Gourmet Jerky - Teriyaki Beef Jerky

Gourmet Jerky is a brand of jerky produced by the company of the same name, based out of Claremont, CA. It's been in operation since 1992. Their focus is on making "mouth-watering jerky products to the world's most discriminating customers", placing customer satisfaction as their number one concern.

The brand uses no sodium nitrite or monosodium glutamate, and no sugar.

Their jerky is sold in specialty shops and farmer's markets throughout Southern California, as well as through their website.

Ingredients

Beef, sugar, soy sauce, honey, red pepper, white pepper.

Taste

A good deal of sweetness is what I taste right away off the surface, which migrates into something a little bit more like teriyaki. Moving into the chew, I continue to taste the same thing, plus some additional fatty taste.

As you can see in the photos below, there's quite a bit of fat marbilization on these slices. I get a good deal of that fatty taste. It doesn't have a rancid taste, however. I actually do like having some fat in jerky, but in such heavy quantities as this, it gives the jerky a less than desirable experience. I can feel a coating of grease in my mouth.

But there are other pieces in this package that have very little fat, or none visible at all. I do pick up some of the natural meat flavors in this, though the heavy sweetness masks some of those flavors. Being free of preservatives, I don't pick up any kind of stale taste.

For being a teriyaki variety, there is a resemblance of teriyaki, but it's a very sweet one. For the most part, it's a heavily sweetened soy sauce taste. I don't taste any ginger, which I feel is a necessary component of teriyaki, and in fact it's missing on the ingredients list.

The saltiness is very light. The red and white pepper in the ingredients list don't really make a showing in this. It's completely mild.

For the most part, what I'm eating is a sugar jerky, with a slight taste of teriyaki, and just a wee bit of the natural meat flavors.

Meat Consistency

These appear to be slices of whole meat, sliced thin, and in medium to large pieces.

It's largely a thin dry jerky, except these have a moist sticky coating on the outside. This teriyaki variety doesn't have the slight bit of crunchiness that the company's natural variety has, mostly because of that moist sticky coating. The pieces with a lot of fat marbilization also have an oily touch.

It's very easy to tear off a piece, and easy to chew.

In addition to the heavy fat marbilization on some pieces, I also found one piece with a thin streak of gristle. It still chewed ok, however. I didn't find any other tendon or connective tissue.




Product Value

Gourmet Jerky sell this Natural Beef Jerky variety from its website at a price of $7.00 for a 4 ounce package. That works out to a price of $1.75 per ounce, putting this into the average price range.

For general jerky snacking purposes, it offers an "ok" value. It still presents a snackability with the ease of eating, and the fact that it doesn't have a bad taste. If you love sweet jerky, then you'll find this to have a greater snackability.

But as a teriyaki variety, it has a weak value. I get just a bit of teriyaki taste, and a bunch of sugary sweetness. I might even question that what I'm tasting is actually a sweet-salty combination as opposed to sweet-soy sauce.

Rating

I'm giving this an average rating.

Despite all I've written, it still presents a snackability, which guarantees at least an average rating. And being that jerky is first and foremost a snack food, this teriyaki variety from Gourmet Jerky holds up to that basic standard. It's ease in eating is largely what has me reaching for more, rather than it's taste.

But it doesn't taste bad however. It's just largely a sweetened soy sauce taste, that's heavy on the sweetened part. Those pieces with the excessive amounts of fat do drag down the taste, although.

The reason why I can't give this a higher rating is largely because I don't see this as having a teriyaki taste in any significant amount. It's mostly just sugar I'm tasting. Also because the natural meat flavors are hard to find in this.

A good beer with this is a pungent, hoppy, IPA.

Rating: Average

Buy this online:

• http://www.thegourmetjerky.com