Anytime Oysters, Original Smoke

Anytime Oysters do what the name says. Pacific oysters you can eat anywhere a fork can reach. Smoked low and slow, hand-packed on Vancouver Island, sealed in a 70g tin. Pull the tab. The oyster is waiting.

We made these because the canned seafood aisle has been letting us down for forty years. Sardines from somewhere. Smoked oysters that taste like a campfire got into a fight with a salt mine. Tuna sealed in oil you would not put on a salad. Real West Coast oysters did not exist in tin form for people who actually care about oysters. Now they do.

Anywhere a fork can reach

The hook is in the name. You should not have to sit at an oyster bar to eat good oysters. We took the part of the experience that requires shucking, ice, a knife, a refrigerator, and a hand towel, and traded all of it for a pull tab.

Some places these have already gone:

• The first day of a road trip, before lunch had been thought about
• The last hour of a flight, when the seat-back tray cannot hold one more pretzel
• Lunch at the trailhead, after a long climb
• The campsite snack board, between the cheese and the fire
• The boat. Always the boat
• The dock at four in the morning, before the fish were up
• The hotel room at midnight, when room service stops at ten
• The Tuesday glass of wine after the kids went to bed
• The lunch in a backpack on a workday when the fridge at home was empty

What is in the tin (and what is not)

70g of cold-smoked Pacific oysters in their own nectar, with a touch of golden yellow sugar and sea salt. Smoke from real hardwood. That is the entire ingredient list.

• Pacific oysters
• Oyster nectar
• Golden yellow sugar
• Sea salt
• Natural hardwood smoke

What is not in the tin: vegetable oil, soybean oil, smoke flavour from a bottle, sodium phosphate, modified food starch, or water added to plump up the weight. Read the other smoked oyster labels at the grocery store. We will wait.

Contains shellfish.

Who they are for

The cook who keeps a can of good seafood in the bag the way other people keep granola bars. The fly fisher who refuses to eat a gas station sandwich. The host who wants to put something honest on a snack board next to a sharp cheese and a flake of sea salt. The traveller who has eaten enough mediocre canned fish to know exactly the difference. The kid who grew up around oysters and now lives somewhere they cannot get them.

What they taste like

Soft. Briny. Lightly sweet from the smoke and the golden yellow sugar. The Pacific oyster carries through. The smoke is the right amount, not the cheap industrial wallop that makes most smoked seafood taste like a campfire ate too much salt.

Eat them cold straight from the tin. Eat them room temperature on a buttered cracker with the door open and a beer in your hand. Warm them gently in their own nectar with a teaspoon of butter on toast. They take direction well.

How to eat them

• Straight from the tin with a fork. The honest way.
• On a buttered cracker with a squeeze of lemon
• Mashed into a quick rillette with cream cheese, lemon, chive, and a turn of black pepper
• Tossed into a fast pasta with garlic, olive oil, chili flake, and parsley
• On a snack board with cornichons, sharp cheddar, mustard, a dry sparkling
• Folded into a Spanish-style tortilla halfway through cooking
• On rye with butter and dill the way the Danes would do it

Sourcing

Pacific oysters from BC waters. Hand-packed on Vancouver Island. We do this part of the work because the seafood logistics is what separates a great product from an average one, and almost every other smoked-oyster tin on the market punts that work to an offshore copacker who has never set foot on this coast. The same continent wide supply network that runs our boil buckets and our oyster bar runs this tin. The standard is the same.

Nutrition per tin (70g)

110 calories. 11g protein. 3.5g fat. 470mg sodium. 10g carbohydrate. 2g fibre. No added sugars beyond the recipe. Bilingual EN/FR label.

Pickup and shipping

Pickup from Shuck Taylor’s, 1324 Blanshard Street in downtown Victoria, Sunday through Saturday from 12 PM to 10 PM. Shipping across Canada for orders of 6 cans or more. Shelf-stable for 24 months unopened. Refrigerate after opening.

Wholesale and food service

Restaurants, grocers, retailers, hotels, lodges: email jess@shucktaylors.com for wholesale and case pricing. We have stock and we ship.

FAQ

How long do they keep? 24 months sealed at room temperature. Once opened, refrigerate and eat within 3 days. They will not last that long.

Can I ship a single can? No. Shipping starts at 6 cans. Single cans are pickup only at Shuck Taylor’s.

Are these wild or farmed oysters? Farmed Pacific oysters from BC growers we work with on the bucket side too. Same source, smoked and tinned for shelf life. Wild Pacific oysters in this volume would mean nobody eats. Farmed done right is the honest answer, and we work with the right farms.

Is this the only flavour? Original Smoke is the first of the line. More flavours coming later this year. Honest flavours, not novelty.

What is the smoke? Natural hardwood smoke, low and slow. No liquid smoke, no smoke flavour additives, no shortcuts.