Beekman 1802 Specialty Food Club June 2016 Subscription Box Review

Beekman 1802 Specialty Food Club is a monthly food subscription for all gourmet food lovers.  You’ll get a box of delicious artisan food items for only $50.00 each month.  Not only will you receive superb gourmet ingredients, but also recipes from the artisans themselves.

The elegant inner box is well-protected by a 360 degree layer of bubble wrap inside the outer shipping box.

The items are properly wrapped and secured to avoid damage while in transit. This subscription is almost overpackaged, but really, none of these items have a chance of breaking!

The box came with a magazine this month.  Spoonful is a voluminous tome full of food pics, short articles, recipes, and other items of interest.

The magazine has a great look and feel — it features both the elegant and rustic, sharing insights of food lovers comprising upscale gourmands, artisanal producers, and food obsessed hipsters — really anyone with a love for attentively made food.

The theme for this month’s box is “Summer Grill Nights.”  It was really the perfect collection for Father’s Day and July 4th.

The recipe cards are simple and clearly written.  Each showcases an item in this month’s box and using one of these pre-tested recipes is a great way to dive in and get the most from the sauces (instead of staring at the jar and salivating).

Everything in my June box!

Mortgage Lifter Bourbon BBQ Sauce ($7.99):  Named for its charitable purpose of helping relieve farm debt, this tangy sauce incorporates a healthy dose of real bourbon for a complex and engaging flavor.  The tomato base uses small farm grown heirloom tomatoes for a flavor that simply can’t be replicated by a big commercial bottler.

Microbrew Beer Mustard ($2.99):  This lovely mustard is simply constructed from small farm ingredients.  Much of the mustard seed is left intact for a hearty texture and robust flavor.  A well-hopped microbrew is added to provide bite and round out the flavor profile.

Ommegang Hennepin Beer Jelly ($13.50):  This loose jelly uses Hennepin, Ommegang Brewery’s farmhouse ale.  The beer itself has spicy notes of cardamom, ginger, and orange, and it lends that complexity to this rich spread.  Possibly appropriate as a straight up jelly, this confiture clearly hits its stride as a glaze or sauce component for adorning meat.

Black Coffee Jelly ($10.50):  Forget the redeye gravy, the coffee is now calling dibs on your toast, too!  As with the beer jelly, this condiment screams to be used as a meat glaze.  The bold, dark profile would serve well as a glaze for a hearty steak or as a complement to an umami portobello burger.

Fire Roasted Chipotle Salsa ($4.29):  Smoky chipotle (smoked jalapenos) adds heat and character to this mid-weight salsa.  Tomatoes are typically filler material in most salsas, but the small-farm sourcing means that every ingredient carries its weight and adds brightness and depth of flavor.

Lick Your Fingers BBQ Ketchup ($2.99):  This tasty hybrid is perfect for topping a giant hamburger or slinging across some steak fries.  I typically avoid ketchup, yet I can’t help but try any BBQ sauce I discover.  This tasty combo is beautiful way to bridge the divide and get ketchup back in the game.

The value of the box came to $41.76, lower than the cost of the subscription. This was a little disappointing, but given the heavy jars and extreme packaging, not altogether surprising. We did love the theme for June and thought everything tasted amazing.  The value of the magazine bumps it up by $20 (!) but it’s up to you whether you think the value of the box should include that item!

Visit Beekman 1802 Specialty Food Club to subscribe or find out more!