I went on a mission with my friends to try 21 of the world’s rarest snacks — ranging from unusual to downright priceless. Some are rare because they’re hard to make, others are no longer in production and some have taken decades (or even centuries!) to perfect. Whatever the case, I was on a quest to discover which snacks live up to their hype. Along the way, I tasted the world’s most expensive chocolate, a Japanese square watermelon, and some other really bizarre bites.
So, let’s dive into this journey from the cheapest rare snacks to the mind-blowingly expensive ones.
21. Ritz-Oreo crackers (U.S.)
In 2022, Ritz and Oreo teamed up to create a limited-edition snack for both sweet and savory lovers. The snack consisted of a Ritz cracker and peanut butter sandwiched between an Oreo cookie and cream. Only 1,000 boxes of Ritz-Oreo Crackers were released, and it created quite a commotion on social media.
Demand was high, stock was low and panic ensued. The collaboration sold out within minutes and even crashed Oreo’s website. With such a limited run, it became a reseller’s market. Three years later, boxes are being sold for up to $100. If you were lucky enough to snag one at the drop, you only had to pay a shipping cost of $3.95. After some deep internet diving, I found someone willing to sell me a box for just $10.
20. Donkey milk (Serbia) and reindeer cheese (Sweden)
A glass of donkey milk from Serbia and a tube of reindeer cheese from Sweden cost me $25 each.
What makes reindeer cheese so rare is that reindeer produce very little milk — only about one-tenth of what a cow produces. The cheese is mild, creamy, with a low acidity and has a similar texture to feta.
Donkey milk is even rarer, with only about 100 donkeys worldwide used for milking, and they produce about two pints of milk daily. Rumor has it that the Egyptian queen Cleopatra bathed in donkey milk to maintain her legendary beauty and soft skin.
I initially wanted to compare the reindeer cheese to donkey cheese, but it has such a devoted following that it was hard to get my hands on. It is even alleged that tennis star Novak Djokovic once bought the world’s annual supply, so trying donkey milk was my second-best option. A fun fact about donkey milk is that it is the closest animal milk to human breast milk.
19. Long neck avocado (Caribbean)
Long neck avocados are grown in tropical climates, like the Caribbean, during very short seasons. The one I tried came fresh from a farm in Miami. Few people grow these avocados due to the extra care they require. Only small producers and people with home gardens tend to grow them, making them pretty hard to come by.
Given how rare they are, a single avocado costs about $50. They are not genetically modified and can grow up to 13 inches long. For reference, a regular Hass avocado grows around three to five inches long, so the long neck can be double or triple the size of what you’d see in a supermarket. The long neck avocado has a very similar taste to a Hass, with a slight difference in color and texture. You can make a lot of guacamole with this one.
18. Ant eggs (Southeast Asia)
Red ant eggs, also known as ant egg caviar, are a pricey snack with a complex harvesting process. A single can from Thailand cost me $100. It is a huge luxury across Southeast Asia, with a creamy, citrusy, nutty and even buttery taste.
What makes it so rare is that the eggs are only available each year during the rainy season. The ants are also very protective of their eggs, and it is delicate work to retrieve the eggs without damaging the rest of the colony so that they can continue to produce more.
17. Square watermelon (Japan)
A square watermelon is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the same breed as a traditional watermelon, just grown in a plastic square-shaped mold. The product was invented by a graphic designer to fit better in fridges and prevent it from rolling around.
Only 300 square watermelons are grown every year by each reputable grower. They technically cost about $100 each, but you need a reservation to get one, and it’s very difficult to get that reservation.
The square watermelons need to be harvested before becoming fully ripe to maintain their shape. As a result, they’re rather inedible and are used in Japan solely for decoration and as high-end gifts. If you tried to taste it, you’d get a bland, bitter and rather unfavorable flavor.
16. Kopi Luwak coffee (Indonesia)
Kopi Luwak Coffee is an ultra-rare coffee made by civets, an animal that resembles a cat or a weasel. The civets eat a fruit called coffee cherries, which are then partially digested, causing a special reaction to happen that gives the coffee its strong flavor when it is excreted.
Many people think it tastes worse than regular coffee, but that doesn’t explain the fact that a single cup of genuine Kopi Luwak can cost anywhere from $35 to $100. Clearly, some people love it.
15. Gold Tabasco (U.S.) and Jalapeno M&Ms (Mexico)
It’s time to turn up the heat. I spent $200 each on Gold Tabasco sauce and Jalapeño Peanut M&Ms, both equally hard to find.
Only 10,000 bottles of the hot sauce were ever made. It’s been aged for 15 years and comes in a luxurious gold champagne bottle. As for the M&Ms, if you like a sweet and spicy combination, they might be your dream come true.
14. Emu egg (Australia)
An emu egg looks a lot like a dinosaur egg (which I really wish I could try). It cost me a whopping $250 for a single egg that came all the way from Australia.
The egg has a beautiful dark green color and weighs around 1.5 pounds — about the same as a whole dozen chicken eggs. They’re rare because emus typically only lay eggs during the breeding season, so there’s a limited window in which they’re produced and available for purchase.
You can pretty much cook this egg any way that you would prepare a traditional chicken egg — I opted to soft boil it and serve it with a rare caviar that I will introduce later in the list.
13. Amazon Air Water
Amazon Air Water is water collected from the humidity and condensation of the Amazon Rainforest. A case of four bottles costs a little over $350, making each bottle about $87.
To experience such high-end water, I decanted the bottle as I would wine and poured it into a crystal glass for the full effect. Sometimes you need to go big or go home.
12. To’ak chocolate (Ecuador)
To’ak Chocolate is the rarest, most expensive chocolate bar in the world. Only a few hundred bars are made per batch, and they regularly sell for up to $500 each.
What makes it rare is the cacao it’s made from. The cacao variety traces back at least 5,300 years and was thought to be extinct until a few trees were found in a remote area of the Ecuadorian rainforest.
11. Live abalone (California) and gooseneck barnacles (Portugal)
This small pile of seafood might not look like much, but because of its rarity, it cost $750. It includes live abalone and live gooseneck barnacles.
Abalone is so rare that it’s considered a symbol of wealth and prosperity in many Asian cultures. Low reproduction rates, disease, and overfishing have all contributed to its rarity. It is said to taste like a cross between scallops and calamari.
Gooseneck barnacles are even rarer. They live on rocks in areas where the waves crash violently, so the people who collect them risk their lives — some have even died doing it. Because of this danger, they can cost more than $100 per pound. Their flavor is similar to razor clams, mussels and even oysters or lobster.
10. Giusti 100 Reserve Balsamic (Italy) and Golden Olive Oil (Greece)
At $1,000 per bottle, Giusti 100 Reserve Balsamic is technically balsamic vinegar, but that description doesn’t do it justice. It’s aged for 100 years, and only a few bottles are released each year.
The bottle is hand-blown by a master glassmaker, and the label is 24-karat gold. But what’s inside is even more special. The balsamic is aged and flavored with various types of wood, and its taste profile combines fig, molasses, cherry and chocolate.
With it, I paired Golden Olive Oil from Greece, which comes from the foothills of Mount Olympus — the home of the Olympian gods. The extra virgin olive oil is infused with 24-karat edible gold flakes. A 200ml bottle costs about $450.
9. Elvish honey (Turkey)
Next, we have Elvish honey, which costs around $1,500. It’s often called “fairy honey” because it’s believed to have magical properties. It’s harvested in the middle of the night by professional climbers who travel 6,000 feet deep into a Turkish cave.
Because it’s so difficult to obtain, it can fetch as much as $5,000 per kilogram. The company suggests you eat it by having one teaspoon on an empty stomach.
8. Cinco Jotas Jamón Ibérico (Spain)
You might have tried prosciutto, or perhaps some nice jamón, but at the top of the hierarchy of all ham is Cinco Jotas Jamón Ibérico. This leg of the finest ham in the world has a hefty price tag of $2,000.
It comes from a rare purebred pig that feeds mainly on acorns, and it’s cured by a master ham maker for up to four years in the mountains and meadows of Spain.
7. Ed Sheeran Heinz (U.K.)
At $3,000, this is the rarest bottle of ketchup on the planet. It’s a collaboration between Heinz and Ed Sheeran, who is known for his love of Heinz Ketchup.
Only 150 bottles were made, and since not everyone could spend this much money on a ketchup bottle, they also made a limited-edition “Ed-Chup,” which I tasted with some classic french fries.
6. 1-year A5 bone-in ribeye dry-aged Wagyu (Japan)
Next up: Wagyu. Worth about $5,000, I’ve been dry-aging this A5 bone-in Wagyu ribeye with a master butcher for the past year. Most dry-aged beef is aged for just 30 to 60 days, but this particular ribeye was aged for one year — almost unheard of and super hard to find unless you’re doing it yourself.
5. eBay snacks
For this next one, you’ll either know exactly what I’m talking about or think I’ve completely lost my mind. Have you ever seen those crazy listings of rare-shaped snacks on eBay?
In 2017, a Hot Cheeto shaped like the famous gorilla Harambe sold for $100,000 — one day after being listed. Then, in 2021, someone in Australia found a puffy Dorito, and Doritos bought it from them for $20,000. Can you guess where this is going?
I may have bought a few. I spent more than I would like to admit, but I’ll tell you anyway. I got a Goldfish ($3,300), a Dorito ($8,500), a seahorse ($400) and an Among Us chicken nugget ($320). They all tasted the same as their normal counterparts would, just a lot more stale.
4. Almas caviar (Iran)
Almas caviar is the rarest caviar in the world. The name “Almas” means “diamond” in Russian because it’s said to be the diamond of all caviars. Its flavor is mild, delicate, with a slightly nutty undertone.
At over $15,000 per kilogram, it costs more than some diamonds. Its rarity is due to the fact that it comes from the albino beluga sturgeon, which can live to over 100 years old before being harvested for their eggs.
Although its name is Russian, this caviar comes from Iran and is so special that it was once reserved for the monarch of Iran — no one else was allowed to eat it.
3. Fried Chicken Prime (U.S.)
Moving on to what can’t be bought, Prime is a range of sports and energy drinks co-owned by Logan Paul and KSI. This fried chicken-flavored Prime is so rare that, as far as I know, I’m the only one who has it, as Logan gave it to me directly.
While the bottle says “not intended for consumption,” I had to give it a try. To my surprise, it tasted exactly like fried chicken.
2. Cotton candy lobster (Canada)
Ever seen a cotton candy lobster? Its blue and pink colors are due to a genetic mutation that occurs in one in 100 million lobsters. A regular blue lobster is one in 2 million.
This one has a few brown spots because it’s about to molt and shed its outer shell. After it molts, it will have a more prominent cotton candy color scheme. I could not bring myself to cook this rare lobster, so I decided to let it live a good life instead.
In replacement of the cotton candy lobster, we found an 11-pound lobster to cook, the biggest money can buy. Lobsters that big can be up to 140 years old. Trust me when I say you don’t want to get your fingers near one of these — their claws are super sharp and strong. It’s so large that to prepare it, you need to break the lobster down into smaller parts and steam it in three different pots.
Then, the shell is so thick that it needs some pretty incredible force to open it. Once served up, it tastes like any other typical lobster, but there’s quite a bit of leftover meat. No complaints here.
1. Oyster and pearl
Our final item might not look like much, but look closely. These are 10-year-old oysters — and they are very rare. Most oysters are harvested between one and three years old, making a 10-year-old oyster almost impossible to find.
Here’s the catch: older oysters have a much higher chance of containing a pearl. The most expensive pearl in the world is valued at $100 million. I hoped my luck would pay off and I’d end up finding a pearl inside one of these oysters, but unfortunately, there was no such treasure.
To give you an idea of what could have been, I got my hands on a $10,000 pearl anyway to showcase what one of these oysters can yield in its lifetime. It’s pretty incredible.
Taste-testing the snacks
Want to see more? Check out my video, where I taste-tested these foods with my friends:
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