Over dinner several years back, my friend Mike started telling me about these energy bars that he had been making. He raved about them, saying they tasted better than anything you could buy because they were made with raw Vermont honey. And he said he was going to start selling them.
Fast-forward to last winter, and Mike Rosenberg is a gear tester for Backcountry Magazine. He’s been selling his bars for about two years now, and at this past winter’s test, he brought a case of 200. That case was empty in two days, and here’s why.
Garuka Bars have just eight ingredients, and each item on the label is something you’ve heard of before. The first is raw honey, which Garuka Bars sources from Champlain Valley Apiaries in Middlebury, Vermont. The honey is the crux of what makes the bars so tasty—it gives them a soft and tacky texture without making them gooey. It also keeps them from freezing—a huge plus for backcountry skiers. The main ingredients are rounded out by peanut butter, dried cranberries and whole peanuts, which offer a solid six grams of protein in a sweet but not overpowering package. In total, the bars stoke your engines with 260 calories, making them a more-than-adequate skintrack snack to power another lap. Each bar is handmade and hand packaged, too—most of them by Mike himself.
As an added feel-good—beyond the feeling in your stomach and mouth—Garuka Bars donates a portion of each sale toward the International Gorilla Conservation Programme. Garuka Bars shares their name with an endangered mountain gorilla in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Garuka Bars
Garukabars.com
12 bars for $36