Spacey snacks land in Boulder City

Yes, we're slightly spacey here.

Southern Nevada has the legend of Area 51 with its extraterrestrial life and paranormal experiments. Area 51 gave Las Vegas' minor-league baseball team its 51s name and space-alien logo. And some people have concluded that all those clusters of neon lights make our valley bright enough for Little Green Men to see from beyond Earth.

Now, in Boulder City, you can taste space, or a facsimile of it, with Alien Fresh Jerky.
The 7-Eleven at 849 Nevada Way in Boulder City has been stocking the jerky, a tourist favorite in Baker, Calif., for about three weeks.

The jerky comes in out-there flavors like Abducted Cow, Colon Cleaner, Space Cowboy, Galactic Garlic and Roadkill. It's made from beef, pork, buffalo, ahi tuna and, in the case of Space Gator, alligator. 7-Eleven franchisee Tom Carvalho said that as far as he knows, none of it is made from aliens.

Alien Fresh Jerky was born in Nevada. The company's website says company founder Luis Ramallo got the idea for his product in October 1997, on a trip to Rachel on U.S. Highway 375, a road known as the "extraterrestrial highway." The site says Ramallo noticed the Little Ale'Inn "and a whole lot of desert."

Ramallo began selling the jerky in 2000, the site says, from a shop in Crystal Springs, 40 miles south of Rachel. The website says the store moved in 2002, but the jerky's name stuck.

Alien Fresh has made the Baker shop a tourist attraction, Carvalho said, and postings on Yelp.com, a consumer-product review website, support his claim. Eighty-seven posters had given the shop an aggregate four stars-out-of-five rating as of Friday. Some mentioned otherworldly novelties complementing the jerky.

"I can't tell you how many cool things they had ... " poster Cynthia A. wrote Oct. 20. "First off, an entire cooler full of energy drinks made by Sonic the Hedgehog, the mean bunny, etc. They had Super Mario Bros. gum, mints, Nintendo controller tins, etc. So much fun stuff."

The jerky praise had spread to Twitter, the online microblogging site. On Friday, five listed tweets mentioned Alien Fresh. Two included pictures of alien figurines. The throatiest endorser, dj3m5on, wrote Oct. 30, "OM*G whisky jerky is the best EVER."

Carvalho said Ramallo is protective of his brand; he was selling the jerky only from Baker and was loath at first to branch out. But Carvalho said the idea of similar audiences sold the idea.

"He gets the tourists coming from Nevada on their way to California," he said. "And we, being so close to the Hoover Dam, get the tourists coming to Nevada from Arizona."

Carvalho said Alien Fresh sells in 4 ounce packages for $8 each or three for $20. He said although people like Alien Fresh to eat, they also seem to like it to save, as quirky jerky.

"It think people find it interesting," he said. "They think it's fun and like the idea of bringing it home to people. It's souvenir-quality."

Contact reporter Matthew Crowley at mcrowley
@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0304.