Divine Bovine - Honey Teriyaki

The Divine Bovine brand of beef jerky is a product of Beaumont, CA-based Divine Bovine Enterprises. The company describes it's story as beginning in Southern Italy when a butcher discovered that the best meat for making beef jerky is beef brisket. He developed a great recipe which was handed down to his grandson, who then started the Divine Bovine brand.

In addition to this Honey Teriyaki variety, the company also offers "Wild Honey Teriyaki", which is similar but with chile peppers added.

The company touts all of its products as having no nitrates, no MSG, and no preservatives.

Ingredients

Beef brisket, teriyaki sauce, brown sugar, lemon juice, garlic powder, worcestershire sauce, honey and pepper.

Taste

Probably the first thing I taste is the natural meat flavors of the beef brisket, followed very quickly by an intense sweetness. Finally, the saltiness is very noticeable.

The teriyaki flavor is there, but it's mostly manifested as saltiness. I can detect the soy sauce flavor, but it's subtle. The salt is largely what comes from the teriyaki sauce ingredient. It's not so salty that it leaves my mouth scorched, however.

The high level of sweetness makes this jerky almost like eating "meat candy".

The natural meat flavors are very evident, but seem to have a slight "stale taste" to it. While this is free of preservatives, Divine Bovine didn't put this into a vacuum-sealed package, and did not include an oxygen absorber. The stale taste is not strong, however.

Overall, this has a really great taste. If you're a fan of sweet beef jerky, this stuff will make you happy. But it's largely a sweet & salty variety, the teriyaki flavoring is more subtle than pronounced. This is also very mild, not spicy at all.

Meat Consistency

This appears to be cut from real meat, sliced thin, and in medium sized strips. Because of the nature of thinly-sliced beef brisket, and honey and brown sugar making this sticky, most of the strips are clumped up, and difficult to unravel. For that matter, you could see these pieces as being bite-sized.

This jerky is very soft, and very easy to eat. They tear apart with no effort. I'd classify this as being "semi-moist", not dry.

Most of these pieces have some fat-marbilization, and I found at least one piece with some siginificant pieces of fat. I actually found this to provide a more "beefier" taste. Some pieces had some small strands of tendon on the edges, otherwise no gristle or anything that demanded my attention.

The meat consistency is pretty good, giving me a great beef jerky eating experience. Being that this is so easy to eat, with a great taste, I could go through this package pretty quick.





Rating

I'm giving this a "good" rating.

This is very enoyable variety of beef jerky, very easy to eat, and offering plenty of good flavor.

What kept me from giving it the higher "best" rating is that I found it to be on the salty side, and the meat has a slight stale taste to it. I tend to think that this might actually have a pronounced teriyaki flavor; it's just hard to find it behind the heavier sweet & salty flavor.

Still, I enjoyed eating this jerky, and could see myself eating some more. It's very snackable.

Rating: Good (4/5)