Melinda’s Louisiana Red Cayenne Hot Sauce Review

Melinda’s Louisiana Red Cayenne

Back a dozen (and change) years ago, when I started this blog, there were two names floating around, getting a lot of attention, this and Marie Sharp’s, but neither of them had a sauce I could consider getting, despite me checking out the entire lines of both, as they tend to be onion happy. Sharp’s is still, to my knowledge, that way, but Melinda’s has seemingly decided to make an overt push to become a much larger mass market commercial company, branching out into various sub-lines, and adding a lot more sauces to the line-up. I believe this may be one of those, as I don’t recall seeing it in the past.

Flavor-wise, it bears out the mass market push I was mentioning. This is a very tame sauce, with very pedestrian flavors and nearly all the hallmark edges of a Louisiana-style sauce, which the label is at minimum referencing, sanded off. The first hit is still vinegar, but it is considerably blunted. So, too, the Cayenne, which also has been neutered of any heat. This is a slightly salty taste and there is a definitely a strong note of garlic as well. This one is fairly heavy on xanthan gum, to the point where it reminded me more of ketchup, texture-wise, than either a Louisiana-style Cayenne or what I think it’s closer to, the spin-off Cajun style. In terms of flavor, it is definitely more Cajun style, but, the flavors are kind of amalgamated and meshed together into a much softer approach than we normally see in hot sauce.

That does not mean this sauce is by any means not. Indeed, I find the flavor to be pretty pleasant and think this would make a fantastic point of entry sauce (again, think mass market) for anyone just off-handedly picking it up. Perhaps that is the intent of it, and with that dulling down, this does lend a certain amount of flexibility to the sauce that might otherwise not be there. This, in conjunction with the thickness of the sauce and tendency to hold in place, makes it useful on pizza, for instance, where normally a Louisiana-style would not go. It does cover most of the usual stuff there, so breakfast and fried foods as well, even to ramen, where I would also personally not use Louisiana-style. All of those things work against it, for me, anyway, when it comes to richer dishes, like mac & cheese.

Bottom line: A very solid, very middle-of-the-road, albeit thicker consistency than usual, approach to a Cajun style hot sauce, only sans heat. Chileheads can skip this one, but it could serve a great entry point for the chile curious. 

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 0
           Flavor: 7
           Flexibility: 7
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 6

Volcanic Peppers Corny Chipotle Hot Sauce Review

Volcanic Peppers Corny Chipotle

I’ve told the story before, in this very blog, about how I formerly shopped for vinyl records, or LPs, as we called them back then, and how I would be regaled by particularly entrancing artwork from Frazetta or Kelly. Some of my favorite albums came from this highly unscientific process, which would also include titles that tickled my fancy, which I also applied to books and various other media as well. Of course, my success rate, as one might expect, was fairly nominal with how many duds I came across and I eventually stopped...

...but not entirely. Case in point, this sauce, which I bought solely on the name alone, figuring that I didn’t run across corn as a hot sauce ingredient too often, this being probably the first and only instance of that, and I like Mexican street corn conceptually. I like it a lot when I make it and maybe half the time if someone else does. Chipotle should be a natural fit to this flavor profile and it sounded like something that could be really interesting and potentially quite good, if pulled off.

Therein, I suppose, lies the rub. This is another of those things that I (still) think is a really interesting concept, the idea of corn and Chipotle as the more dominant flavors for a hot sauce, but where it is highly dependent on execution. This sauce, for me, doesn’t quite get there. It is a pretty grainy, quite thick and sludgy concoction, and very clearly an attempt to put nearly all possible elements of elotes into a single sauce...or maybe just one specific version. The flavor isn’t bad, though it is fairly garlic heavy, which tends towards a bitterness I found myself wishing was not present. When using it on various foods, I had a lot of flavor cancellation and struggled to find a good setting where I thought it clicked. I do think it would work well adding it into something like cornbread or maybe masa flour for tamales.

This does kind of bring up the concept of elotes, which are meant to be their own self-contained dish. The idea is not to make Mexican street corn and then put it on a pizza or into a sandwich, as the label copy sort of suggests, but rather to enjoy it on its own terms as a dish. Had this sauce stuck more to the two ingredients it’s named for, I think it would have worked out better. As it is, the roasted corn flavor isn’t particularly prominent and there is simply not enough Chipotle, which rends the heat pretty low in this, but also is overtaken by the garlic. I can admire the experimental nature of this sauce, but I don’t find it to be a particularly successful one.

Bottom line: A noble, valiant attempt to bottle the flavor of elotes, which ultimately gets in its own way. 

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 0
           Flavor: 4
           Flexibility: 2
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 2

Puckerbutt Smokin' Ed's Peach Super Hot Blend Hot Sauce

Puckerbutt Smokin’ Ed’s Peach Super Hot Blend

This one sat on the shelf for a bit...don’t remember now where I got it, either from the hallowed shelves of a BYT location or maybe from Puckerbutt directly, if they were having some kind of swank sale or other, as they are prone to do, but memory does not serve. In any case, like so many others before it, it sat on the shelf as I, when I first held it in my grubby little mitts, decided, based on the ingredients and runniness of the liquid in the bottle, that this was probably meant to be along the line of a Louisiana-style and I had what one might reasonably call a plethora of those this year.

Dear reader, I was wrong. Indeed, when I first opened this sauce, and caught the distinctive aroma of superhots, I figured I had pegged this correctly (I’m generally pretty astute at this type of thing, if I do say so myself), but when I splashed, or rather tried to splash - the nature of this sauce caused it to run along the threads and neck of the bottle here and there first, some of this even onto the food - it because very clear there was something wrong with this sauce. It took me a while to understand why, but I finally get it now. It’s because this is not really a hot sauce.

So, a brief digression as we take a look at the bare minimums for something to be a hot sauce. We can look again to Louisiana-style for this and those sauces are mostly composed of chiles, usually Cayenne, vinegar, and salt. Sometimes they will add water and xanthan gum as well, but as often not, and they are very clearly hot sauces, both in name and intention. So, let’s extend this mental exercise a bit. If you remove one of those three basic ingredients, you get the following: salted chiles, salted vinegar, chile vinegar.

It is the last option above where I think this product most aptly fits, as there is no salt in it. Salt is so ubiquitous and so usual and mainstream to our palates that take it away and it is immediately apparently that something is wrong, but in the world of hot sauces, where the sauce is meant to go with something else, it is not always immediately apparent what that is.

So, I am faced, once more, with the conundrum of how do I grade something that is not a hot sauce by hot sauce criteria, which is a bit, I suppose, like grading a dog or cat based on a human IQ test. Yet, the label very clearly says “hot sauce,” and I make it a point to take the makers at their words, so the scoring will be done as if this was a hot sauce, though I will add it not is not reflective necessarily of my impressions. I don’t really use vinegar and don’t really keep it on hand and when I do, it is always in a recipe of some kind. I do not just use it as a condiment on finished foods and can’t imagine anyone pouring vinegar on fried chicken or pizza (I know the Brits do it with fried fish, but I find that practice weird and icky and do not enjoy that).

So, following those lines, flexibility is non-existent, in terms of hot sauce, flavor is ok (again, as a vinegar), and as a hot sauce is fairly low as well because this is far too vinegar-forward.. Heat-wise, we have a nondescript super hot blend, which, according to Puckerbutt, ranges from Peach Ghosties to Peach Reapers. Fine, fair enough, this is definitely chilehead only territory.

Bottom line: This is not really a hot sauce, but a superhot chile-flavored vinegar, scorching enough to be reserved for chileheads.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 3
           Flavor: 2
           Flexibility: 1
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 2

Culinary Pepper Co. Limited Edition Hot Sauce Collection 2024 (Wal-Mart Exclusive) Mini Review

Culinary Pepper Co. Limited Edition Hot Sauce Collection

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Cws9VWmoVk

In what is becoming somewhat of a tradition, I wandered down to my nearest Wal-Mart to slum around and see what kind of chilehead stuff might be on offer for this year's holiday season. Some years I check after Xmas, to get some decent clearance deals, if any abound, but usually at least once before to see what's there.  I've done quite a few of these sets, nearly all of them mini-reviews (check TOC at right). A few of them I've done in the past are back this year, but I came across this one, which I had not seen or if I had, didn't remember, so I picked it up. These are from the Dat'l Do It company this time around, with three mini-flasks, labeled Chipotle Pepper, Americana Brands Red Serrano, and Global Selections Habanero. 

Chipotle Pepper

We'll start with the worst first and what we have here is a sauce labeled as Chipotle Pepper, but containing no actual Chipotle or even Jalapeno. In what would quickly become part of a trend for this set, this was a very abrasively vinegar forward Cayenne sauce, with the addition of a noxious-flavored fake smoke. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but this has fuck all to do with actual Chipotle and is far from representative of that flavor profile or pepper, like at all. So, we have false labeling and we're off to a roaring start. With this sauce, flavor was a total bust, easily the worst of the bunch, but at least it also had no heat to speak of. 

Americana Brands Red Serrano

Very clearly, we're just throwing words on a label and nothing means anything. Serrano does not appear on the label, but instead we have the vague and undefined "red pepper." Flavor is much closer to Jalapeno, however. This one, in addition to the abrasive vinegar, decided it would be best to ruin what would otherwise be an acceptably flavored sauce with an avalanche of salt. Once again, we have no real heat to speak of.

Global Select Habanero

I would almost say so many words, so little meaning, but this one does at least have Habanero in both the ingredients and very much so in the flavoring. It is by no means a great-tasting sauce, which is another trend, and is also overly salty, but it does have some heat, albeit on the very low side (basically pushing a 1 on my heat scale), and the vinegar is not quite as brutal here. 

All in all, this was a pretty disappointing set. The packaging is fantastic, with the flasks using a nice heavy glass, slick black packaging, probably intentionally meant to remind one of buying a nice chef knife, decent plastic insets inside the box to protect the precious flasks. If I was rating based solely on packaging, it would be pretty high, but that would be silly, given that the packaging is just basically going to take up space in your trash or recycle bin. None of the sauces tasted particularly good (though the Serrano, as mentioned, would have been acceptable, had it been much less salty) and only one, the Habanero, also the only one I'm going to use up, had any real heat to speak of. This winds up ultimately with me shelling out a fast fiver for 1.7 ounces of a very mediocre substandard sauce.

Spice Dog Provisions Sailor’s Sky Hot Sauce Review

Spice Dog Provisions Sailor’s Sky

Story time: There is a really lovely standalone display at Roger’s Ogden location of Burn Your Tongue. It’s this sort of taller cardboard jobbie that fits a bunch of sauces in it and there were pretty much every variety from Spice Dog in it, being that is who the display is from. You’ve no doubt seen similar display in grocery stores, but I find it fairly rare for a hot sauce company to do this kind of marketing. Anyway, I’ve passed by it numerous times, always meaning to one day grab something, that old familiar refrain I’ve said many a time about many a backburnered sauce, but on the occasion I’d pick up a bottle, I’d see onions or, as was more often the case, my basket was already full with a number of other sauces I’d had on the hit list for longer or which had burned hotter and then I’d forget until I ran across the display again.

This time, the stars finally aligned, and while selection was notably down from the previous levels to the visit before this latest one, I still had some space in the basket and saw the display and figured I’d make good on that prior notion, finally. This was the only one I saw that struck me that day which didn’t have onions on it, so I picked up a bottle, so it could more conveniently sit on my shelf for a few weeks, but I got to this one in fairly fast time, considering.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was probably not this, which is a composite flavor profile, in which the ingredients all contribute to a greater whole, but no one part is particularly dominant in the flavor, though cinnamon does show up as an aftertaste probably the most frequently. Both Habaneros and Scotch Bonnets are here and those, in conjunction with the Bells and the pineapple, create a sort of tropical pepper vibe, which, despite the pineapple and additional sugar, is a touch vinegary. This is certainly an interesting and definitely unique flavor, nearly unto itself, as sauces that are composites tend to be. Heat-wise, given the peppers involved, this is quite moderate.

The drawback to these kinds of sauces is that they don’t tend to mesh well with other foods and unless you can find something readily to pair it with, these can linger around in the fridge for bit, both of which are true here. The flavor isn’t bad, but it’s a bit hard to figure. It doesn’t naturally lend itself to any one style, other than working pretty solidly with fried foods. I spaced over it a few times reaching for other stuff and, remembering that I hadn’t agitated it enough one time, that I got a lot of cinnamon, decided to try it as a dessert sauce, but it is in no way sweet enough for that. So, it winds up a sauce with a sort of self-defining identity and while I like it for a change of pace, I don’t like it well enough for this to be in regular usage.

Bottom line: If you’re been following this blog for any amount of time, you’ve perhaps ran across the phrase “more interesting than good,” and this is a sauce that is a prime example of that.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 5
           Flexibility: 3
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3

Maritime Madness Simple Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce Review

 Maritime Madness Simple Scotch Bonnet

The last sauce of a wave of Maritime Madness sauces I bought earlier in the year. In some ways, it wound up being a case of in advertently saving the best for last...though, to be fair, I’m not sure if this or the Frig That’s Hot (reviewed elsewhere here) is my favorite sauce overall. I think this one tastes the best, but that one had a very good flavor as well and an additional heat push, so I might have to give the nod to that one.

In any case, this one serves as an outstanding introduction to one of the better-tasting pods out there, the Scotch Bonnet. Here, you can get a really good grasp of the flavor, which takes at least a pass at cousin Habanero, but is much better, as well as fruitier. If you had this and the Simple Tropical Habanero (also reviewed elsewhere here) side by side, that would give you a pretty full picture of the difference between them to compare and contrast. For me, I definitely prefer this one, but it is no secret which has been my strong preference for quite some time now.

This one also comes in the sort of squeezable clear plastic bottle, a packaging choice I definitely do like, and the sauce itself is very smooth. I find it quite flavorful overall, with a bit of body added with the carrots and a bit of amping up of the fruit notes with the mango. Yet, for all that, it is definitely the flavor of the Scotch Bonnet which is prominent and indeed, those others are there as grace notes, if at all. This one is a touch on the vinegar-forward side, though, it should also be noted. The sort of medium thickness might lead you think of it more as a sweet hot, but it is definitely not that.

I found this to be pretty interesting on a variety of things, though it is a bit too fruity to be useful on things like cream dishes. I found it to be a nice change of pace on pizza, though not something I’d want regularly. It particularly excels when used on things like fried foods and it is there I found it to be most fitting, though it was pretty fun to kick it around on other items. It’s delicious enough to be intriguing on many of them, though ultimately, I don’t know that I’d consider this a particularly flexible sauce. Heat-wise, given the Scotch Bonnet, it’s on the lower side.

Bottom line: One of the better Scotch Bonnet sauces out there, due largely to the strength of that flavorful pod, and for those not familiar, it would be hard to think of a better introduction than this sauce.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 8
           Flexibility: 6
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6

Delizie Di Calabria Bomba D’Amore Mini-Review

Delizie Di Calabria Bomba D’Amore

This is not a hot sauce. This is a jar of vegetables marinated in oil. This winds up in a very delicious end result, but it is not a hot sauce, Italian or otherwise. I say this because the label copy insists on calling this both a “hot pepper sauce” and “Italian hot sauce,” but it is not a hot sauce. Indeed, you’d be hard pressed to call it a sauce at all. (Of note, as of the time of this review, I see this has been renamed as “Love Bomb” and they are calling it a general condiment, which is correct. This review, then, is for the bottle I actually had.)

We have artichokes (good) and Calabrian peppers (better) and eggplant (less good) and porcini mushrooms (also very definitely good), all in a nice olive oil, with some presumably light splashes of vinegar and salt and so on, but like the usual artichokes suspended in oil, there is no sauce to be had here. Calabrian peppers are certainly tasty and if you made a list of the best-tasting peppers, this would definitely be in the top 2 or 3, but they are not notably hot, per se.

I love the packaging, with the heart-shaped window and the sort of wick on the top of the paper wrapping, sort of like the fuse to those old-timey Warner Brothers cartoon bombs that someone like Bugs Bunny might lob around, but I find the label copy to be odd. I don’t understand the point to calling a thing something it is most definitely not. Things can be just a hot/spicy marinated-in-oil vegetable blend. Giardiniera is absolutely a thing like that, but no one is calling that a sauce. A garnish, sure, maybe even a condiment, but not a sauce and definitely not a hot sauce, even if that can be slightly on the punchy side here and there.

Anyway, this is something they suggest for pasta, pizza, paninis, etc., essentially Italian food, to which I’d agree...provided you can apply some heat directly to it to lessen some of the oily feel a bit. If you’re more a fan of oil, then perhaps you might be inclined to add it after the fact, but not me. Straight from the jar, this is quite good, but I feel it works better with some heat applied to it, to dial down the oily slick feel, and to hopefully get some of the Maillard effect raging. I quite like this and am happy I got it and heartily recommend it, but it is no sauce, let alone a hot sauce and only appears here, grudgingly, as a Mini-Review, and only because the labeling insists on calling it otherwise.

Bear River Bottling Cajun Ghost Story Hot Sauce Review

Bear River Bottling Cajun Ghost Story

Jon over at Bear River is one of the few sauce makers I've met, albeit very briefly, directly. While I think he's one of the more inventive makers (we need a word specific to these creators, like vintner - I suppose we could use chef, which applies to many as it is) out there, I haven't been able to review much of his stable, as he has an affinity for onions that I both do not share and is literally intolerable to me (well, my system, but I suppose people's bodies are a part of them and all). When I heard about this, I was immediately interested and put it at the top of my list, got a bottle soon after, and then put it on my shelf, where it sat for far longer than I had in mind. Kind of the way these things work out with me sometimes, I've noticed...

Anyway, this one seems clearly aimed at being a Cajun style sauce and the ingredient list bears that out, but I think this is somewhat of a mistake in direction, as the sauce itself is a fairly medium-bodied affair, not loose like most of the Cajuns (themselves a derivative of the Louisiana-style), and is far, far less vinegar-forward. By itself, the sauce reminds me a bit of a marinara and I think it would be aces as an actual pizza sauce, presuming you like some heat with your food. I did greatly enjoy it on a fairly wide variety of things, including burgers, where the lack of vinegar and the holding power of the sauce helped it mesh, but in other places, including where I would normally use a Cajun or Louisiana-style, that facet worked against it. 

One of the happier things I've noted here is the addition of coarse or cracked black pepper, which I do love in a sauce. There is a pretty good amount of it here, which I'm happy about, though it does contribute a bit to a slightly gritty mouth feel. The coloration of this sauce is also fabulous and is one of my favorite hues, of any sauce. For me, I think I'd drop the Cajun out of the name and just leave this as "Ghost Story" and treat it more like a hotter everyday sauce and let people experiment and play around with it. It is good-tasting enough that it even if doesn't mesh with the food, say with tacos, where I also tried it, it's not inedible of anything, either. 

Given that this sauce has two of my most favorite peppers, the Cayenne and the Ghost, along with what I consider the best version of the Habanero, the red variety, and given the heavy black pepper, this was probably always going to be a sauce I liked quite a bit. Heat-wise, this is a pretty strong 2, so definitely this will be beyond most novices, but for those aspiring chileheads, this is one of those gems that comes along that tastes good enough to encourage eating more of it, while also being a good stepping stone for tolerance. 

Bottom line: As long as you like some heat in your food, this is a sauce that I'd recommend anyone get. It's not quite up to SOTY level for me, but isn't too far removed, either. 

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 2
           Flavor: 8
           Flexibility: 8
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Little Dick’s Habanero Peach Hot Sauce Review

Little Dick’s Habanero Peach

I will refrain here from spending too much time on the vulgar colloquialism American slang tie-ins to the sauce company name (though I will probably succumb to temptation in the FOH video review, at least a little). This is another one of those kitchen sink, “more is more,” type of hot sauce, where ostensibly we have a fruit-based sweet hot, with peach as the main fruit and Habanero as the supporting pepper, but as is often the case once a lot of different elements are added, we start to drift and in this case, neither of those flavors shows up particularly prominently in the flavor. There is, at times, a bit of subtle peach, an undercurrent, perhaps, but no Habanero, though I suppose that is only there for what little heat is in this sauce.

There are a number of different spices added to this and while I do applaud the sauce maker for listing out all of those, I also kind of hate the way the ingredient label is orchestrated (as it is not clear when one composite ingredient (like pepper mash or mustard) is ending and we’re back to the ingredients of the actual sauce itself). The spices are very forward in the flavor, which, combined with the molasses, give a sort of slightly sweet spice cabinet vibe to the proceedings. To my mind, after a certain point, the more stuff you add to a sauce, the more it becomes a flavor referencing itself and moves away from flexibility and I find that to be the case here. It’s fine on fried foods, which are generally neutral enough to bear a very complex sauce like this, but I struggled to find anywhere outside of that where I thought it worked well. The flavor of this sauce by itself is ok, but not something I generally find myself wanting. I will say the idea of big flavor is probably accurate, but a lot of those notes come from the spices, and I’m not certain they mesh together. Certainly, it has moved fairly far afield from peach and Habanero both.

Bottom line: Ultimately, I found myself more confused with this sauce than anything. If the intent is to make a unique sauce, this certainly succeeds, but you also run the risk of having trouble finding a place for it, which happened here with this one for me. 

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 4
           Flexibility: 3
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 3

Brotaco Pineapple Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Brotaco Pineapple Habanero

I sometimes wonder if I’m going to wind up doing every single sauce of this type without onions, as I’ve done a lot of them. Both fruit-based sweet hots generally and pineapple sweet hots particularly remain pretty high in my interests as I’ve always loved pineapple and can never quite seem to have enough of this kind of sauce on hand. Lately, I’ve noticed that some makers are tossing lime in, to varying success, but I’m not always sure if it’s part of a trend or if there is some specific purpose. For this sauce, I think it’s the latter and I will say that tropical and citrus can be a decent combination.

This sauce, given the name of the company making it, along with the inclusion of cilantro in the ingredients, seems to me pretty pointedly aimed at tacos. Lime doesn’t go with red meat tacos, generally, so it seems more pointed at the lighter meat tacos, with particular focus, perhaps, on seafood tacos and/or al pastor. I have found it also does nicely on fried fish as well as fried chicken, to a lesser degree, but the lime does create a bit of a dilemma in that the food one is using this sauce on must also accommodate citrus. I do feel this could also work very nicely in a salad or as part of a mixed drink, so it’s not as if it’s entirely unusable, just perhaps a bit less flexible than if there was no lime in it at all. It is definitely bright and lively, though, and that part also seems by design. This is only Habanero, so not particularly hot, but it is a very firm 1 and accelerates to that level fairly rapidly.

There is some curious elements to the packaging. While I always like a good level stripe with the label, this is a fairly thick, somewhat pulpy (and gorgeous-colored) sauce, so putting a restrictor cap better suited to a Louisiana-style sauce is both unnecessary and annoying. The label has a lot of small text copy in white on a yellow background and all of that should also be reworked, as it is way more trouble than it’s worth to try to read it.

Bottom line: A kind of an interesting entry into this kind of sauce. While it didn’t work on everything for me, where it did work, it worked wonderfully.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 7
           Flexibility: 3
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 4