I’ve picked up some opinions on mustards over the years. I mostly don’t like French’s Yellow. I like having a variety of mustards in my fridge to choose from depending on the meal and situation. I love the strong mustards like Colman’s and various Chinese mustards.
I generally avoid dijons, if for no other reason than some egg sensitivities that usually contribute to regrets when I eat them. Though I think I’m also just generally not a fan of the texture/taste either. If it puts things in perspective I mostly dislike mayo too, and have inherited texture issues with it from my mom. My mom will scream sometimes if she unexpectedly touches mayo, and while I can’t recall ever quite screaming I’ve definitely been grossed out by mayo on my hands.
My general avoidance and sometimes dislike of dijons does make me take too long in the mustard aisle double checking that a mustard isn’t lying to me and in fact a dijon by ingredients list.
My white whale of mustards for many years has been a good honey mustard. I love the idea of honey mustard on paper: the sweetness of a honey leading the tang back into your nostrils of a good mustard. There’s a café that existed near one of my college apartments for a couple years that had a house dressing that was honey and mustard and I think a very basic balsamic vinaigrette and not much else that I still dream of sometimes in a good soup and half-sandwich combo way.
Unfortunately for me, and my tastes and sensitivities, I classify all of the store shelf “honey mustard” I usually find as lying liars in the “well actually that is a dijon” category.
Even if I liked dijons this has never really made sense to me to pair honey with them. Dijons already tend to be sweeter and less strong than mustard can be without making it creamy with eggs, and adding honey to that often seems to me to be a recipe for at best “where’s the mustard in this honey mustard?” and at seemingly most common and worst “this is sickeningly sweet, I might as well just be eating honey directly” to me.
I finally found one in the Local section of the grocery store! From “Kentucky Smokin’ Grill”, the “Grand Reserve Spiced Honey” is just perfect for my tastes. It’s not a dijon! It uses an actual spicy mustard base that has a kick to it, so that sweetness of the honey up front actually has something to contrast with further down the palette. It adds a bit of spicy peppers for a third contrast: back of the throat heat versus the nasal tang of the mustard. It’s so well balanced for my tastes right now and has struck me as my new favorite mustard lately. It’s become my current go-to general purpose mustard. I appreciate this mustard so much and I’m happy I have neighbors in my state that also understand a good honey mustard shouldn’t be a dijon.