McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King's signature bacon cheeseburgers - and the winner is indisputable

Since the late 1990s, bacon has exploded in popularity beyond its breakfast origins - and with good reason. It's crispy, smokey, greasy, and it compliments a juicy beef patty like nothing else.

A bacon cheeseburger is a fact of fast-food life; a double bacon cheeseburger is a dream come true.

Of the fast-food Big Three, both Wendy's and Burger King have serve a bacon-focused burger. McDonald's curiously doesn't serve a bacon burger, but you can build your own.

I gathered these bacon buttressed burgers with one goal in mind: to decide which towering ode to meat is truly the best bacon burger out there.