Brother Bru-Bru's Very Hot Hot Sauce Review

Brother Bru-Bru's Very Hot African Hot Pepper Sauce

It took me a while to get to this, since re-starting the heat train, but I finally ran into that dreaded thing: the sauce I had to toss. I think I made it as far down as the neck before it opens up into the bottle proper, but it got the old heave-ho, away it goes tonight.


Why? The starter is the flavor. The first two ingredients are apple cider vinegar and water. Nothing wrong with apple cider vinegar, but having that as the dominant flavor, with the next more prominent flavor be that of an unnamed African spice (the name of which I no longer remember) is not really the way to win my affection. It might be the Japones pepper providing the somewhat distinctive taste here; it definitely is not the habaneros listed. If you were to want a taste that could be charitably described as an entire spice closet floating in apple cider vinegar, this would be the sauce you'd want to grab.

The flavor is not entirely unpalatable, just not especially good by itself and frequently jarring with food. I didn't find it offensive to the point of spitting it out, but I had great difficulty in getting it to play nice with anything and by that I mean adding to the taste experience and elevating the food. I'm imaging it might go ok with Southern food, such as collard greens and maybe some ribs, but even that is somewhat in debate and I didn't spend the time to try to find that out. I just couldn't see where it would be worth it to take the time and drive on down and plunk down the money at the rib joint, much as I love those two foods (in winter, I make me the shit out of some greens) just for a test. There was also the chance I would wreck the flavor, which would be a damn shame and I'd have to kick my own ass for that.

The flavor, unfortunately, is the best part. The worst part has to be the texture. If you're banging around in your kitchen, trying to make up a sauce and you decide to go with powdered ingredients, for whatever reason, as the main base of your sauce, chances are you will get some grittiness. Fortunately for you, now you need not bother. You could just buy this instead. It's not like taking a spoonful of the glass beads they use for sandblasting or anything, but it's definitely noticeable and draws attention to this rather irritating aspect and away from the food. If there is a single thing (and it wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world to peg) that rendered this to the trash bin, it's this aspect. Amusingly, there is a dripper cap on this. I discarded it and still the sauce came out by the drop. lovely. It also separated in the bottle, which is not a big deal, but adds to the unappealing aspects.

Finally, we get to the heat or rather lack of it. A friend of mine feels that if there is a hot sauce and the first word in the ingredient list is not a pepper of some kind, then the product is not worth having. I don't necessarily subscribe to it, but this sauce would give substantial credence to that theory. Calling something a hot sauce should indicate that there is some heat present. Labeling it as Very Hot and the hottest of the offerings should mean that there should be some charge there. I suppose this makes things hotter than eating them with no sauce at all, but the heat level is barely detectable.


Bottom line: Easily the leading contender for disappointment of the year. Brother Bru-Bru was a musician and tried hard to create an all-natural, sodium-free sauce, both of which he did. I wanted to like this sauce, but it fails on nearly every level a sauce can fail. This is very pedestrian, somewhat bland and boring, not hot and not very tasty, grainy liquid that simply does not work. At $3.59 for a 5 oz. bottle, I got screwed, no two ways about it. There are plenty of other sauces that deserve your patronage. This is not one of them.

Breakdown:

   Heat level: 0
   Flavor: 1
   Flexibility: 0
   Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 0

Zakk Wylde Stronger Than Death Berzerker Hot Sauce Review

Blair Presents: Zakk Wylde's Stronger Than Death Berserker Hot Sauce

This is the second to hottest of the four Zakk Wylde signature sauces. My first impression was that it was far different than the Original Berzerker sauce, which I was partially nervous about. While the Original Berzerker is not a bad tasting sauce, the garlic can get a bit overbearing. This one is both far more graceful and considerably more punchy at once.

The sauce is somewhat deceptive, starting out with a sort of mild and muted habanero flavor with the more flowery and bittery aspect of the ghost chilis. The garlic is there as a very minor grace note, but after the first five to ten seconds or so, the ghost chilis kick in and the heat becomes progressively more pronounced. Once that begins, the chipotles also assert themselves in the nose and palate, lending a very nice smokiness to the proceedings. This is a sauce that can become overpowering in heat, but not especially so in flavor and Blair has done a phenomenal job of masking the tinny aspect of the extract here. This one is much more flexible than the Original Berzerker and I'd rate the flavor as good to very good but not great.

As noted on the bottle, this did and does go very well with seafood and pizza and smoked ribs and spiking barbeque sauce and frozen tv dinners and cheeseburgers almost everything I tried it with. I presume it would also, as noted on the label, also go fantastically with beer. I'm struggling to think of anything I didn't like it on...Hot Pockets, I guess, but we're not talking any sort of culinary treat there, of course. Using it on them is a waste of this sauce and better reserved for something like Red Devil.

It is also not a sauce I enjoying having by itself. At ~59K SHU (literally stronger than Death, as in the original Death sauce also, cleverly ticking in a literal meaning as well as the borrowing of a Black Label Society album title), putting sauce on top of sauce tends to ratchet the heat level up to a level a bit beyond what is comfortable at work, which is where I keep this one, but not so much that it causes an immediate trot to to the can. The heat will dissipate nicely in about 10 minutes or so. With that nice level of warmth, this can be used sparingly and indeed, treating it more as an accent accompanies food very well and rises the taste experience, especially on McDonald's cheeseburgers, up very nicely.

UPDATE 12.26.12

I noted in another later post, but as I got towards the end of the bottle, the extract really came to the fore, to the point where it was obnoxious. I always shake the sauces well before using, so it wasn't a matter of agitation. Possibly it was due to the age of the sauce, but it got to the point where I didn't find the experience enjoyable and disposed of the remainder of the bottle and alternately vowed not to again engage any of the extract sauces. I've sort of hemmed and hawed over down-rating this, but despite the initial good taste, overall, I could not, in good conscience, leave the rating as it was, given that I was unable to enjoy the entire bottle.

Bottom line: It is a very well-flavored sauce but many elements are going to be reserved more for the discerning chilehead. For most of the population, I think they're going to be distracted by the heat, which didn't appear to have a top ceiling on it and miss many of the subtleties of this (again) extremely brilliantly crafted sauce. At $10 for 5 oz. and for how long you can make this stretch, at least by not being stupid, this is a pretty good deal and you still get the keychain and the entertaining label pic of Wylde and one of his famous bullseye guitars as well as the "traveling case" look to the outer box packaging. I'm not so in love with this that I would have to have another bottle when I run out, but this is on my short list of sauces to potentially get again...or was until the update. This, along with all other extract sauces, is forevermore excised from any future purchases.

Breakdown:

  Heat level: 7
  Flavor: 7
  Flexibility: 8
  Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 7

Re-rate 12.26.12
 
  Heat level: 7
  Flavor: 5
  Flexibility: 7
  Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 6

El Yucateco Green Hot Sauce Review

El Yucateco Green Habanero

UPDATE: Video support now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpA1yKLl-FA

Too often, I think, reviews always start off with a negative. I think reviewers do this so they come across as a "hard sell" or cynical or neutral, any of which is viewed as being better than a pimp or cheerleader. I'm no coward and I've been waiting on writing this for a while while I relentlessly tested it, so let me just say it up front: this sauce is utterly fantastic. This is another first: the first sauce I've had directly recommended to me from a friend.

Now, with that out of the way, despite all the overwhelming (and other less so) positives, there is one gigantic detraction and that is the color. The bright pea-green color is very disconcerting and putting it on food tends to make it look less appetizing. Even as I type this, it sounds borderline remarkably stupid and petty, but it is nonetheless true. I wish they would have ticked over for an orange sauce if they wanted to differentiate. I get they were going for a green sauce echoing throes of tomatillo sauce, but that color is seriously distracting and it's taken me a while to get over that, to a degree, which is a shame, as this is a quite remarkable sauce.

At 9, 000 SHU, like the red, it's not particularly hot, but it is at least noticeable. What is less noticeable is that "bright" taste that habanero sauces seem to frequently have. That is very muted and subdued and the burn, when it comes, is delayed, as I expect from habaneros in general. The flavor is fantastic and despite it not working well on pizza, nearly everything I tried it on was better for having it there.That is the function of sauces after all, to improve the eating experience. I could use more heat,  but as far as blending and having lovely flavor, this is a very difficult sauce to beat. Even when eaten directly, it doesn't taste overpowering and while the flavor is not good enough for me to want to have by itself in great amounts, quite a lot of this can be used. At $2.59 for a 4 oz. bottle and a dollar more to double it up to an 8 oz. bottle, the value per cost ratio may just be the highest of any sauce I've reviewed so far.

As noted, the heat amount is not great or particularly significant, but enough to be moderately respectable. The mild burn hangs in there for a good little bit and I would be endlessly pleased if they dropped something out with a higher boost, but all in all, I'm very pleased and this is the current heavy leader for my standby Mexican sauce.

 Bottom line: There's still more to test, of course, slated upcoming, but I have reservations that anything will overtake this for my standby Mexican sauce. Like the Red Devil, the taste is wonderful and like the Red Devil, while it tastes acceptable on almost everything, it definitely excels on specific things more considerably. The most ringing endorsement I can ever make about a sauce is that I intend to buy it again and as soon as the last remnants of what's in the current bottle are gone, I'm going out to secure one of those larger bottles immediately. Standby or not, this one is necessary to have on hand.

Breakdown:

 Heat level: 1
 Flavor: 9
 Flexibility: 8
 Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Zakk Wylde Original Berzerker Hot Sauce Review

Blair Presents: Zakk Wylde's Original Berserker Hot Sauce

 This is the first product of the other of the two who are probably the major "small batch" hot sauce producers in the Chilehead world, Blair's Hot Sauce. The other one is CAJohn and the offering I had there was spectacular. This one was less spectacular, but overall quite tasty.

This is the mildest of the Zakk Wylde signature sauces and my first impression was this was an extremely skillfully crafted sauce. The habanero and garlic were initially very well balanced, with a hint of lime cutting through. As noted on the bottle, this did and does go very well with seafood and pizza and any other offering that would be paired well with beer. It does not, however, go particularly well with cheeseburgers.

It is also not a sauce I enjoying having by itself and there have been times that I thought the garlic was a bit overpowering, being reminiscent more of a garlic-type sauce than an actual hot sauce. There is some minor heat here, but I'd be surprised if the SHU rating was over 10K. Happily, none of the brightness I'm coming to strongly associate with habanero sauces was not present and for the most part, I found this enjoyable.

Bottom line: It is far from a polarizing sauce, but it won't work well with everything. What it does go with, it does spectacularly. What it doesn't go with isn't terrible, but does leave you wishing you had a different sauce. At $10 for 5 oz., this is not a particularly great deal, even with the keychain and the entertaining label pic of Wylde and one of his famous bullseye guitars as well as the "traveling case" look to the outer box packaging. I wouldn't be averse to using it again, but I can't foresee any future repeat purchase.

Breakdown:

 Heat level: 4
 Flavor: 6
 Flexibility: 5
 Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 5