Pro Chefs Blind Taste Test Every Microwave Popcorn

[Announcer] We've gathered three popcorn experts

to blind taste test every microwave popcorn

we could get our hands on

to see which ones meet their standards.

Pop Secret Butter.

It's a nice looking bowl.

We have some marbling between some light kernels

and some yellow kernels here.

So it's definitely a yellow butterfly popcorn.

Some of the pieces are very big, like this one.

It does smell mildly buttery.

And when I mean buttery,

I don't think it smells like real butter.

It definitely smells like the smell

of when you go into a theater.

I see a few on the bottom here that are unpopped,

but color-wise it looks pretty even to me.

The ideal flavor that I'm looking for in my popcorn

is a nice balance of salt and a clean, neutral flavor.

I wanna taste a balance of seasoning

and salt and corn flavor.

I'm looking for something that is nutty,

but doesn't have too many grassy tones.

It should feel crisp and also taste light

and not be greasy in any way.

I prefer it to be crispier over like billowy fluffiness.

A good bowl of popcorn should have

an inviting aroma to it.

The first thing I want to smell is actually the corn.

Toasted corn at the same time

as the hints of the flavoring.

If it's too strong and it smells only of that butter flavor,

you kind of know that you're probably gonna get

an experience that is extreme.

And it's important that the popcorn looks full of life.

I'm looking at the fullness of the pop.

The bag pops to completion or not.

I'm looking for a light, fluffy, voluminous appearance.

I think there's a balanced flavor.

It's not too salty.

It definitely has the nutty aroma.

The buttery flavor is really nice.

It's strong and it's well seasoned.

It's a very like basic popcorn.

I don't know, Pop Secret.

Oh way!

I can't believe I guessed that.

Classic butter taste.

Yeah, it wasn't, you know,

it wasn't trying to be anything more than classic.

So this is a conventional popcorn, but it's high quality.

In order to pop correctly,

needs to be at a pretty specific moisture content.

And that's gonna be somewhere between 12% and 14%.

Popcorn kernel itself is extremely hard

and it holds in an incredible amount of force,

upwards of 130 PSI.

And when you turn the microwave on,

the microwave essentially emits these rays,

which then heat up the water molecules

by creating a lot of friction.

And because these water molecules

in the popcorn kernels get excited,

they start heating up and creating a lot of energy

and that in turns builds up pressure

and then causes the kernel to pop.

I didn't grow up with pop secret.

I'm an Orville Redenbacher girls,

a little too salty for my taste.

[Announcer] Act II Butter.

Quite a few unpopped kernels.

This was either not super fresh,

causing, you know, loss of moisture,

which leaves more unpopped kernels at the bottom.

It's definitely trying to be a butter popcorn.

It's popping a lot smaller,

either a medium-sized kernel or just a dried out kernel.

I mean, it looks more buttery than the last one,

but the smell isn't as strong.

I taste the butter flavor, I taste the salt flavor.

It's not too salty.

I actually taste a lot of the corn flavor,

like it's just like natural popcorn corn.

Is it Act II?

Oh yeah, Act II.

I mean, Act II has so many flavors of butter popcorn.

This is like their classic one.

That's interesting.

They don't mention the word butter whatsoever,

not butter flavoring even.

Butter flavoring is like a identified molecules

that are similar to butter.

Manufacturers turn to fake butter extracts

and that is usually made with derivatives

of other chemicals.

It's really hard to put real actual butter

in a shelf stable product.

A solid microwaveable popcorn product.

I'm just waiting for Act III, I guess.

[Announcer] Oval Redenbacher's Butter.

This is a great bowl of popcorn.

This feels like popcorn for an ad.

Generally, it looks like most of it has been popped.

The oil itself is seasoned oil and low quality.

Yeah, it smells like fake butter.

Like that smell when you walk into a movie theater.

Definitely leaving a mark there on both of my fingers.

I like this one because right away,

I can taste a little bit of salt, so it feels flavorful.

This popcorn is making me a little thirsty. [laughs]

It's Orville something.

Orville Redenbacher.

I swear I didn't cheat.

The man himself. The king.

Most of the microwavable popcorn you'll see

is usually this butterfly popcorn variety.

And there's also another variety

called a mushroom popcorn, which much like a mushroom,

it sort of bursts up and over itself

and creates a sort of cap.

This one was impressive in how well it popped,

which is something I would expect from Redenbacher.

Somebody commented that Orville looks a lot

like the KFC man, and I just wonder if they're related.

[Announcer] Skinnygirl Butter and Sea Salt.

It looks so meager in the bowl.

If this is the entire bag, this is a lot less.

It's very white in color.

The popcorn is very large.

Some of them burst violently.

We call these types of kernels brained kernels.

Maybe had too much moisture

and they just ended up with this brain-like structure.

You want something more like these,

which are billowy, cloud-like.

Flavor on this is very, very mild.

This is a chewy popcorn.

That's one of the no-nos for popcorn, I think,

'cause then you're gonna have to pick it out of your molars.

There's a good chunk of it that's now stuck in my tooth.

It's clearly trying to market itself as a healthier brand,

but really it's giving you less popcorn.

Anytime you see a popcorn talk in cups,

that's very misleading because a cup of popcorn

is almost nothing.

You're never gonna eat just a cup of popcorn.

There's no actual butter in the ingredient list,

but in something like popcorn, it matters less.

With brands like this, it's really just marketing.

Just eat less of the other popcorn that you like

and you'll be a skinny girl.

[Announcer] Skinny Pop Butter.

So this is a very full bowl, large kernel, well popped.

The fluff, the heights, all good things.

It's nice to have these Umami characteristics

and make it taste like it has milk proteins in it.

It doesn't taste like real butter.

Be well seasoned and really the hull is very pleasant.

It's very thin and it sort of dissolves as well,

along with the white part of the popcorn.

Oh, it is Skinny Pop.

It's definitely not butter.

It's using vegan ingredients

to create a butter-like flavor

that creates like a more cheesy thing.

The choice of fat in the popcorn

will sort of affect the mouth feel of it.

I think they've mixed sunflower oil,

which is unsaturated and palm oil,

which is saturated fat to simply bring down

the saturated fat content.

Palm oil is the go-to fat of the food manufacturing industry

because it is very shelf stable.

It is semi-solid at room temperature.

The ones which are made predominantly

with an unsaturated fat like sunflower or canola oil

will I think taste a bit more greasy on your tongue

because it's already in a liquid state.

I think it's a decent microwave popcorn.

My least favorite so far, I'm sorry.

[Announcer] Hokkaido.

Oh, very nice.

Not very many unpopped kernels.

So we're definitely looking at a natural marketed popcorn.

It has a nice, more natural buttery smell,

that nutty popcorn aroma.

It tastes very good.

It's one of the better quality popcorn-

But the seasoning and flavoring is kind of very bland.

This is pretty unusual

because it's really crispy right away.

Like you get, it's loud, you hear that?

[food crunching]

So this is somebody's proprietary seed, I guess.

[Shilpa] Hokkaido Golden Popcorn.

Wow, it's all in Japanese.

This goes into the category of things I don't know about.

Hokkaido's actually really famous for its corn

and its dairy.

The northern part of Japan, lots of fields,

an ideal place for agriculture and farming.

There are far fewer unpopped kernels here.

And so this shows me

that it is like a superior quality popcorn.

Popcorn kernels are literally like the seeds of the corn.

When you see some that are unpopped, it's like a bad seed.

I remember growing up in India,

the popcorn that I used to eat was very heavily seasoned

and a little bit spicy.

It had turmeric and salt

and sometimes black salt and cayenne.

I'd be curious to see what other flavor variations

this brand has.

[Announcer] Newman's Own Butter.

They smell more like, I don't wanna say burnt,

but like cooked popcorn flavor that-

It smells like fried food.

We have yellow kernels and white kernels mixed together.

This has got more color additives.

That's where that color is mostly coming from.

Wow, this is the saltiest of the bunch so far.

Well, it's really salty.

It's extremely salty.

Should we call this like a Newman's Own?

Oh wow, look at that.

I think it's important for butter flavored popcorn

to look like there's butter on it,

even if it's not actually butter.

And I think that's why companies use like a color additive,

like a natural color additive, like annatto,

because you're eating with your eyes first.

The annatto extract comes from achiote seeds,

which are kind of emit a really deep orange color,

but use sparingly to make it more

like a buttery yellow color like this.

Some brands also use other coloring agents

such as riboflavin or beta carotene.

Yeah, Newman, it's a nice box and I like your company,

but it's not particularly flavorful.

Flavor doesn't really bring to mind butter.

It is not unpleasant, but it's not butter to me.

[Announcer] Market Pantry Butter.

This smells like the microwave popcorn of my childhood.

And it's oily, but not overly so.

I almost taste like a lot of milkiness.

Says natural and artificial flavor.

So there is something artificial there as well

that's probably contributing to this cloying butter flavor.

This is of Target's affordable line.

So when a store does a private label brand,

they're reaching out to a popcorn producer,

maybe one of the ones that are on the shelf

and they're making their store brand.

To do it cheap enough, you have to remove

as many input costs as you can.

It's natural and artificial flavor.

And probably that is in a bid to sort of, you know,

keep the cost down.

Although the ingredient list is short,

the artificial flavor allows them to do a lot.

[Announcer] Whole Foods Organic Buttery Flavor.

It looks very pale, but so many unpopped kernels.

I don't see a lot of like bright yellow coloring.

It has a nice aroma, nothing artificial about it.

It tastes like nothing.

It's very, very plain.

The mildest of the popcorns I've tried so far.

The kernel is pretty straightforward, not very complex.

It's pretty crispy

and that smaller kernel helps achieve that.

Is this Whole Foods?

Mm. It is Whole Foods.

Also says no added diacetyl.

Diacetyl is a chemical that is often used

in fake butter flavor to mimic the flavor of butter.

There was a big lawsuit involving

some microwave popcorn manufacturers

that had some of their workers developing a condition

known as popcorn lung that resulted

from the exposure to the diacetyl.

Although it is not a banned substance.

Popcorn brands don't really use diacetyl anymore.

I mean, it's nice that they point that out.

You know, they don't really say what they use

instead of diacetyl now.

They usually just say natural flavorings

or artificial flavorings.

In the United States, that is a really useful tool

for putting whatever you want in a product.

[Announcer] Amish Country Butter.

You don't usually see popcorn this small.

These are such tiny kernels.

Makes me feel like I'm really big.

While very adorable and appealing,

I think it sort of throws off the ratio

of that white puffy bit to hull.

Even though relatively speaking,

the hull is proportionately smaller.

I think the ratio is still a bit off.

Tastes like it has a little bit

of artificial flavor going on.

Not what I'd expect from an heirloom kernel like this.

Amish Country popcorn.

Oh, it does say lady finger popcorn.

I can't believe it calls itself as hull-less popcorn

because the hull was very evident.

So hull-less is really a marketing term.

Every popcorn needs to have a hull.

That's sort of what defines popcorn.

It says right here, lady finger popcorn.

And that is one variety of heirloom mini popcorn,

typically associated with the Amish.

Heirloom really means that it's like an older strain.

You can understand how it would be like a novelty.

The popcorn's cute.

It's a good time.

The kids will like it.

[Announcer] Amish Country Microwave Popcorn on the Cob.

This is so cute.

It's popcorn that came off of this cob.

This is a fun thing to do.

You'll find these at roadside stops in farm country.

This is like art.

This is so pretty.

No seasoning.

Absolutely none, but a very pleasant texture.

It has like a really concentrated corn taste.

Whoa, this is so cool.

Same company, Amish Country.

You got your red corn, so maybe some of these are dark

because they were actually colored red originally.

Almost like going back to the basics,

but in like the best way.

[Announcer] Black Jewell, Touch of Butter.

Almost looks a little green-like.

Green tinted, which is really interesting.

The hulls are dark red,

which tells me that it came from a cob

or kernels that, you know, were like reddish purple.

Is it blue corn?

Aroma is like mildly buttery.

The whiff of corn is really prominent.

Doesn't have a lot of lingering flavor.

It's just like kind of really well balanced.

It's crunchy. I kind of like this.

It has a balanced buttery flavor

and a very obvious saltiness.

The darkness of this particular batch here

brings out a toasty flavor.

Not sure if this is a standard brand or not.

Black Jewell Gourmet Specialty Popcorn.

When you see like red or blue popcorn,

it means that they come from an heirloom variety,

which is what this box is marketing itself as.

I think that darker kernels produce

like more intense corn flavor.

It's a little bit nuttier.

The word gourmet means literally nothing

in the context of this packaging.

It's just a marketing term

that makes you feel gourmet, I guess.

I really mean like heirloom.

This is a old variety.

[Announcer] Great Value, Extra Butter.

Yep, we have blown through the butter door

and here we are.

This looks very intense.

This is the most orange bowl of popcorn

we've seen so far.

Bright yellow and huge.

This is the movie theater look.

Oh my gosh, but this is actually like staining the bowl.

That tastes really nice actually.

That tastes like real butter.

and each individual kernel is very light.

Yeah, it's actually like,

not sitting well on my stomach.

You're gonna be disappointed if you think

this is like super intense butter popcorn.

It's more super intense butter looking popcorn.

Oh, wow, great value.

We got to the Walmart one.

I've never tried this before, probably be my last time.

There's sort of a trend here that store bought brands

are really accentuating the buttery look.

Extra butter means that there's more seasonings,

more natural butter flavors

to make that sort of butter taste and color.

They're adding coloring.

They are not adding any more flavor.

It really did work on me.

It's from the color to the flavor,

and I could suss out that there was real butter in it.

So this is a win for me.

[Announcer] Jolly Time

Blast O Butter Ultimate Theater Style.

It's a beautiful looking bowl of popcorn.

A little bit of shimmering on some of these kernels.

It smells like chili powder.

The smell sort of reminds me of the popcorn

that I grew up with.

Color is like bright, bright yellow.

It almost smells like a little bit burnt.

Really pleasant to eat.

It's very light and fluffy.

The hull is present, but very thin.

So it doesn't feel tough

or feel like you're crunching down on something.

Again, I don't understand it.

It's like, doesn't taste very buttery.

There's like kinda something sweet about this

I can't put my finger on.

Ooh, Blast O Butter.

And dry buttermilk, wow.

The dry buttermilk is gonna add a sweetness

and that's probably what I was tasting in there.

I reckon that's because of the extra lactic acid boost

that buttermilk might bring.

Dry buttermilk actually has an interesting flavor to it.

It kind of has a cheesy quality,

almost like sour cream actually.

It's an inexpensive way to mimic butter.

The popcorn, I think the minute it starts

staining your hands with spots of grease,

that's you gone a little too hard.

[Announcer] Cousin Willie's Buttery Explosion.

This smells a little chemically-

Very strong.

It's like the smell of oil hitting a very hot pan.

Whoa. Oh, [chuckles]

this is some fake stuff right here.

The bite is very good.

Like it kind of shatters under your teeth.

The artificial butter's taste is like over the top.

Not a natural tasting butter flavor.

Buttery Explosion.

Okay, Cousin Willie has amazing packaging.

A very trustworthy character with his, you know,

with his plaid Buffalo check shirt.

Clearly the ratio is wrong.

Like this is just all butter.

You have to balance it out with the salt level

and the oil in order for it to taste pleasant.

Microwave popcorns are always going

to try to hit the most perfect butter flavor,

but butter's just really hard to do.

A lot of times, you're not really trying

to make it taste like buttery popcorn,

you're trying to make it taste

like artificial movie theater popcorn.

But Willie, Willie turned it up.

Good job, Cousin Willie.

[Announcer] - [Announcer] Opopop Super Butter.

This popcorn to me looks really good.

It looks like what I would wanna pop.

The kernels are very irregular, I would say.

Pure corn aroma.

I think I detect more like cheesy notes

rather than buttery notes.

So there is something dairy going on.

Hit somewhere between butter and cheese, I'd say.

Has like a balanced salt flavor, mild butter.

Doesn't taste artificial,

kind of like lighter mouthfeel too.

There's like not as much oil

and the popcorn's nice and crunchy.

I just want to keep eating it.

Opopop.

I'm glad to see that it contains milk

because there is a distinctive sort of lactic note

to this popcorn, but is it super butter?

Its attempt at being buttery is quite different

than what you'd expect.

A good balance of flavor for me.

Super butter is a great term,

just maybe not for this particular one.

[Announcer] AMC Theatres's Classic Butter.

There's something promising about this bowl.

It smells like a lot of butter

and it looks like there's a lot of butter flavor on it.

It's very yellow.

I don't really see many unpopped kernels.

This is super buttery.

This is kind of what I want when somebody tells me

movie theater butter popcorn.

I wanna be slapped in the face with that flavor.

This one really didn't surprise me.

It is a bit salty, but the popcorn is pretty crunchy.

I think that it's probably one of the better executed

movie theater popcorns.

Ooh, the Masters. Shut up! [chuckles]

I did not know they made this.

They set the standard, I suppose.

That's insane, but also so smart.

It definitely has the butter flavor.

Movie theater popcorn, it is its own thing.

And how movie theaters do it is they usually use

a substance called Flavacol, which is a salt,

a very, very, very finely powdered salt

mixed in with butter flavor.

And they usually add it in the beginning

when the kernels are popping.

They put the Flavacol, they put the fat,

whether it's coconut oil or palm oil.

That makes it really easy for anybody

to run a movie theater concession stand.

You dump in the kernels, pour in the flavacol.

And I think across the varieties that we've tasted,

we have noticed that anything that contains actual dairy,

whether that's in the form of butter or milk,

they really do stand out.

It might explain part of the success here.

It's the best popcorn that we've had so far.

I really love it.

My mind is just blown

that a movie theater sells its own popcorn.

I think it's brilliant.

[Announcer] Clancy's Movie Theater Butter.

Has that appealing fake butter smell.

Kernels look very nice and fluffy,

so I think it's well popped.

The distribution of the flavoring is quite uneven.

A lot of pronounced white pieces and yellow pieces.

Yeah, here we go, we got marbling again.

This is very white and that's very yellow.

So you gotta eat them together to get the real,

what they're going for.

I kind of like it though,

because you can kind of self-regulate.

You know, mix and match your intensity

is kind of how I see it.

Now maybe it's like a milky flavor.

Clancy's?

Oh, it's distributed and sold by Aldi.

Okay, got it.

I mean, it does say it contains milk.

Movie theater popcorn also does have

sort of uneven flavoring.

It's like wherever the sauce is hitting the popcorn.

So maybe they're trying to mimic that.

I think the people at Clancy need to go speak

to the people at AMC and figure out

how AMC got the flavor distribution so even.

[Announcer] Kirkland Signature Movie Theater Butter.

I know it sounds so weird,

but it smells like dry-aged steak.

I am drawn to the natural look.

Kind of natural popcorn white.

This has a really balanced flavor.

Oil popped corn, like a mild saltiness.

Trader Joe's.

Oh my God.

Wow.

Oh my God, I almost broke my arm.

Kirkland, they did it.

That's a huge box.

I love Costco.

I love Costco. [laughs]

No wonder this is Costco.

This is a really good popcorn, I think.

Like, it's just kind of balanced mild flavors

that you don't really, like, get sick of.

This popcorn reinforces my theory

that any of the popcorns that seem to have

some sort of butter or milk derivative

are generally better tasting.

Costco always does a good job.

I think it's a good one to have in your pantry.

[Announcer] Jolly Time, The Big Cheez.

Very, very orange.

What is this?

Very orange in color.

But the smell is quite neutral actually.

This is gonna be a really flavorful popcorn,

at least from the looks of it.

And I can see some bits of little granules of spice on here.

It's not super spicy, but it's spiced somehow.

Actually, my fingers a little orange.

It's gonna be a cheese description.

The flavor's mysterious to me.

Trader Joe's.

I'm gonna go with Trader Joe's until I get it right.

The Big Cheez.

Look how I'm right, it's a Z.

I don't think I ever think of cheese on top of popcorn.

Not many companies are trying to do cheese

because it's hard to pull off.

Getting like a cheesy flavor

to microwavable popcorn is challenging

because you really have to take different ingredients

to mimic the taste of cheese popcorn.

It is very difficult to get flavor

to survive the microwave.

you're generally going to end up with artificial flavors

because of that.

[Announcer] Stonewall Kitchen, Cheesy White Cheddar.

I do notice some sort of powdery substance on top.

A mild sort of corn flavor, like corn aroma.

I expect this to be a white cheddar situation.

Again, a little surprised that it's not more flavorful,

but I like it.

There's really nothing offensive about this.

I'm not entirely sure

what this popcorn is being marketed as.

Okay, here we go.

We just entered the seasoning packets world.

Urban Accents by Stonewall Kitchen.

This makes sense why you see the granules on top.

I don't mind the extra step,

but I do wish it were a little cheesier.

Now that I know what it is,

it's sort of missing its mark.

There's a lot going on here

for what ended up being not that much going on.

The seasoning packet I don't think is strong enough,

and maybe there wasn't enough fat

to sort of make it cling really well.

[Announcer] Orville Redenbacher's Kettle Corn.

I don't even know this popcorn,

but I love her already.

You got a natural look, which I like.

No crazy colorings.

This is noticeably sweet.

It is sweeter than any other variety

that we've tasted before.

It is a kettle corn.

Kettle corn is a flavor of popcorn

that's a little bit sweet and salty.

It has some sugar in it.

Unfortunately, they're using sucralose instead of sugar.

Within the environment of a microwave safe bag,

which has all of the steam and fat,

it's really hard to work with actual granulated sugar.

So this obviously has some sort of sugar derivative.

Artificial sugars are easy to spot.

Like it's just sitting in my mouth right now.

Orville Redenbacher's Kettle Corn.

They've had to modify the sugar

and that's probably why they use like an ingredient

like sucralose to make it so that it melts

at a lower temperature.

If you're looking for a kettle corn,

this is not the route for you.

[Announcer] Stonewall Kitchen, Buttery Caramel Corn.

This one smells like maple.

Kind of a fake maple-y thing going on.

This one has a powdery substance on top,

which to me feels like a dead giveaway.

This might also have like a seasoning packet

that you add on top.

There is sweetness and saltiness,

but it's not really working together.

And looks natural, but it has that like strong,

McGriddle smell.

We're back at Stonewall Kitchen.

I think if this was called kettle corn,

it would be perfectly acceptable,

but to call something caramel corn

that's being made in the microwave is almost impossible.

Caramel corn is popcorn that you toss in caramel sauce

and you really essentially like cook it.

When you make caramel corn,

you want something called mushroom popcorn.

And mushroom popcorn is unique because as it pops,

It sort of rises in on itself.

It's a bit more sturdy and it's able to take the weight,

the physical weight of certain toppings like caramel.

You cannot do this in a microwave.

But I like that they used real sugar,

had you add it on afterwards.

I just wish they did it without the fake aroma.

[Announcer] Act II, Hot and Spicy.

This is nuclear.

Uh, like it almost looks like it's been painted

were accidentally spilled on.

It is so intense in color,

but it smells like absolutely nothing.

I haven't seen anything like this.

The heat is in the back of the throat for the most part.

It's not like it's making your lips burn.

I mean, there's definitely like salt there too.

So it's not just heat.

But it's not a very sophisticated product here.

It's like popcorn, hot, done.

I don't think any of the big companies would make this.

Act II.

I was wrong, Act II did it.

I see here there's a lot of coloring.

Red 40, which is not that great.

Red 40 is a very controversial coloring agent.

I think with hot Cheetos, there is like,

surprisingly lots of complex flavors there.

When you've had flaming hot Cheetos,

they do spice really well because it's spicy,

but it's also fruity, but you're really missing that here.

I'm getting the box red just from my fingers touching it.

So watch your couch.

[Announcer] Ass Kickin' Carolina Reaper.

This one smells like paprika, like bell pepper.

It has a fruity kind of note to it.

There's a good amount of paprika in this,

it's causing it to be the color it is.

And that's good 'cause that is a natural way to do it.

And paprika has a nice flavor for popcorn.

Ooh.

This one is spicy.

I need water.

This is a challenge popcorn.

I think the level of heat is silly.

Nobody really wants that regularly.

It's more for tricking people.

Like biting into a pepper.

It is extremely hot.

They would label it like Carolina Reaper

or whatever the pepper is that like elicits that,

you know, super Scoville scale pepper

that you see people running around screaming, eating.

All I taste is the heat.

Ass kicking pepper or something like that.

Ass Kickin', okay.

Carolina Reaper, there it is.

It did kick my ass.

Caution, extremely hot, pop in well-ventilated area.

Use...

I don't know about this one-

It is hot.

It's one of the hottest peppers out there.

A Carolina Reaper is an extremely spicy chili.

My best guess is they extract the capsaicin,

which is the compound responsible for making a pepper hot

and introduce it to the seasoning.

I've concluded today that I don't need my popcorn

to be either cheesy or spicy.

Maybe a one-time buy.

[Announcer] Now let's see which popcorn

our experts liked the most and the least.

My favorite of the bunch was definitely

the AMC Movie Theater Popcorn.

I think it was remarkable how similar it tasted

to that smell that we get

when you walk into a movie theater.

It was crisp, it was fluffy, light,

it was easy to chow down.

So I like the AMC popcorn because it hits a spot

for movie theater popcorn, salty, buttery popcorn.

The Black Jewel and the Hokkaido brand,

those were just delicious in terms of the type

of popcorn kernels they used,

and then the real balance of flavor

in terms of how the corn flavor shone through.

The Skinny Pop was one of my favorites.

It was more natural, which I tend to like.

It was cheesy, but it didn't say so.

It said it was butter, and the reasoning

became obvious it was a vegan butter.

Not a fan of the Jolly Time brand.

It was just a little too artificial in flavor.

Of the ones I didn't like,

the Act II Butter is on that list.

It is clearly an inferior version

of Pop Secret or Orville Redenbacher's butter.

I also was not a fan of Act II's Hot and Spicy.

I didn't like the extreme color of the red and the white.

No point really in flavor, just spice.

So I would definitely put both the spicy popcorns

at the bottom of my list.

Carolina Reaper popcorn is something

I will never try again. [laughs]

My experience today has shown me that

if the ingredient list says it contains milk,

generally the flavor of the microwave popcorn

is going to be better

and it is going to deliver on the butter front.

Microwave popcorn is obviously a big thing

in the supermarket.

It's an amazing technology,

but it has a lot of limitations in terms of flavor.

It's one of those like vessels and snacks

that can carry different kinds of flavors.

So it's like really fun to try different kinds.

Maybe stop by the spice aisle.

And then season it yourself.

You can put like different dry seasonings

and create your own adventure.

Simply add it after the bag is popped

and make sure you shake that bag.