Nov 17, 2024

The Million Dollar Whopper


Million Dollar Whopper Contest
Burger King (2024)
My favorite fast food chain from the time that I was a child to today has been Burger King.  This weekend, they kicked off the second phase in one of the coolest promotions that I've seen in a long time.


In February, the fast food chain announced a contest in which you could submit your idea to win a million dollars by submitting your idea for a specialty Whopper sandwich.  Submissions were collected throughout the year, and three finalists have been selected.  All three are available to purchase at Burger King now, and the winning Whopper will be determined by customers who vote for their favorite.


The first of the three finalists is the Fried Pickle Ranch Whopper, which is topped with lettuce, fried pickles, bacon, Swiss cheese, and a creamy pickle ranch sauce.  They've also made the fried pickles available as a Pickle Fries side dish separate from the burger.
 

The second suitor (because "Suitor #2" sounds like a bathroom code) is the Mexican Street Corn Whopper.  This is made with lettuce, tomato, tortilla strips, spicy queso, and a creamy street corn spread.


The final contestant is the Maple Bourbon BBQ Whopper, which has crispy onions and jalapenos, smoky maple candied bacon, and American cheese topped with a maple bourbon barbecue sauce.


I had to try all three of them, and I wanted to try them at the same time so that I could have a fair comparison and choose my favorite.  Now I can eat three Whoppers in a sitting, which should come as no surprise to anyone who's seen how much weight I've put on since college, but I'm trying to be a little more sensible with my food choices to drop a few pounds.  With that in mind, my wife and I hit up the Burger King in Lehighton on the way home from the Slatington Marketplace, and we ordered one of each of the new burgers and split them.  Eating one and a half Whoppers has got to be healthier than eating three, right?

All three Whoppers were very tasty and worth trying.  The fried pickles gave the Fried Pickle Ranch Whopper an interesting flavor, but as someone who loves pickles, I was a little disappointed that it didn't have a stronger dill flavor.  The spicy queso and crunchy tortilla strips made for a surprisingly excellent combined flavor on the Mexican Street Corn Whopper.  Even if it doesn't win, Burger King should consider keeping that spicy queso sauce in their kitchens because it'd be an excellent way to upsell customers who want to add a little cheese and spice to anything on their menu.

Having said that, the whole idea of this promotion is to pick a winner, and my wife and I were both in agreement on which one of the three was the best:


The Maple Bourbon BBQ Whopper is one of the best fast food burgers I've ever had.  It's a perfect combination of sweet and savory, and the crispy onions and jalapenos give it a little zing that was just right.  All three burgers are good enough to go back and get again, but this one is the only one of the three that I'd go out of my way to find if it wasn't right down the street.

If I were handing out Olympic medals to all three contestants, the Mexican Street Corn Whopper would get the silver, and the Fried Pickle Ranch Whopper would get the bronze.  If you had your eye on Fried Pickle Ranch as the one you wanted to try, take my ranking of it last with a grain of salt because I'm not a big fan of ranch dressing in general.


I'm not sure how long they're going to have all three of these burgers available to purchase in stores, but the ability to vote for your favorite one ends on December 5th.  I believe that the winner is going to remain on their menu for a bit longer, but I'd imagine the other two aren't going to stick around too much longer after the first week of December.  If you want to try them, I'd recommend going sooner than later.

Kudos to Burger King for coming up with a hell of a fun promotion.  This would make an excellent annual tradition to get customers to keep coming back during the Christmas shopping season.