2025 California & Las Vegas Trip

My wife Stephanie (Birdie) and I went to California and Las Vegas to celebrate my mother-in-law’s 85th birthday, which was a success. On this trip, I accumulated 66 unique jerky bags, of which 41 were kindly submitted for review.

A special thanks to Boozy Jerky, Avalon Meat Candy, Beefcake Jerky Co, Mesquite Jerky Creek Co., and Vermont Farmhouse Jerky for their generous jerky bag submissions and a plethora of jerky paraphernalia for the Jerky Shrine.

For this trip, eight jerky makers agreed to submit their jerky for review, whereas five came through. I still need to follow up with two of the three other jerky makers whose jerky never arrived.

On this trip, I accumulated 26 new jerky brands, two new jerky types (octopus and swordfish), and a bag of jerky ordered online from Mississippi, putting us up to 45 USA states reviewed. That leaves only Alabama, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, and North Dakota not reviewed yet, where a stated goal is to review all 50 states.

While visiting Las Vegas in Nevada, I used a new strategy to locate new jerky brands. Using Google Maps, I searched for ‘Jerky Near Me’. I later downloaded the Waze GPS application, as I despise supporting Google products. On our third day in Las Vegas, when we were leaving, I had to abandon visiting more jerky establishments, as I feared taking too much jerky home on a plane. I had to purchase a backpack on this trip, as not everything would fit in our luggage. It will 25 years this November when Stephanie and I got married in Las Vegas.

With the 66 new jerky bags acquired on this trip and having 23 unreviewed bags of jerky at home, that gives us 89 bags to review. Assuming we continue doing two reviews a week, the next 45 weeks of jerky reviews are already planned. Not knowing what to expect on this trip, I added $500 to our Amazon cart on jerky brands never reviewed before. As it turns out, I did not need to make a single online purchase in the USA.

I had the pleasure of meeting Master Chef/Owner, Christian Petersen, from Avalon Meat Candy. He invited me to his storefront in Las Vegas, Nevada, and offered me a tour of his United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved plant. The whole experience was excellent and educational. Advertised as crispy jerky, Avalon Meat Candy has the thinnest beef jerky strips we have ever experienced. Like me, Christian is also a jerky enthusiast.

This large jerky haul was rather difficult to photograph. I broke down the jerky bounty into three different sections.

Section 1: Boozy Jerky’s bags and paraphernalia, except for the two baseball caps from Beefcake Jerky Co. A special shout out to Breckenridge Distillery, located in Breckenridge, Colorado, for their booze and paraphernalia donations.
Section 2: Primarily Avalon Meat Candy, Beefcake Jerky Co, Mesquite Creek Jerky Company, and Vermont Farmhouse Jerky submissions.
Section 3: Jerky purchases and paraphernalia.

The pictures of Birdie and I are at Alien Fresh Jerky, the most famous landmark in Baker, California.

The Jerky Shrine is now up to 1,867 jerky bags and 497 jerky brands, making us three brands shy of having 500 jerky brands. Over ten new jerky brands will be put on display eventually in the Jerky Shrine, putting us around 125 brands on display.

Below is a list of jerky brands acquired on this trip to California and Las Vegas, which will keep Paul, sometimes with Stéphane, and me busy for the next year almost.