to look on the ingredients. For backpacking its important that they don’t melt easy. Many of them contain too much oil and after a day on the trail you can pour them. This isn’t pleasant and healthy.
I am going to try these.
But dude… when the jam or honey and peanut butter become ingredients of the bread is when they’re the best! Simple pleasures of life in the backcountry.
$15 for a 10oz jar? Get the heck outa here. You either got it for free or spent $45 for blood sugar spiking snack food. Cool to see how the mystical middle class is spending their spare income from the job they are fortunate to have when so many are still out of work from the pandemic
Frankly, it should probably cost more considering how much water almond trees consume, especially considering they’re grown in areas that don’t get a ton of rain.
I’m sure this stuff is good, but……
Skippy Extra Crunchy 15Z: $2.39 at Fred Meyer’s last Monday. Difference of $12.61.
Thx Steve! Order placed! : )
Justin’s almond butter with maple. That is all.
Haha, did you ever see Chris Rock’s stand up routine, where he makes fun of his mom for buying jars of peanut butter and jelly already mixed together? Let’s just say for 24.00 a pound, i’ll be skipping this product. I can make my own fancy pre-mixed foods.