Killer Chipotle Hot Sauce Review

CaJohn's Killer Chipotle Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T22R0H3HBFA

The original review for this sauce was written and posted on January 26, 2013. In one of the very rarest of occasions, I have decided to toss the entire previous review, as it was erroneous, and about 2/3 of it did not address the sauce at all, but rather inappropriately some of the hot sauce industry gripes I had at the time. This review, written and re-posted on December 20, 2020, is the salient one. I almost thought of deleting the entry entirely and doing a completely new review, but ultimately decided against it, because I had to redress the wrong that previously held this space.

I don't think I make that kind of statement without explaining a bit of the backstory, so if that is not of interest, skip ahead a couple paragraphs. Back in 2013, I was, as it seems like I've forever been, on the hunt for the "perfect" Mexican-style sauce, or at least one I would love enough to want to eat frequently enough to be my Standard. I thought I had found it a few times in the intervening years, but at the time of this, I had not. 2012 was my upgrade into the much wider open world of hot sauces than I have previously been familiar and I was greatly impressed by nearly everything I've had from CaJohn's, home of ace sauce mastermind John Hard. So, I already had inklings that I like a bit of smokiness for my Mexican-style sauces and that, of course, is the very nature of Chipotle.

I got the bottle and I wish now I had been doing pictures then, as the ingredient list was virtually identical to that of Happy Beaver. The sauce consistency, flavor, heat, everything was the same and I naturally thought it was a clone. I wasn't hugely bothered by this, as Happy Beaver has been on my Standard list since I've had it and it was a sauce I thought of so fondly, it was my first ever Sauce Of The Year in 2012, in a "year" that was only about three months, given the life of this blog. One of the other contenders it beat out that year was another CaJohn's entry, in fact. With this new bottle I have now, it is clear the sauces could not be more radically different. This one is runny and comes with a restrictor cap and flavor is wildly different (I got this and Angry Beaver and re-tested them side by side, as I always now do for the FOH video series, to confirm my memory of the impressions I had as well as these various written reviews over time). This leads me to suspect I either got a bottle that was mislabeled or this sauce (Happy Beaver is largely the same) has been reformulated.

What we have here is a very runny sauce, watery, in fact, somewhat reminiscent of a Louisiana-style sauce or a Tabasco. Indeed, the flavor profile is strikingly similar to the Tabasco Chipotle (also reviewed in this blog) and is nearly identical to the Dat'l Chipotle from the Brewer's 6 Pack (see Mini-Reviews) that I reviewed around this time last year. While the taste is closest to that Dat'l, which is a strong taste of Chipotle in a vinegar base, this one has the addition of a few other elements that raise the heat level somewhat more than either of the others mentioned. This also means this will need to be agitated heavily prior to use and possibly during as well.

Flavor-wise, the taste is basically that of Chipotle and the flavoring agent used to achieve this is Chipotle powder. Like many other chileheads, I had a lot of concern that we would start to see some problems with the CaJohn's line after it was sold and there has definitely been a lot of reshuffling of the label ingredient panels on various sauces since that happened. The sauces have mostly held, flavor-wise, at least for now, but that kind of reshifting has led to a dilution of quality in other sauce lines, so the jury is still out. 

Usage-wise, I wound up spiking barbeque sauce with the majority of that Brewer's Chipotle sauce, or using it to splash anywhere else I wanted a bit of smokiness. I suspect that will be the case with this and I will test it in the same applications I did with the Tabasco Chipotle, including ramen, to see how that shakes out, but I honestly do not have much use for that style of sauce and it took me quite some time to work through the Brewer Chipotle. It is, however, far too good of a sauce to bin.

Bottom line: If you like strongly vinegar-based sauce and feel that yours needs both some smokiness and a higher degree of heat than most else of what's out there, this is your ticket.

 
 Breakdown:

   Heat level: 1
   Flavor: 7
   Flexibility: 5
   Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 4

Salvation Garlic-Serrano Sauce Review

Danny Cash's Salvation Sauce Garlic-Serrano

Danny Cash, perhaps beyond hot sauce up-and-comer by now, was another name on my short list of maker of sauces to immediately try. That he's made a name for himself, in an increasingly crowded field, should be indication that he is a force to be reckoned with, but I didn't have opportunity to try his sauces until I did a bunch of buying around Christmastime.

I knew the backstory behind the Salvation Sauce and Cash's humble beginnings as sauce chef and his success story by making fantastic sauces and keeping a handle on himself is a great one in its own right. That he is giving back is more icing, but even though I'm not, by anyone's definition, religious one bit, I back people helping out other people who need it. I think the lines sometimes get confused, where people seem to mistake that whole "Lord helps those who help themselves" to mean that "Lord" helps those when they help themselves to whatever's in my pocketbook or what they can scrounge by holding cardboard at traffic lights, but I have great respect for anyone who can look past that and do what they can for all comers. That I personally am unable to do that doesn't mean I look past or slight those who can.

Enough of that, though, what about the sauce? For a sauce to display that proud and prominent cross on the front, it better be something that one doesn't taste and feel ripped off and in the taste department, this sauce delivers in spades. The ad copys calls it a the bite of lime & serrano and the back heat of habanero, but I would call it more along the lines of one of the very best tomatillo sauces, which this appears to be modeled on, minus the actual tomatillos. Take the Rubio's chain, as I digress momentarily. They have an excellent red sauce that, if I recall right, they call "Picante" and it has blackened bits of what I think is chipotle in it. It is fantastic on their entree's and I recommend it and those entree's highly. They also have a green sauce that I like a bit less and this sauce reminds of that a lot, meaning it is still an excellent sauce, but has a definite limit to applications.

While extremely tasty on lighter meats such as chicken, pork and fish, it is not a strong enough carrier to be used as a dipping sauce and fails woefully on pizza and anything else that does not meld well with sauces that carry this kind of astringency. It also has a confusing restrictor cap and the mini Bible, while kind of neat from the aspect of "wow, that's really small text and still somehow legible, kinda" is not practical and honestly, a bit useless. My major complaint, though I do enjoy this sauce quite a lot, is the heat level. Look, my wife struggles with heat in a major, major fashion. If she is able to tolerate a sauce, that means it's not particularly hot. If she enjoys it, such as she does this one, as immensely as she does, it definitely means there is little heat at all to it and this is the case here, also a trait echoing that of most tomatillo sauces.

Bottom line: Danny Cash, the positive stuff I've read about you and your sauces I find to be true. You have made here a fantastic sauce, albeit a bit limited in application and without any real heat, but still truly a marvelous taste experience. While this will not find itself a staple for me (but maybe for the wife), it does indicate to me that you belong in the league of hot sauce luminaries such as John Hard and Blair Lazar and unquestionably, you can hold your own. If this had any real heat to speak of, it would be an instant contender for Sauce Of The Year 2013. As it is, I find it a pleasant experience at $7.95/5 oz. bottle, but not a necessary one. I will definitely be hitting up other stuff in your line, though, because you are clearly a very, very real talent.

Breakdown:

    Heat level: 0
    Flavor: 9
    Flexibility: 7
    Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 6

Mae Ploy Sweet Chilli Sauce Review

Mae Ploy Sweet Chilli Sauce

I happened to be doing a touch of housecleaning in the fridge today when I noticed this thing in there. As I've said numerous times in the past, sweet hot is one of my very favorite flavor combinations and over the years, I've spent a great deal of time with Asian cuisine, so sweet chili sauce is something I'm intimately familiar with, nearly as ubiquitous as soy sauce or sesame oil. In particular, I've been trying to find the sauce I've long forgotten the name of and have tried for years to locate. It was a sweet chili and easily one of the best sauces I've had in my entire life.

This shit, however, ain't it. If there is one sauce that I thought it would be nearly impossible to fuck up, it would be this style. Even the cheap slop they have at the malls, while not exactly good, is edible and sometimes even palatable. This, sad to say, is neither. I can't quite place what exactly is making this derail, but it's almost like they used rotten something in there along the way. It lists pickled chilis as part of the recipe and if they were going for something along the lines of kimchi, they missed horribly. This stuff not only smells gut-wrenchingly awful, it tastes that way as well.

While this may not be the worst sauce I've ever had, it was far and away the worst last year, even of the pathetic sauce packets mislabeled as hot by your favorite chain "sorta" Mexican food purveyor. I don't eat those anymore, but I'd rather have those every day of the week and twice on Sunday, even on Asian food, than to have this again. This literally wrecks everything it touches and is a noxious mess. It also has no real heat to speak of, though it still wouldn't be worth slugging through its putridity, even if it did.

Bottom line: I'd rather have the bottle in my ass then the sauce in my mouth. A total waste of money. It also "earns" my first negative rating.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: -2