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
No comments:
Post a Comment