Ilove pickles. I almost always order pickles and/or ferments on restaurant menus, my fridge is regularly stocked with a zoological range of pickle colours and smells, and I find the idea of eating over 20 different pickles in a single hour thrilling.
But this wasn’t a taste test of pickles: it was a taste test of supermarket aisle cucumber pickles, the Wes Anderson films of the stinky food world. Sure, they’ve got some character, but step into that theatre and everyone knows exactly what they’re about to get, and it isn’t depth.
The blind taste test consisted of me and 11 friends eating 21 cucumber pickles. I excluded pickles that described themselves as sweet (an entirely different category) and ended up with a mix of products labelled original, plain, dill, sandwich, Polish or similar. We scored for taste and texture, with taste being a much bigger influence on the final score. There was a separate rating for intensity that didn’t add to the final score.
I feel a bit embarrassed to say I was shocked by the results. Having now written more than 20 taste tests (many including epiphany-inducing results and products so bizarre or atrocious they’re not even fit for the category they’re sold under), it was not only ignorant but stupid of me to assume 21 cucumber pickles would taste the same. It was even dumber to assume they would all be sour, an attribute I thought was an inalienable feature of pickles. Not only were they radically different, barely any were particularly sour. Some were sweet, some reeked, some were woefully underseasoned, others astronomically salty. A few weren’t particularly anything. Turns out cucumber pickles are less Wes Anderson and more M Night Shyamalan: who knows what you will get?
I finished the taste test thinking the industrial end of the pickle industry is in disarray, but I did find a few brands I want to buy.
Note: each jar of pickles has a different proportion of pickles v liquid: Krakus Dill Cucumber is only 49% cucumbers, Eskal Deli Dill Pickles is 57%, for example. Though I checked the price per weight of each product (excluding the liquid), it didn’t make much difference in terms of value for money.
Globus Dill Cucumbers Polski Ogórki, 680g, $3.70 ($5.44 per 1kg), available from major supermarkets
Score: 7.5/10
One sunny afternoon when I was hitchhiking in Poland, I was dropped outside a bar in a small town. I walked into a dimly lit room, cloudy with smoke. Everyone inside looked at me, few with a smile, but I only remember the faces of the three bald guys closest to the door, all with shot glasses of clear liquid. Some were smoking and one was halfway through a huge pickle. I always imagined that pickle was salty, powerfully sour, zero sweetness, crunchy, juicy and packed with dill. Exactly like Globus, a pickle that delivers what a pickle promises, no extras. “Elegant, industrialised culture,” wrote the taste test’s harshest reviewer.
Always Fresh Cucumbers Dill, 680g, $4.60 ($5.37 per 1kg), available from major supermarkets
Score: 7.5/10
Always Fresh feels like Globus’ edgy, older brother – cut from the same cloth but Always Fresh got the more intense genes – it’s saltier, crunchier and tastes like it’s got some added extras (multiple reviewers incorrectly guessed they were tasting chilli and dried mint). Two reviewers said it was a bit much but more loved it. “Absolute banger, would keep it on hand for parties,” wrote a reviewer whose job involves making pickles. Another, who has been to more taste tests than anyone besides me, gave it close to a perfect score, and wrote simply: “Am I in love?”
Note: In the raw scores, Globus scored 7.6 to Always Fresh’s 7.5.
Deli Originals Dill Cucumbers, 680g, $2.99 ($4.40 per 1kg), available from Aldi
Score: 6/10
Compared with its muse (Always Fresh), as is often the case, Aldi’s iteration is cheaper in both price and experience. While it has the same sour, salty kick, there’s a subtle and unnervingly unnatural flavour. “Garlic” and “chemicals” were the two guesses. It has no garlic but like eight other products in the test, it does have calcium chloride (used to shore up the cucumber’s long-term texture). If we tried it on its own, I doubt any of us would have noticed but, sadly, if you want to concentrate on life’s positives, you need ignorance not analysis.
Chef’s Choice French Style Cornichons, 350g, $4.99 ($14.30 per 1kg), available from select grocers
Score: 6/10
Choosing whole v baby pickles is picking whether you want flexibility or convenience. Whole pickles give you more options for sandwich slicing, salads and sides, but cornichons are more convenient snacks. For that reason, they should be judged by different criteria; they need to be snackier – saltier and punchier – and free from the demands of balancing other sandwich residents. This is a snacky pickle. As multiple reviewers said, it’s what you’d want to eat in a movie. If it wasn’t for the inconsistent texture (some supremely crunchy, others soft), it would have ranked far higher.
Westmont Pickles Dill Chips, 500g, $6.49 ($12.98 per 1kg), available from select grocers
Score: 6/10
Easily the most snackable sliced pickle we tasted, which I’m guessing, with a name like Dill Chips, is exactly what they’re going for. They’ve achieved this in the simple, time-honoured fashion of absolutely packing their recipe with salt (at 985mg per 100g, only Eskal had a higher sodium count). For that reason, be wary if you’re slotting them into a burger, but then again the last time I had a truly great burger I woke up at midnight screeching for water like a mermaid with a hangover. I’d also like to give credit to Westmont for creating one of the most savoury pickles and for being a rare pickle producer to make their products in Australia with Australian produce.
Eskal Deli Dill Pickles, 540g, $4.40 ($8.15 per 1kg), available from major supermarkets
Score: 7/10
There are some questions I know will never be answered: who had a crush on me and never told me; how many cubic metres of fart have I produced; and why do Eskal Deli Dill Pickles taste like sausages? We can only guess – is it the garlic, the chilli, the sheer amount of salt, or is it a funk that’s emerged from the brine? How upsetting that we’ll never know. This feature made Eskal the most divisive pickle of the day – though their resemblance to gargantuan preserved leeches may have helped. Imagine a jar of tiny, vinegary chorizos to decide which side of the argument you’d be on.
McClure’s Pickles Whole Garlic & Dill, 500g, $6 ($12 per 1kg), available from major supermarkets
Score: 6.5/10
I expected to meet some pickles that rocked me but I didn’t think any supermarket pickle would be quite this powerful. They have so much personality, funk and acidity, it’s like they’ve been placed on Earth by enterprising aliens to better season us for a post-invasion feast. Just like my family when we ate my cousin’s beloved mango-raised pig, when the aliens eat us, they’ll say, “Oh, yes, definitely notes of nuclear garlic pickles in this.”
Krakus Pickled Dill Cucumbers, 920g, $6.99 ($8.22 per 1kg), available from Woolworths
Score: 6/10
Generally, pickles with low intensity scores were accompanied by disapproving reports about lack of depth and flavour, but Krakus was an exception. Low acidity and salt means it’s a pretty soft, comfortable experience but maintains depth. Reviewers described it as garlicky, smoky and balanced. It lost marks on texture. Five reviewers reported a gritty texture, affecting their scores. Others were happy with the crunch, but wrote it lacked the juiciness found in other pickles.
Wicked Pickles Delightful Baby Cucumbers, 500g, $3 ($6 per 1kg), available from Coles
Score: 5/10
Smelling and then tasting Wicked’s pickles is like preparing for war then discovering the battle is being fought with feather dusters. They smell as though they’ve been fermented in a newly opened Subway store but they’re mild, sweet and low in acidity. If it wasn’t for the strong spice profile (there’s a hefty amount of mustard and dill seeds in the jar) I would accuse them of boring me.
The Market Grocer Dill Gherkins, 1kg, $8.60, available from select grocers
Score: 4.5/10
The intensity scale was a 0–10 rating. It wasn’t intended to be subjective, more a factual marker of how salty and acidic a pickle is, but looking through the scores, I noticed a direct correlation between low intensity and low overall score. This pickle had the dishonour of coming last on the intensity ranking, a measly 2/10. It is so purposefully inoffensive it’s offensive to me, like I’m eating the essence of LinkedIn. But I would enjoy giving this to someone to see if I could convince them it’s just a regular cucumber.
Bryne Co Pickled Gherkin Spears, 680g, $3 ($4.40 per 1kg), available from Woolworths
Score: 3/10
I appreciate the pickle industry for having minimal marketing slogans on their jars (a rarity for supermarket goods) but Bryne couldn’t help themselves. After the taste test I was amused to find, above a tag which advertises the pickles as vegan friendly, the words “naturally delicious”. As these pickles tied in first place for most sugar per gram of the products we tried, I find this quite funny, as if Mother Nature rained organic cane sugar into the fermentation vat. As one reviewer said: “They taste like they’ve been cooked in a soft drink.”