Jake Owen Adds a Salty Snack to His Coke
Some celebrities are known for having strange food habits or mixing interesting combinations of foods together. Elvis Presley, for example, is famous for his favorite sandwich that consisted of peanut butter, sliced banana, and bacon. There is something special about a mix of salty and sweet, and country artist Jake Owen has his own food habit that draws on a similar flavor profile. Learn more about who Jake Owen is, and what he combines with soda for a sweet and salty snack.
Who is Jake Owen?
Jake Owen is a country music singer and songwriter. Owen was born in Florida, and he has a fraternal twin brother, Jarrod. According to AllMusic, Owen participated in plenty of sports, and he had his sights set on becoming a professional golfer. His golf career dreams were cut short when he was injured in a wakeboarding accident. While recovering from reconstructive surgery, he taught himself how to play guitar using his neighbor’s instrument.
Owen began playing shows in a campus bar while attending Florida State University, playing a variety of country covers until he started writing his own music. After receiving praise from bar-goers during his sets, he decided to drop out of college, when he was just nine credits shy of graduation, and move to Nashville and pursue music.
Owen met with Jimmy Ritchey, a record producer and songwriter, and the pair teamed up with Chuck Jones, another songwriter, to create the song “Ghosts.” This was originally meant for Kenny Chesney to sing, but Chesney never recorded it. Owen instead featured “Ghosts” on his first album. Owen signed with RCA Nashville after they heard about “Ghosts”, and he has gone on to experience incredible success since.
Jake Owen’s career
In early 2006, Owen’s first single, called “Yee Haw” was released, and it received a positive reception. According to Billboard, it peaked at #16 on the charts in August of that year, and it remained on the country charts for 25 weeks. His first album, Startin’ with Me, featured “Yee Haw” was released in July 2006, and two other songs on the album also reached high spots on the charts. “Startin’ with Me” reached number six and “About a Woman” peaked at 15.
After the success of his first album, Owen went to release a second album, entitled Easy Does It, but his major career breakthrough came in 2011 with the release of his third album, Barefoot Blue Jean Night. The first track of the album with the same name was Owen’s first number-one single on country charts, and Billboard reports that it was on the charts for a whopping 102 weeks. Since then, Owen has released three more albums, the most recent is called Greetings from… Jake, which came out in 2019.
Jake Owen carries on a Southern tradition
According to Delish, Owen likes to add salty peanuts into his Coke before drinking it. It’s an old Southern tradition that allegedly originated in the 1920s. Workers with dirty hands may not have wanted to touch their peanuts, so they problem-solved and added them to their coke.
Justin Kirkland of Esquire writes that the combination is perfectly sweet and savory. He goes on to say that, “The peanuts stick around, stay crunchy, and give you nice little snack at the end of your beverage.” Although most of us probably haven’t tried this flavor combination, it may be worth a shot if you’re looking for a sweet and salty combination.
