$3 vs $150 Balsamic Vinegar…explained

Well in this video, we are doing a deep dive into the world of Balsamic Vinegar, which might be one of the most confusing ingredients to buy in a US grocery store, but if chosen correctly, can make boring food tastes amazing.

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📚 Videos & Sources mentioned:
▪ Official Balsmic Website (Italy) https://www.balsamicotradizionale.it/il-prodotto/la-storia/
▪ Balsamic of Reggio Emilia Regulations -https://www.politicheagricole.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeAttachment.php/L/IT/D/3%252Fa%252F2%252FD.5a2ca1222aa99db92fda/P/BLOB%3AID%3D3345/E/pdf
▪ Balsamic Consortium – https://www.consorziobalsamico.it/balsamic-vinegar-of-modena/how-it-is-produced/?lang=en
▪ How Balsamic Vinegar of Modena is Made ➡ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nF5D6PUlx4
▪ How to produce the true Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena ➡ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1VFODB1yOs
▪ Balsamic Vinegar | Meet The Makers | Waitrose ➡ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naU1D8xGvwo&t=5s
▪ How Certified Balsamic Vinegar Of Modena Is Made ➡ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFnQwZoXo_8
▪ America’s Test Kitchen Article – https://www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/3233-how-to-make-your-cheap-balsamic-vinegar-taste-like-a-300-bottle

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⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Director’s Cut
0:36 Intro
1:51 Why is traditional Balsamic Vinegar so expensive?
6:02 How to buy traditional Balsamic
8:03 What is the flavor of Balsamic Vinegar?
13:05 What are the 4 Categories of Balsamic
16:06 Tasting the 4 Categories of Balsamic
18:42 Can you make “instant” traditional Balsamic?
23:16 Balsamic Test 1: Steak
25:57 Balsamic Test 2: Salad
29:18 Balsamic Test 3: Ice Cream
30:45 Balsamic Test 4: Balsamic & sparkling water
32:49 What is the best Balsamic Vinegar for home cooks?

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Music: Provided by Epidemic Sound
Filmed on: Sony a6600 & Sony A7C
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Edited in: Premiere Pro

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This video is a director’s cut of three individual balsamic videos we released last summer and it’s kind of fixing a failed experiment in this version we redid the voiceover transitions updated a ton of Graphics to match cookwell made it more concise and it now watches as a

F length Deep dive which is really the standard that I want to hold this channel to and if this is your first time balsamic is still such a unique and underrated ingredient to have in your pantry but you definitely need to understand the category and differences

Between them so grab a drink sit back relax and let’s learn about balsamic what if I told you you have probably never tasted real balsamic vinegar that is unless you remember spending over $100 on a tiny bottle and the liquid that came out was syrupy sweet sour Umami and has an age

Complexity that is completely different than the $4 bottle that I grew up using that is thin like water and dominantly sour well in this video we are doing a deep dive into the world of balsamic vinegar which might be one of the most confusing ingredients to buy in a US

Grocery store but if chosen correctly balsamic vinegar can make boring food taste amazing so here are a couple of questions we need to figure out first what makes real balsamic vinegar so expensive and why does it have a completely different flavor profile two what actually is the difference between

Authentic balsamic and the typical varieties found at the grocery store and lastly three can you actually taste a difference in your cooking and once we answer these questions you’ll be able to confidently buy the best bottle at the store so to start let’s figure out why is real balsamic vinegar so expensive

And we begin in the birthplace of balsamic a country renowned for several of the most popular foods in the world Italy traditional balsamic is a type of vinegar that originates from Italy and is known for its complex sweet and tangy flavor in addition it has a luxurious ious viscous texture making it primarily

Useful as a garnish or topping compared to the thin watery stuff that most of us might be used to it is made from the must of grapes in either the reio Amelia or Modena regions of Italy now a very important item to note with this bottle

Is this the only ingredient used to make traditional balsamic vinegar is grape mus authentic dop balsamic vinegar is made from 100% grape mus there is absolutely no other ingredients added to this and this will be important to remember when we start looking at the other options you can find at the store

And it begins to explain why this tiny 100 ml bottle is so expensive according to the balsamic traditional website in order to make authentic dop balsamic it goes through four basic steps first the grapes from the modana or Regio Amelia regions are harvested when ripe and then

Pressed down into the grape must which is a concentrate of the natural sweet juice es skins seeds and stems of the grapes next the grape must is cooked over open air boilers which evaporates some of the water and concentrates the sugars of the grape juice once cooked

And cooled the mus then goes through fermentation and acidification and this is done by naturally selected yeast and ferments in the vinegar Cellar and if this sounds familiar to wine making you’re not wrong at a general level vinegar is made from a fermented alcohol that is allowed to

Oxygenate and over ferment which breaks down most of the alcohol into acetic acid and acetic acid is what gives vinegar its signature sour taste after fermentation and acidification the final step is maturation and aging and this is where the grap must is patiently concentrated and as the website puts it

This is the final step that leads to the inimitable organoleptic complexity of traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena or in layman’s terms terms this is where the magic happens after going through the first three steps the grape must needs to be aged for a minimum of 12

Years in a battery and a battery is a set of barrels with decreas in volumes often made with different types of wood and the vinegar is progressively concentrated and transferred to smaller barrels before finally being ready for production at least 12 years later and because of this process the balsamic

Vinegar gets infused with Aromas of aged wood that supposedly add a ton of complexity and I can safely say after cracking open my own $150 bottle and pouring myself some it kind of messed with my mind I never knew that balsamic could taste like this first time trying

Real balsamic vinegar see what it tastes like so interesting deeply complex sweet it’s sour but almost like hints of like Maple in a way that is very very interesting now one more quick thing after the balsamic is removed from the final Barrel before it goes to be bottled it must pass an organoleptic

Test by a commission of expert tasters where it is evaluated based on a bunch of different metrics I’ll link the sources if you want to read more as it’s pretty rigorous but this includes items such as it must have a density higher than 1.24 it must have an acidity

Greater than 4.5 and then it’s evaluated based on sight taste and smell if the balsamic does not pass it is returned to the barrel for another year but if it does finally pass it is then ready to be bottled and as you can guess this long process and the reduction in liquid is

What makes traditional balsamic so expensive the average bottle that is imported from Italy is over $100 for 100 ml or about 3.5 o now if you want to get the authentic stuff as I teased earlier with the bottle shapes you better know what to look out for an authentic

Balsamic will only be packaged in two bottle shapes and if it’s not in one of these bottles it’s not traditional balsamic the balsamic made with grapes from the reio Amelia region are going to be in an upside down tulip shaped bottle and the balsamic from Modena Italy is in

A 100ml balsamic drop or teardrop shaped bottle which I thought was kind of odd but when I heard this story it makes a lot of sense due to the high price and coveted taste imitations were a big problem for recognizing authentic dop vinegar from Modena so in 1987 the

Chamber of Commerce hired a young Automotive designer giorgetto giaguaro to design their bottle shape as a way to guarantee authenticity and it’s a similar story for the bottle used in Amelia Romania now additionally both of these will be sealed with a serial number and have the red dop stamp and they each

Have versions that can can actually be aged longer than 12 years Amelia Romania has three classifications the bronze silver and gold while monena has just two vecio for their 12- year aged and extra vecio for the 25- year age version now again in the US at least you’ll

Probably have to special order these online as you’ll likely never see them in your local grocery store unless it happens to be a specialty store because mine was literally behind lock and key on the top shelf okay so now that we know why this little bottle is so

Expensive we need to switch gears and talk about how this stuff is typically used because it’s much different from how I and probably you grew up using balsamic vinegar from a flavor perspective why does traditional balsamic vinegar tastes so good and why is it so versatile like the fact that

You could sit down with a salad steak and a bowl of ice cream and use this as a garnish for all three is kind of crazy to think about I got to say this is probably the best steak dinner I’ve ever made so let’s break down the flavor

Equation the flavor equation is made up of six elements taste Aroma and texture these are items you’ve probably heard about but also things like sight such as contrast physical reactions spicy food or The Human Experience for example what mood you are in can all influence how we

Perceive the flavor of food now we’ll do a full video breaking down this equation at some point but for purposes of this video the differences between bottles of balsamic can primarily be explained through taste Aroma and texture as each of the six bottles we are evaluated have

A different flavor profile and in short there are six Key properties that traditional balsamic has of the five taste balsamic is predominantly sour from that acetic acid but it’s also a little sweet from the natural sugars in the concentrated grape juice and what’s also pretty interesting is that traditional balsamic is slightly Umami

In this study the age versions of balsamic were found to have small amounts of glutamic acid which is one of the responsible compounds for Umami taste receptors and from taste alone this is a very unique balanced profile and shows why it works on both sweet foods like ice cream but also Savory

Foods like steak now from a texture perspective traditional balsamic has a higher density or viscosity than water water swishes around as we all know but the traditional balsamic is much thicker so it lingers longer on our salad greens sandwiches and tongue and as we will see the texture is an obvious differentiator

Between many of the bottles at the store and lastly we have the aroma or smells so if I close my nose and give this a taste I only get the sour sweet and kind of umami flavor but as soon as I open my nose I’m getting hit with all this complexity of

Amazing Aromas now there are probably hundreds of individual Aroma molecules but the two dominant composite smells I’m going to use for this case study are fruity from the grapes and then secondly are kind of the Aged wood notes and this specific version is kind of mapley and this results from the aging process

These Woody Maple Aromas are what make traditional balsamic so interesting in terms of Flavor now I can use this information to create a spider graph flavor profile for our traditional balsamic that looks something like this now this is a subed measurement of how I’m perceiving these different

Properties but this is a similar process to how coffee is analyzed by a panel of taste testers and this chart helps explain why traditional balsamic is kind of a chameleon acidic condiment that is primarily used as a garnish or toppings on foods that range from sweet to Savory

And from the back of the $150 bottle box they mentioned that traditional Balsam IC is ideal for grilled and boiled vegetables fish and seafood fagra cured meat pasta pizza risoto barbecue meat cheeses vanilla ice cream cheesecake strawberries or it can be consumed alone at the end of the meal for good

Digestion now what’s most interesting about this list is what’s missing if you look again grilled and boiled vegetables are on there but there’s no mention of salad or salad dressing which in the United States is probably the number one thing that balsamic vinegar is most known for could this be a random

Omission maybe but more likely I think modana treats traditional 100% grape mus balsamic as a fundamentally different product that maybe shouldn’t be wasted by mixing into a salad dressing like the cheap bottles that can be found at the store so after hearing about all of this while traditional balsamic is amazing

There is a big elephant in the room which is the price this is simply way too expensive to be used for the everyday home cook so a test we are about to do is can you make a cheap balsamic vegar taste like the real thing however before we get there let’s

Uncover question number two what is the difference between real balsamic vinegar and the typical ones found at the grocery store because when I went out to the store to start researching this video I was quickly overwhelmed with all of the different options and trying to figure out what the differences were for

Example the traditional stuff might be 100% grae mus but after spending 30 minutes in the aisle I realized every other bottle has some added ingredients also five of these bottles have the igp stamp from Modern Italy but all five of them cost different amounts have different names and Order of ingredients

On one grape mus is listed first but on the others it’s not which we’ll see is one of the telltale signs for significantly different texture also why are some of these thin like water and is the balsamic glaze that much different from the traditional version well in

Short there are are four categories of balsamic vinegar you’ll typically see at the store and you need to understand the flavor differences between them and the first category of balsamic like we just talked about is traditional whether it’s the vecio or extra Veo bottles from Mod

Or the 1220 or 25 years age one from reio Amelia these all fall under traditional balsamic which are categorized by 100% cooked grape mus there’s no added ingredients they’re aged for a minimum of 12 years and they have a high density in addition to a high price tag and that red dop stamp

The second category of balsamic is condiment grade and this is kind of a loose category catchall for younger versions of traditional balsamic that have been diluted with wine vinegar so it’s categorized by cooked grape mus between 50 and 100% added ingredients are wine vinegar it can have some aging

It has a medium high density and it can have some certification like the igp stamp and the price range anywhere from 15 to maybe $50 or above the third balsamic category is vinegar based and these are the more water-like consistency balsamics that are made with more wine vinegar than

Grape must so the added ingredients are wine vinegar concentrated grape mus and caramel color and these typically have no aging the density is very low similar to water but these also have the lowest price the fourth category is reductions and glazes and these are a little confusing because I would technically

Say it’s not balsamic vinegar it’s more of a product made with balsamic vinegar let me explain so in short you can easily make these Yourself by reducing balsamic vinegar with some sugar or a thickening ingredient commercially these have the widest range of added ingredients and qualities some are made

With higher quality balsamics of ma some use a lot of sugar to control the taste and texture or others use thickening ingredients like corn starch or zanthin gum and in general these have a very high density that’s even thicker than the traditional stuff and have a price

Point generally between 5 to maybe $15 depending on the ingredients that are used now there are a couple of points worth mentioning here first these aren’t perfect categories there might actually be a little overlap between them and secondly we are looking at the differences in these categories from a

Macro level for example a 12 and 25 year age balsamic are both going to fall into the traditional category but will have slightly different flavor profiles or the condiment grade category which we’ll see probably has the widest range of flavor profiles as you can spend $15 to

$50 so naturally we should actually try to taste some and see what these differences are and I was curious how different are the balsamics in these various categories and do any of them get remotely close to the traditional stuff so I bought a bunch of different balsamics and set up a tasting flight

And it’s super interesting to see how the flavor profile evolves from the cheapest all the way to the most expensive bottle so I never realized just how many options for balsamic vinegars there are in all the different varieties cuz like these are all igp uh or dop standards but they’re all

Completely different products and I’ve already been able to tell some differences between them as I kind of just poured them out but what I’m really most interested to is see The Taste differences between these the texture differences the Aromas and then ultimately this will decide how we use

Them and decide which one may make the most sense for you to purchase at home so for this test I use six different bottles of balsamic vinegar and these are all from mon Italy and they do use the leaf system which I’ll touch on in a

Little later but what I did was just go down the line one by one and here were the big takeaways for each so starting with the cheapest one leaf balsamic from mon this basically just tasted like straight distilled white vinegar to me it’s the same watery texture and it’s

Basically pure sour though there may be a hint of fru but absolutely no age wood notes like the traditional the two-leaf bottle that was like a dollar more was basically the same maybe a little bit more fruity notes but again just was kind of like water and reminded me a lot

Of distilled white vinegar the three-leaf balsamic started to have a little bit more change it was slightly more viscous texture however noticeably more fruity though the taste was still pretty dominantly sour there’s no sweetness there’s no Umami and definitely no aged wood notes and all three of these I would put in the

Vinegar based category there’s more wine vinegar than grape mus in these and as far as drinking them plain like this I would not recommend however both the four leaf vinegars there was a big difference right away the texture is completely obvious that it’s much thicker secondly

There is now a sweetness and maybe a slight Umami quality to The Taste and it’s just so much more enjoyable to consume on its own like this there also is significantly more fruity Aromas probably from a higher concentration of that grape must and these two actually started to remind me of the traditional

Balsamic from a taste and texture standpoint other than one thing and that is the Aged wood notes the grape must in the $18 box model has been age for 3 years and there’s a tiny hint of age wood maybe but only that was because I was trying to pick up on it their

Traditional stuff is a whole new ball game with those deeply complex aged Maple notes so none of these truly got close to the authentic stuff but you may be wondering is there a way that we could kind of impart some of those aged and more complex Aromas from another

Ingredient into a balsamic and try to replicate the traditional one and according to this America’s Test Kitchen article they say you can so naturally I had to put it to a blind taste test for this I made a reduction based on their recipe with 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar 1

Tbsp of sugar and 1 tbsp of a 12 year AG port wine and all you have to do is bring that to a simmer and let the mixture Reduce by half and here’s the flavor theory behind how this works so the sugar obviously adds sweetness to The Taste and cook it down transforms

The texture and also rounds out that harsher sour taste and the 12year Aged Port adds those aged wood notes that we have been missing so does it actually taste just like the traditional balsamic no I did a blind taste test where I filled up four bowls two with the

Traditional and two with the instant balsamic shuffled them up and then took one away to see if I can distinguish which two were the same and which one was different definitely different than number one I’ll tell you that this is definitely the one homemade with sugar

It’s just much slower to get out um and also it tastes pretty sweet these two hit my tongue a lot quicker and more sour than than sweet now just because I could tell the difference between the homemade and the traditional in a side by-side taste test does not mean this

Stuff is bad in fact it’s actually quite good and I got two key takeaways from this test first is that this stuff is way better than the store-bought balsamic glaze which for the bottle that I happen to buy at the store was just way too sweet and secondly I think you

Could dial this homemade glaze to get it even closer to the traditional stuff and if any of you want to do some experiments here’s what I would try first I would try out a condiment grade balsamic secondly I would experiment with different ratios of balsamic to sugar to Port thirdly I would try

Adjusting the cooking time to dial in that consistency and fourth try adding some MSG for a little bit of that Umami kick and you might be able to get like 85 to 90% closer to the traditional stuff obviously you’ll need to spend some time money experimentation to get

There but if you can get close to 85 or 90% it may be worth the effort so we’ve gone through all the flavor profile of these various bottles you understand a lot of the ingredients that are in these things and you might be wondering you know which one should I end up buying

And before we get there there’s kind of a problem and that is it’s really easy to taste the difference in a side by-side sipping test but what happens when you actually start testing it on different foods like ice cream steak salad pizza or that Viral healthy Coke

Tik Tok are you still able to taste a difference between the $6 or the $15 or what about the $150 traditional one so to figure that out I ran through four different experiments where I tested out various balsamic vinegars from each category the steak test the greens test

The ice cream test and and that healthy coke test after we discuss the experiment observations I’ll break down a balsamic buying guide so you can make an informed and confident decision next time you are at the grocery store and experiment with your own balsamic Creations because if you get the right

Bottle using balsamic for just salad is completely old news instead balsamic can be used to amplify ice cream steak Pizza hogies a weird bowl of leftovers and it can even be used to transform seltzer water into a healthy tasting Coke oh they’re getting worse okay that

Last one was kind of a lie but the rest of them are true now as a quick disclaimer with these taste sets my goal is to give you all the information you need so you can make an informed decision this is not about trying to find a specific brand that is the best

Overall because there’s countless options of balsamic out there additionally I’m just one person and I would highly recommend trying these for yourself sometime because it’s really quite fun but it also helps train your palette because for some of these tests I was able to instantly tell which one I was

Tasting tongue immediately starts watering so much more it’s it’s very clear now for each taste test I’ll pop up the candidates and the flavor profiles so with that being said let’s hop into test number one the steak test for the steak test I chose one bottle from each category these were the one

Leaf vinegar based the fourleaf condiment grade the homemade reduction and lastly the dop traditional version from Mon and all I did was BR a steak overnight then seared it on high and brought it to 125° fah in interal after cooking I let it rest for a few minutes

Before slicing in and separating the steak out into portions to each portion I added a drizzle of each balsamic to the steak starting with the vinegar base the fourleaf the homemade reduction and lastly the dop traditional version now with this test I’m curious about these three questions first is balsamic

Vinegar actually good on steak secondly can I tell the difference between the categories and third is there a clear favorite and after mixing them up the traditional balsamic ended up being the first one I tried and I enjoyed it right away that’s really quite good now as I

Move down to the second one while still good I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but I didn’t like it as much as the first one that one was pretty good I think number one was definitely better I’m three as I moved down to stake number

Three I was confident in saying exactly which one I thought this was all right I’m pretty sure that this is the vinegar based one probably due to the texture but also like the the sourness it’s still good though and lastly stake number four was again pretty

Solid yeah one two and four are all very good way better than number three in my opinion but three is not bad so was I able to tell a difference between the categories yes I definitely was but while I could tell they did still taste

Good in their own right and here is my final conclusion on this test such an interesting pairing that totally works okay so one was the traditional that was definitely my favorite super just amazing blend number three was the vinegar based one it’s it’s super obvious to tell that like this is like

The clear outlier here one like I said it was my favorite but two and four were actually sneaky kind of close I couldn’t differentiate these all that well which is kind of interesting because in the reduction it was I feel like pretty easy to tell a difference between kind of the

Sweetness that was coming through even in the homemade one um one definitely my favorite two and four though I would put about equal Level Playing Field and then number three is a step below it’s clearly more acidic but man that is very very interesting that’s just a good

Combo and it’s literally 10:30 in the morning and I enjoyed this steak Mighty thoroughly so after my morning steak I figured it was time for some greens and this test was very basic on purpose I separated out five bowls of arugula and added a drizzle of olive oil to each of them

Before adding the balsamic for the test candidates I used the same four bottles from the steak test except I did add an extra vinegar based which was the three leaf balsamic and with this test arugula is a very bitter green when compared to something like buttercrunch or Roma

Lettuce so that’s something to think about as we go through and additionally before even getting to the tasting you can see the differences in the textures now after shuffling these up and tasting each of them I had two key observations first the vinegar base balsamics make your mouth water much

More it’s pretty crazy just how different these are once you taste them like this because of this physical reaction to the sour taste it’s super easy to tell the difference between the vinegar-based balsamics and the other categories that’s definitely one of the vinegar based ones tongue immediately

Like starts watering so much more it’s it’s very clear and as a sub observation I was able to tell the difference between the three leaf and the one leaf balsamic again I’m just about positive that’s the vinegar based one more liquidy way more sour however this is

Not a bad thing I actually like these vinegar based balsamics with the arugula because it contrasts really well with the bitter flavor of the greens bitter greens like this are perfect for balsamic just because you get a sour little bit of sweet and it really contrasts super well my second

Observation is this the smell or Aroma is what makes the big difference between the condiment reduction and traditional versions as I was tasting the other three categories The Taste was getting a little lost compared to the dominant bitter flavor of the greens however as soon as I gave them a sniff I

Immediately knew which one was which So based on smell four is way more complex than number five I’m pretty sure number one’s the reduction cuz when I made it it this is what it smelled like so I’m going to guess number one’s reduction number two is the three leaf

Number three is the one leaf which are these are both vinegar based four traditional five is the condiment or fourleaf grade let’s see if I’m correct reduction three leaf beef vinegar traditional and condiment so it is pretty crazy like you can really pick up and and the big difference between the

Traditional one is the aroma like it’s such a unique Aroma but really all of these were delicious in their own right um this is way more acidic which might be really nice depending on the salad or the mood you’re in for it really gets your tongue watering this is like deeply

Complex and just really really good again unlike anything I’ve had but the condiment and the reduction are great options if you do want something thicker that’s also not quite as sour as these two so this is a super interesting test that maybe don’t do all five but you

Could do a vinegar based versus a condiment and see which one you like more for your salad so with these first two tests we are more in the Savory side of things but the next test was the one I was most looking forward to the ice cream

Test for this ice cream test I grabbed four dishes of vanilla ice cream and added a variety of balsamics two of them were vinegar based the one leaf and three leaf and then the condiment grade fourleaf or threee age one and lastly traditional and I tried the vinegar base

Balsamics on the ice cream first but as you can see by my facial expression these were just flat out not good at all way too sour o that’s not good however that started to change when I got to the condiment grade balsamic we are definitely starting to work with

Something in here the sour taste was a little bit more rounded out and obviously the texture is less watery but when I got to that traditional version on the ice cream it brought it to a completely new level that truly messes with my mind a little bit it’s crazy how

How good that tastes those age wood Aromas almost made it feel like a sour maple syrup in the best way possible I literally licked that bowl clean this is a fascinating use case for balsamic vinegar and really for me I think it best showcases the real difference between all of these products

And you got to make sure you get the right one or else you’ll end up with some really bad and sour tasting liquidy ice cream for last test Italians please look away because this was the biggest waste of my precious traditional balsamic does anyone remember this healthy Coke tick Tok that went viral

Well the idea is you add some balsamic to seltzer water and it tastes something like a Coke so for this I grabbed out five glasses and added 100 ml of plain bubbly water before adding 2 G of each balsamic and these were the vinegar based one leaf and three leaf the

Store-bought reduction the condiment grade and lastly they traditional and for a control I brought out a Coke Zero I blindfolded up and shuffled up the glasses before using the straw Contraption and I did try to add the straws blindfolded too before I realized that I can’t see them behind the

Cardboard anyway way but it really didn’t matter because as I tasted him it just went from bad to worse these are really not good so the reduction and traditional were bad themselves but then I got into the vinegar baseball Sonics which were just terribly sour however I finally got some

Sweet relief from The Diet Coke it’s like sweet relief once you get to the Coke Zero uh all five of these would not recommend using your Balsam this way bro three is so bad I’m going to assume that this is probably traditional and the reduction these are

Probably the what like one to one three leaf and the four leaf and then obviously we got our Coke on the end let’s see what we have oh wow okay so this is actually kind of interesting uh I was able to clearly pick out the the reduction and the traditional the exual traditional

Was the best tasting one and I thought it would be the reduction just from the additional sugar that that this is made with but that is actually pretty surprising and you can clearly pick up that like these two especially are terrible um this one is almost as

Equally as just like very sour and acidic um and then yeah if you’re looking for a a healthy Coke just buy Coke or Diet Coke or Coke Zero um none of these are really going to do anything for you so we’ve learned that there are some clear flavor differences between

The four categories and you can definitely taste that difference in your food but but after going through all of this you’re probably still wondering what bottle should I actually buy well for the average home cook if you want to stock a single bottle in your pantry I

Would recommend picking up a bottle of the condiment grade balsamic why exactly well I think you get the best value for the price let me explain the traditional balsamic was my clear favorite along the way and I think it’s the best balsamic to use as a garnish but I wouldn’t say

It’s a $100 better than a 20ish bottle that still has a nice consistency and some age notes to it secondly the condiment grade can also be used for a premix salad dressing that you may use the vinegar based one for and thirdly this bottle can also be mixed with a

Little bit of sugar and reduced so you can make your own balsamic glaze if you need it that’s going to be better than a store-bought version remember each category of balsamic vinegar is fundamentally pretty different in terms of its flavor profile and ultimately how they can be used however with the

Condiment grade it’s almost a hybrid of all the other three categories also as a director’s note I still stand by the fact that at least once in your life I think you should try to pick up some of the traditional stuff I have about a

Third of a bottle left and it truly is such a unique product compared to all the other balsamic vinegar out there anyway I hope you guys enjoyed this look at a director’s cut of the balsamic videos we released last summer I was looking at those and they were just kind

Of bugging me on my feed because I I really felt like I should have just buckled down and released those as one video but was busy with vacation and some other stuff at the time so I couldn’t do it then but happy to do it

Now and I feel like this is how this topic really needs to live on YouTube because it’s fun when you can look at all the context and lead you to that final answer of you know what balsamic should you be using at home so hopefully you guys have enjoyed thank you for

Watching this if this is your second time through or your first and I will catch you all in the next one peace y’all