Beer Nuts

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Beer Nuts is a brand of snack foods building on the original product, peanuts with a "unique" sweet-and-salty glazing made to a "secret recipe".

1 History
2 Trivia
3 In Australia
4 External links

[edit] History

The official company history starts in 1937 when Edward Shirk and his son Arlo took over the Caramel Crisp confectionery store in Bloomington, Illinois, USA, which amongst others sold a product called Redskins, glazed peanuts with their red skins intact. In the early 1950s this product was sold packaged as Shirk's Glazed Peanuts in local National Liquor Stores. Due to the business acumen of a local food distributor named Eldredge Brewster the product was then gradually expanded to a national brand and the Beer Nuts trademark was registered. The trademark is officially spelled with all capital letters: BEER NUTS.

The company is still family owned, their only production site is still based in Bloomington.

[edit] Trivia

Beer Nuts do not contain any beer; the name was only intended to suggest to customers that they go well with beer, especially as they were originally sold in liquor stores.
The original product is called Beer Nuts Original Peanut; the product range now features other nuts such as cashews and almonds.
The exact recipe for the sweet-and-salty glazing is a trade secret, but there are fairly stringent indications from snack scientists that sugar and salt feature pretty strongly on the list of ingredients.
An empty Beer Nuts can loaded with springed artificial snakes is used for a popular practical joke.

[edit] In Australia

In Australia, "beer nuts" are used as a generic description of roasted, salted peanuts sold shelled but unhusked. Famous brands include Nobby's and Olympic. The "Beer Nuts" brand is not sold.