Most of us either have or will, at some point in the past/present/future, be conflicted about our careers. Should we follow our passions or go for the sure thing.
Sometimes two coincide, but that takes a bit of luck.
Pacific Beach Peanut Butter's founder, Matthew Mulvihill, decided to leave unfulfilling jobs (but with greater job security) to follow his passion and create a line of All Natural Peanut Butter and Flavored Peanut Butter Spreads. One peanut grinder and a lot of tinkering, peanuts, and creativity later,
Pacific Beach Peanut Butter was born.
The best part is that Matthew is a consumer of his peanut butters, too, so he didn't want to compromise health for taste (or vice-versa)!
There are a bunch of different varieties - everything from plain organic peanut butter to chocolate raspberry peanut butter - but I tried three of the flavored varieties.
Cinnayum, Toffee, and White Chocolate.
The peanut butter comes in these cute glass jars - and with a Pacific Beach peanut-butter-eating spoon for eating it straight out of the jar!
I tried each flavor out of the jar and on bread.
Oh, but first - for those with dietary restrictions, these flavors that I'm reviewing are
gluten-free but NOT vegan because of the mix-ins (the toffee, chocolate, etc., contains dairy).
Moving on: these peanut butters don't separate, though there doesn't seem to be palm oil or hydrogenated oil in the nut part itself (though some of the mix-ins, like the toffee, do contain these ingredients).
They spreads are all very spreadable and spot-on for texture. They're not oily, because they don't seem to experience much separation, and not they're not super finely ground, either. There's a slight graininess left from the peanuts not being processed too much and I actually really enjoyed it.
These are not comparable to Jif or Skippy, they're on a whole other level for flavor! The cinnayum was actually my favorite, because the peanut butter really shines, but there's just a hint of spicy-sweet cinnamon.
The white chocolate peanut butter is good straight out of the jar, but I didn't like it on bread as much - it's very sweet and the white chocolate overwhelms the peanut butter flavor.
It's definitely more of a dessert nut butter (and this one is quite thick) so while I wouldn't choose it as a breakfast staple, I imagine it would be great as a topping for ice cream. Or a dollop on a cup of yogurt and granola would be really delicious!
The toffee crunch was less sweet and was really tasty both on bread and out of the jar.
Instead of just adding toffee flavoring as a syrup or something throughout the peanut butter, they add actual chunks of toffee!
I'm all about textures, y'all, so that gets a major thumbs up from me.
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| Clockwise, starting from the left: White Chocolate, Cinnayum with jam, Toffee Crunch |
And for those of us who are either still in school and trying to figure out what we want to do with our lives, or spinning our wheels at a job that we don't absolutely love, the
Pacific Beach Peanut Butter story is a great inspiration.
Chase your dreams!
But don't tell your parents/spouse that I told you to do so if that means dropping med school to start a Llama farm...
