Wangaratta butcher Gamze Smokehouse sells 24ct gold-flecked bacon for $100

A Wangaratta butcher is selling a luxe, limited-edition bacon for an eye-watering cost. Our food critic tried it — this is what she thought.

Brendan Gamze, with a briefcase of Gamze Gold bacon sangers, with cookbook author Sarah Kiryshin. Picture: David Caird

Is this Wangaratta butcher selling the country’s most expensive bacon?

Gamze Smokehouse, founded by Slovenian expat Felix Gamze and run by son Brendan, is behind a luxe 24ct-gold flecked bacon that’ll set you back $100 for 400gms.*

Yikes!

Only 400 packs have been created, to celebrate the superfluous World Bacon Day... or Father’s Day. Choose your own occasion for this one.

As for the taste? The proof is in the pudding... or pork.

The meat is sourced from free-range heritage breed black pigs from the Limestone Coast in South Australia, who for the final six weeks of their lives, enjoy a diet of acorn and macadamia nuts.

For processing, the bacon is brined in Three Bays Mineral Water (from the Mornington Peninsula), Australian Manuka honey and Murry River pink salt, finished with a smattering of 24ct-gold flakes for twinkle and shine.

Then it’s cold smoked twice, in old wine barrels for 16 hours.

What follows is a bacon so foreign to those pinkish supermarket deli slabs.

With a raw-meat like texture bordered by ample fat, it becomes powerforce of smoke, salt and bacon intensity after a few minutes of sizzle time.

It’s truly unlike any bacon I’ve had before. Intensely flavoursome, porky and salty. I chugged litres of water after going heavy handed with the portion size. Less is certainly more.

Would I spend $100 of my hard-earned on the pleasure?

At best, I can only afford Gamze’s more conservatively priced $10 bacon, minus the gold flakes, which really add nothing to the taste or experience.

*includes 200 grams each of loin and streaky.