At last, a decisive answer to the question of which store-bought hot dog is the best
YouTube talk show Good Mythical Morning has answered the question that’s been plaguing American grocery shoppers for years: Which hot dog brand is best? In order to find out, the show’s hosts set up a blind taste test of Nathan’s, Ball Park Dogs, Snake River Farms Wagyu Beef, Kirkland, Hebrew National, Oscar Mayer, Applegate, and Vienna Beef, all sans bun or toppings.
The team guessed which hot dog brand they were eating while describing the dogs’ tastes, using the criteria of quality, pop, thickness, and how cheap or expensive each tasted. They even weighed in on the “conviction” behind an Oscar Mayer wiener, which was deemed to have good flavor, but no passion behind it. Interestingly, their guesses toward the price were fairly accurate: They correctly guessed they were eating Ball Park Dogs, which they labeled the best of the cheap dogs, and were able to tell when they were eating the expensive Snake River Farms Wagyu Beef hot dogs.
The winners were the pricy Snake River Farms Wagyu Beef and the classic beef franks from Nathan’s. Nathan’s was also the champ in recent hot dog taste tests by The Huffington Post and The Kitchn, making it the experts’ choice in encased meats.