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(pop music)
- Welcome to fridge cam.
- In today's episode of Pick the Premium,
we've got two normals,
Jamie and Barry, in the hot seat,
and we're gonna get them to blindfold taste test
some food products to see if they can identify
the premium one.
- With so much choice around, it's quite hard to find out
where to spend your cash.
So this is our little experiment.
- I'm ready
- Number one.
(jazz music)
- Remember, the winner of this gets to take everything home.
And no matter what, Ben and I are both the losers.
- That's very true!
In front of you,
two options.
One is premium.
By premium, we mean in this instance, the most expensive.
And one is as similar product as possible to compare,
but that is cheaper.
- I'll start with A.
- Ooh, warm glass.
Ooh, it's chocolatey!
- It's hot chocolate.
That is delicious, rich, quite bitter hot chocolate.
- That is a very nice chocolate drink
with slight bitterness.
So that's good.
Okay, option B.
- So it is two hot chocolates you're drinking.
Now try B.
There is whipped cream on the top, you might need
to get through that to get to the bit we want you to judge.
- You're taking me back to my childhood with that one,
but it is sweet, it's indulgent, it's thick.
- It's not exciting me.
It's not doing anything.
It's plainer.
There's a lot less going on.
It's just hot chocolate.
That's the best way I can describe that.
A, it has a much more rich, slightly bitter taste to it
that makes me feel like it's a very different
chocolate product than B.
- I'll have small glass of A, and a jug of B.
- So which is the premium?
- A has to be the premium.
- [Jamie] A is the premium.
- You can now take your blindfold off,
and you can actually see the dark hot chocolate product
before we turned it into the drink.
Not that you're allowed to change your mind
but any difference, different thoughts?
- Yeah.
Right, now I'm looking, that feels obvious.
- [Jamie] So A has proper chocolate flakes.
- [Barry] This one is chocolate powder.
- Based on visuals,
I'm happy with my, with my pick.
- The premium hot chocolate is indeed A.
That is Fortnum and Mason's ultimate dark chocolate.
85% Colombian dark chocolate,
and you melt it into a paste,
and then dissolve it in the hot milk.
Whereas the other one, B, is Cafe Direct.
It is a cocoa powder.
Good, quality sourced cocoa,
but also added sugar
and emulsifiers so you get kind of a more
sweetened hot chocolate drink.
And that is three pounds for tub.
A, a 300 gramme tub from Fortnum and Masons
comes in at £20
- Mm, that is a lot of money.
I do think they do two different jobs.
So B is much more of an everyday drinking hot chocolate,
whereas A is, I'm going all out.
I'm indulging myself in a cup of chocolate.
So I think they do two slightly different jobs.
- [Barry] I'd have them equally, but for different purposes.
- However, it is just chopped up chocolate.
If I could find 85% chocolate that was as of high quality
and chopped up myself, would it be as expensive?
It just wouldn't come in a nice tin.
- In both instances, you could DIY it yourself much cheaper.
Well done, you picked the premium.
(Barry claps)
- Winning start.
(upbeat music)
- [James] You're gonna be a happy boy.
- [Jamie] Am I? - [James] Yeah.
- I'm smelling happy smells.
- I think I know what that is. - [James] What can you smell?
- Is it a grilled cheese sandwich?
- Your nasal passage is excellent.
- There are two grilled cheese sandwiches here?
Oh my goodness!
Oh yes!
- It's a toasted sandwich.
- [Ben] The premium bit is not the casing, it's the filling.
- Oh, that is so special.
This is just all types of comforting.
It's a very familiar cheddar-y cheese
that I'd have that home.
- I think I'm getting cheddar.
Mature cheddar.
- What, why'd you say that?
You inhaled as well.
What were you doing?
- 'Cause you get the bit of the funkiness, don't you
You get a bit of that old age.
You can breathe it in.
You can breathe in the age.
- It's not too mature, it's not itching my mouth.
- [James] D'you wanna try the second one?
- Yeah.
Ooh, this,
this has a fresher smell to it.
(upbeat music)
- I think it's a slightly maturer.
It's how you say it?
It sounds weird. - More mature.
- More mature cheddar.
- B is much creamier.
It's got like a freshness to it,
and I can't tell what it is.
- It's ever so slightly more pleasant,
but no more enjoyable.
- What's interesting is they're quite different
from each other, but not necessarily in a better
or worse way.
- Well, we have some raw cheese for you to taste,
but would you like to pick the premium first?
- I really don't know, guys.
- They're both delicious.
B, I can tell there's more going on there,
but it's almost wasted in the format of a cheese toastie.
- B's my premium.
(whispers) I don't know.
- B has to be in the premium.
- D'you wanna take your blindfold off, and we'll discuss.
- Any other thoughts now you can see the cheese
in its cheese form?
- A is just, that's a block of cheese.
B has come from like a more artisan,
individually wrapped, packed cheese.
Like a wheel of cheese.
Can I taste individually as well?
- Please do.
- Best day ever.
Tasting both cheeses on their own,
there's a number of differences.
A, I would call supermarket cheddar.
It's slightly rubbery.
It's got a nice taste to it, but there's nothing
special about that.
That is a standard slice of cheese.
B, it's crumbly, it feels maybe it's more aged.
Maybe it's more mature.
- You seem pretty confident, and you're right.
- Yeah!
- B is the premium.
So we've got B from Neal's Yard Dairy.
It's from a really well known market in London,
called Borough Market,
and they say it's a a cheddar cheese
with a supple, golden paste and the occasional blue vein,
and generally less acidic than our other cheddars,
which I think you picked up on.
You said it was like kind of creamy.
- Yeah, creamy.
- And then Cathedral City is A.
That is a cheddar cheese with a smooth and mellow taste,
and they come from a Cornish creamery,
only using milk from West Country farms,
with over 50 years of cheese-making experience.
They describe themselves as the nation's favourite.
- I can see why they would call themselves
the UK's favourite.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that cheese.
I enjoy that cheese a lot.
- So the Cathedral City was £6.83 per kilo.
The pack that we bought was 350 grammes,
so that comes out as £2.39.
So I think that's pretty standard.
The Neal's Yard cheese is £32.90 per kilo.
We bought 280 grammes which was £9.21.
- Ooh, that is a lot more.
I mean, I enjoyed the Neal's Yard cheese.
- I don't think anybody would buy a Neal's Yard cheese
and melt it into a toastie.
Like, you'd always have it on a cheeseboard or something.
But the fact that you could taste the difference
when they were melted is quite impressive.
- I think what was most impressive was your identification
of something vegetabley which is bizarre.
It's an unpasteurized milk.
So you get a lot more of the nuance of quite literally
whatever that cow was eating.
So the grass, the hay, you do kinda get those grassy notes,
because it is an unpasteurized cheese.
So the Hafod cheese is a Welsh dairy farmer.
A relatively small herd at 80-herd dairy farm.
Artisanal, aged as you'd expect.
Whereas Cathedral City,
50 years of cheese-making, tends to be West Country,
and they source obviously volumes of milk
from 330 different farms.
- [Jamie] For me, it completely depends
on what I'm going to be doing with the cheese.
- When it comes to like everyday cooking,
you don't need to spend a lot of money for everyday cooking.
That work a treat in toasties and great on top of stuff.
But when it comes to having a cheese board
or celebrating the cheese, go premium,
but don't do anything with it.
(pop music)
I can hear this one!
I could smell the last.
- Stop it.
- Sparkling wine?
- Mixing up this time.
We're giving you A, B, and C.
Again, start with A.
- [James] Carefully, carefully.
- Ooh! - [Ben] Such a gentle touch.
- [Jamie] Ooh, it keeps going!
- Ooh, you're turning me on.
- Ooh, I can smell the bubbles.
- You have three glasses of champagne.
Obviously being champagne, they are all French.
We don't expect you to be a wine-tasting
sommelier connoisseur, we just wanna know
what you're getting from it, and which do you prefer?
- That's very dry.
It has a lot of bubbles that dissipate very quickly.
- I'm not a fan of champagne.
I never buy champagne for myself.
I only ever buy champagne for an occasion.
- [Ben] Try B.
(Jamie slurps and coughs)
Pretty sure that's exactly how you do sparkling wine.
- Christ.
- That was more fragrant.
I'm enjoying this one a bit more, 'cause there's more to it.
- B is very different from A.
It's not as dry.
It's not sweet.
It's somewhere different.
- We're asking a lot of your here, aren't we?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, d'you wanna try C?
- Yeah.
Less on the nose.
- Very little aroma from this one.
It's fizzier.
- C tastes more winey.
Like more white winey, but with a fizz.
- I'm giving you facial expressions,
and I remember that you can't see me.
- I can't see those.
- The between all three of them from a basic normal
is very, very little.
B and C are quite hard to tell apart.
C's slightly sweeter.
B's got more aroma.
A's, it's just got less going on,
so that therefore, I'm ruling that one out completely
as being the premium.
- My favourite is A, followed by C, finishing with B.
- B's my favourite, followed by A, then C.
- D'you wanna have a guess at the premium?
- From memory, the smaller the bubbles or beads,
the more premium the champagne.
- It's interesting that you're judging premium
on a different set of criteria to your favourite.
It's no longer about taste or flavour,
it's about how it's supposed to feel.
- I think the premium is C.
- I think B is premium.
- [Ben] Take your blindfold off,
see if any visuals make any difference.
- Based on the logic I had when I was blindfolded,
C is still premium, but I honestly have no idea.
- A is darker.
These look like they've been filtered more.
That's not what you do with champagne, is it?
Doesn't matter.
No idea.
- Okay, glass A is Les Pionniers,
which is Co-Op.
So a UK supermarket's own brand of champagne.
Multi award winning,
consistently excellent, year in year out.
Basically they don't reveal quite which vineyard,
it's a bit of a secret,
but obviously from the Champagne region.
Comes in at £19 a bottle.
- [Barry] That's what I pay.
- I would say that's a good price for a bottle of champagne.
I would expect to pay more.
- Glass B is Dom Perignon,
vintage 2008 champagne.
- Oh no, I (beep) up.
(all laughs)
- [Ben] For all of the reasons we know of Dom Perignon,
and the monk that is, comes in at £155 a bottle.
Means you've actually got about 19 quids worth
in that glass alone.
And C is Moet Imperial Brut champagne.
They claim the world's most loved champagne since 1743.
That comes in at £31 for a bottle.
B is the premium.
- (whispers) Oh, thank goodness.
- Interestingly, my favourite was the cheaper one.
And maybe that says more about me than anything else,
but to me, that had the nicest flavour to it.
B didn't really come into it for flavour to me.
Moet, to me, is the go-to champagne brand.
- Moet is the world's most popular champagne
for a very good reason.
It's delicious,
and it's priced because of demand, I guess.
(pop music)
(people cheers)
- [Ben] Going back to just two choices, A and B.
- Okay.
Am I smelling bacon?
- Bacon?
- You're right with the smell.
It's the bacon we're looking at,
but we have put it on pancakes with a little maple syrup.
- I feel like we're going for streaky bacon.
They're thinner, thinner slices.
Like streaky slices of bacon.
- [Barry] It's fatty, it's crispy.
- [Jamie] Nicely crispy.
- [Barry] It's beautifully sweet,
thank you for that maple syrup.
And it's smoky as well.
- Little bit smokey, not that much.
- That is the perfect bacon for a pancake stack.
- That is some delicious bacon, and I am here for it.
- There is no irony in the fact that he's just been sipping
£155 Dom Perignon, and is now eating bacon with his fingers.
- I am living my best life, Ebbers.
- Oh my goodness, okay.
It's a lot thicker.
- It's firmer.
- [Barry] Thick, unbelievably smoky!
- [Jamie] I think B is fattier.
I think that's where the chew comes from.
- If there's so much more than basic bacon.
- These are two, very different types of bacon I think.
Option A definitely doesn't have as much flavour
as option B.
- A is fantastic bacon,
and does an incredible job with pancakes.
I wanna savour every mouthful of B.
As you're chewing it, it's releasing more
and more aromas and flavours.
- I'm tempted to say that B is like butcher's cut,
and A is more mass-produced supermarket style streaky bacon.
- Okay, mate, pick a premium.
- I'm gonna go with B as my premium.
- B is my premium.
- In fact, I'm gonna go one further.
B is Ginger Pig.
- [James] Right, blindfold off.
- So now I've got the raw bacon in front of me,
looking at the rashers, I feel justified in my choice.
Actually, A has got far more fat.
- [James] So you are right.
B is the premium.
So A is air-dry, cured, smoked streaky bacon rashers.
They are your supermarket version,
and they're three pounds per 230 gramme pack,
or £13.04 per kilogramme.
- [Jamie] Okay.
- B, that is from The Ginger Pig in London.
Again, Borough Market.
The Ginger Pig is £15.50 per kilo.
We bought 314 grammes, which was £4.87.
- So it's actually only 18-20% more.
- Yeah, why aren't we buying this all the time?
I still think three pounds for a packet of bacon
is still like the good quality supermarket.
- It's definitely not the cheapest bacon you can buy.
We wanted to get something that was, you know,
a standard, slightly premium bacon from the supermarket.
- So many of the food products we've explored today
have been as much about where you're going to use it
as opposed to just black and white,
this is always going to be better
than that one or otherwise.
It's about where are you gonna put it,
when are you gonna use it,
and what's the occasion?
And then where best to spend your money.
- If you want bacon, just bacon,
this stuff works a treat.
If you want bacon and an experience,
go with Ginger Pig.
- Okay, scores on the doors.
Jamie, you got three out of four.
Barry, 100% with four out of four!
- Yes!
- He knows the Dom P
- Of course he knows Dom P.
- Well you guys can all enjoy the rest the bottle of Dom P,
but I'll be taking the bottle home
and sticking a candle in it.
- We certainly find these conversations really useful
to know where best to spend our money and how to get
the most value out of food.
If you enjoyed it, give the video a thumbs up,
give it a like, and comment down below if you want us
to focus in on any specific ingredients next time
- [Mike] Before you go, just a quick shout
to say thanks to all of you who are using
and sending thoughts on our Packs app.
With your insight, we built a tool to help people cook
incredible meals like a pro
by following super simple steps
that literally anyone can follow.
People are telling us that they're already learning
a bunch of skills with no extra effort, and cooking meals.
they never thought possible.
So if you'd like to join them and expand your knowledge
in the kitchen, check out our Packs app,
and right now you can get it for free for an entire month.
Just click the link in the description box below.
And now for the blooper.
- Let's inspect the toastie.
- You know when he's left half a toastie,
and you're kind of hoping that maybe it'll make it
to the end of the video so that we can have some,
and then he starts fingering it.
- He just prods it, pokes it,
and now he's licking it, wonderful.
- Oh, you (beep).