I may or may not be eating this out of the jar with a spoon as I write this post. In my mind, it's a little more acceptable than licking the knife. :P
My TJ's shopping routine starts with the flowers and fresh bread, then down the aisle of cereal, coffee/tea, dry goods, and cheese. I usually end around the hummus and nut butters/jams and make a beeline for the sampling station, because it's bad to shop on an empty stomach. After the sampling station is the NEW PRODUCT SHELF, which houses new stuff that I may have overlooked or not yet seen on the regular shelf. This caught my eye, not because of what it was but how it was placed.
My inner 6 year old boy (can 6 year-olds read??? I hope they can!) LOST IT. MIXED BUTT.
I digress. The big deal with this nut butter is that they took as many fancy nuts as they could and ground it into a spreadable butter. And as with many of the TJ's nut butters, it's all natural with no evil oils and blah blah blah. This one has almonds, cashews, walnuts, brazil nuts, hazelnuts, and pecans.
Now obviously because there isn't any additional oil or other artificial ingredient to act as a binder, the nut butter naturally separates into this drippy form. I've found with natural peanut butters even after you mix it, if you refrigerate it it'll harden up a bit. Not so with this. Might bother people that are used to the thicker consistency of processed peanut butters, but I happen to like the drippiness. It's perfect for dripping onto yogurt, toast, or into my mouth. :D
As far as taste, I happen to like it because of the almond base. Almond butter is my fave!! I do taste the walnut and cashew here and there. If I close my eyes and use my imagination, I can taste the brazil nut and hazelnut too. Can't really taste the pecan at all. The other nuts make this a wee more complex, which appeals to my taste buds. But at the end of the day, if I spread this on toast, can I taste the subtle differences in every bite? Not really. Also note that this isn't a sweet nut butter (only 1 gram of sugar) as there are no added sugars. That pinch of salt in every bite though gets me - too good. It's one of those things where I eat toast with the nut butter rather than nut butter with the toast. And then I decide to skip the vehicle altogether and eat it out of the jar. A doesn't care anyway. Life is short y'all.
$5.99 for a 12 oz jar makes me cringe a little, but to be fair, TJ's prices their nut butters quite competitively (I'm not knowledgable enough to make a costco comparison though, sorry.). Just know that this mixed nut butter comes out to $8.99 per lb. vs. $6.99 per lb. for regular almond butter, which is $1-$3 cheaper than most grocery stores. Unless you really love the thought of having a cocktail of nuts in your butter, I'd skip this and pick up the regular almond butter for all your nut butter needs.
TL;DR: Trader Joe's Mixed Nut Butter. A little somethin' somethin' with your almond butter. 7 out of 10.
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