Archive
Jan 18, 2014

Review: Trader Joe's - Cowboy Bark

Trader Joe's Cowboy Bark is something new this season featuring dark chocolate with toffee, pretzels, Joe Joe cookies, peanuts, almonds, and a sprinkling of salt.

A 9-ounce package was $3.69.

I think this is called Cowboy Bark because it slightly resembles muddy dirt and debris on the ground and cowboys spend a lot of time outdoors? They could have easily called it "mud bark." According to the package, it's "rugged and adventuresome" like a cowboy. Uh, okay...

While it's loaded with lots of brown and beige ingredients, they don't all come through on the flavor front and I mostly tasted the dark chocolate, which was good mind you but it seemed a waste to add the crushed peanuts, Joe Joes, and almonds in particular as the chocolate covers them up almost entirely. They do add a little bit of texture but without the taste, it's not like I could tell "Oh, that's an almond" or "Oh, there's some peanut."

The toffee plays a little bit of hide 'n seek with your mouth, leaving you wondering whether or not you've actually found it or not.

Overall, Trader Joe's Cowboy Bark is a mostly a bunch of ingredients that are seen but not heard and what's left is slightly salty pieces of dark chocolate and crunchy pretzels, which is still tasty but a waste of the other ingredients.

Nutritional Info - Trader Joe's Cowboy Bark
Serving Size - 1/6 package (43g)
Calories - 220 (from Fat - 100)
Fat - 11g (Saturated Fat - 5g)
Sodium - 135mg
Carbs - 26g (Sugar - 20g)
Protein - 3g