- [Mike] We are Sorted. A group of mates who have your back when it comes to all things food. From cooking battles to gadget reviews. - Ben, it's not worth it! - [Mike] And cookbook challenges to a midweek meal Packs app. - [Jamie] Crack your eggs, bake. - [Mike] We uncover the
tools that'll help us all cook and eat smarter. Join our community, where everything we do, starts with you. (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).
