Peter's Popcorn

As any regular reader of this blog will know, I'm obsessed with popcorn.  I'll spare you the details of my love of popcorn, my techniques for making it extra crunchy by freezing it, etc.  And just say, zomg, I love all kinds of popcorn.

I recently attended an event that featured a local popcorn brand, Peter's Popcorn, based in Oakland.  They do have a storefront, but it is only open two days a week for a few hours.  I think most of their production is catering and corporate gifting.  I don't know much about the business, besides that it has been around since 2007.

Assorted Popcorn!

The full list of flavors made by Peter's is fairly extensive, with a slew of both savory and sweet flavors.  

The ones we had at our event are in bold.

Savory:

• Bacon Cheddar
• Buffalo Cheddar
• Caramel & Cheese Mix
• Cheddar Cheese
• Movie Butter
• Oakland Mix (Chipotle & Cheese)
• Sea Salted Seaweed
• Sour Cream & Onion
• Spicy Cheddar
• Spicy Chipotle Lime
• Tomato Basil
• White Cheddar & Cracked Black Pepper

Sweet:

• Caramel Pumpkin Spice 
• Classic Kettle Corn
• Horchata
• Maple Bacon Caramel
• Maple Kettle Corn 
• Saigon Cinnamon Sugar
• Sea Salted Caramel

The event I was at had a selection of popcorn, 5 flavors.  Sadly our event had mostly the basic flavors, no fun ones like seaweed, horchata, etc.  Still, I grabbed all but the basic movie butter flavor.

All are popped using coconut oil, which was a deterrent for me.  I generally do like coconut, but dislike the taste of coconut oil.  Luckily,  the coconut oil base wasn't dominant though like Lesser Evil, so they win a point for that.  The popcorn was all well popped, but fairly standard kernels, no big puffy ones.  The flavors were all mostly letdowns.

Classic Kettle Corn:

"Lightly coated popcorn with pure cane sugar and a dash of sea salt. (Vegan, Gluten-Free)."

I started with kettle corn, always a favorite of mine.

Well, this was a very boring kettle corn.  The salt level was fine, but it was, as they describe, "lightly coated" in sugar.  Very minimal sweetness.  It was fine, but fairly bland, and bo-ring.  I find even grocery store mass retail brands to be more flavorful than this (e.g. Boom Chicka Pop).  **+. 

They also make a maple kettle corn that I'd love to try.

Oakland Mix: 

"Cheddar Cheese Popcorn (Coconut oil infused with cheddar cheese, buttermilk, and sea salt) mixed with Spicy Chipotle Lime (Smoke-dried jalapeño peppers with lime infused salt.)"

The Oakland Mix was considerably more flavorful than the kettle corn.  It was a fascinating mix, unlike anything I've had before.  It was zesty, and savory, but not really spicy, and not really cheesy either.  Somehow the jalapeño and cheddar sorta cancelled each other out.  It did come across as quite chipotle though, and the zing from the lime was there.  Fascinating, and not a flavor I'd probably pick on my own, but I finished my little bag in about 5 seconds flat, so clearly I liked it.  ***, maybe ***+.

Bacon Cheddar

Next up, bacon cheddar, which was a mix of cheddar and caramel pieces, with a few bacon bits.  The bacon bits were minimal, and mostly provided an extra hit of saltiness and crunch, but the bacon flavor permeated all of it.  I like bacon, but I actually wish the bacon elements weren't there.

The popcorn itself was fine, although the cheddar wasn't particularly strongly cheesy (just like the Oakland mix, I found it a bit muted).  The caramel corn was pretty classic sweet coated cloying caramel corn, definitely best to had mixed with another flavor.

Overall interesting, but shockingly I'd prefer without the bacon.  Low ***.

Sour Cream & Onion:  

"Cheddar cheese, buttermilk, cream cheese, onion powder, garlic powder, coconut oil, and a dash of salt. (Nut-free, GF, Non-GMO)."

And finally, sour cream & onion.  I took my first handful of this, and had to double check the packaging.  I didn't taste sour cream, nor onion.  In fact, I didn't taste much at all.  Which made no sense, given the fact that it contained cheese + buttermilk + cream cheese for the dairy components, and both garlic and onion powders.  Should I taste ... something? Anything?  "My tastebuds must just be broken tonight", I thought, and put the bag back in the pantry to try again another day.

The next night?  Same thing.  I tasted vague savoriness, not quite plain, but, definitely no onion/garlic, and definitely no cheesy elements.  It wasn't bad popcorn, but it was just incredibly bland.  Eh.  **.