UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvOGtUe2C_s
In anticipation of the forthcoming sauce brackets of the most esteemed Scott Roberts, I wanted to get myself a bit more current than the handful of sauces I had on tap, some of which I'd picked up at Big Lots. I didn't want to do this so much for the nomination process, but so that I could more knowledgeably vote when the time came. I'll be doing a much more extensive posting on the brackets, once that "tournament" gets underway, but the impetus for several of my new sauce purchases, which mainly involved moving the timeline for some of them up considerably, was to make sure I was informed enough to vote at all and wouldn't have to abstain the entire contest and that my vote was accurate.
This was one of those I picked up, since it had been getting piles and piles of press and wins of various sauce competitions. I didn't realize until I had actually gotten it that it was a Louisiana-style, but obviously that style doesn't put me off at all. What really excited me was the chance to try a sauce based on chocolate habaneros, which I've found mostly impossible to locate.
With Louisiana-style sauces, you really have a great possibility of an immediate punch. Unless it is very well and carefully done, is a big astringent blast, that huge vinegar hit, which can be quite bracing and frequently overpowering and distracting. The heat, in that case, becomes entirely secondary, along, oftentimes, with the flavor. Specific to those ultra-hots, we have the bitter, sort of flowery taste, which can itself be very upfront and jarring. Depending on how tamed the peppers are by the time they make it to bottling, this taste can either be muted by the roaring flames or hang in there a bit longer.
With this sauce, I'm pleased to say, we have an extremely well-crafted and thought-out sauce. With all of the Lousiana-style sauces out there competing for shelf space and consumer love, differentiation becomes key. A high quality sauce will always find a market and adding in the smoked habanero element was a stroke of genius. That really sets this apart from almost everything else out there and contributes mightily to the fantastic taste.
The initial taste here is not the vinegar, which has been toned down into a graceful note -- in fact, if there's one word I would use to describe this sauce, it would be graceful -- but rather either the Jolokia or Scorpion powder, though that is quickly overtaken by that wonderful smokey taste. The smoke really makes this sauce a winner for any of the darker meats, though it doesn't do nearly as well on the lighter ones. In many respects, the blessing is the curse here as that gracefulness can cause the sauce not to assert itself in several instances.When using it on the Marie Callender bricks, for instance, it nearly gets lost entirely, aside from some slight bitter notes of the super hot powders and what remains of the smoke. Sometimes you need the punch to cut through and Red Devil, for instance, even though it isn't a heavy vinegary sauce, does have enough to cut right through and make those zing...as does the Sancto Scorpio.
There is some solid front-end heat, but as expected with a double-dose of Habanero, most of the heat is on the back end and it has a very nice and pleasant build, but never to the point of the discomfort that extract can bring, for instance. It's not quite as hot as the Sancto Scorpio, which remains the hottest Louisiana sauce I've tried, but there's still plenty enough to let you know it's there.
If there is a gripe I have about this and it is assuredly a very minor one, I've found this sauce requires a lot of agitation to keep the various elements suspended and blended. It's not quite constant, but it is a very frequent, considerably moreso than other sauces. This is more a slight nuisance and possibly unavoidable, considering the ingredients, but it's inconvenient enough to mention.
Bottom line: The real question here is can this de-throne the king, the tyrant of tyrants in the Louisiana category, the mighty Red Devil and the answer is...not exactly. While I really really like what they've done here, Red Devil has been and remains a fixture (even now, I probably have it 2 or 3 times a week), so it definitely is not a replacement, but I'd put this almost side-by-side with it, as another side of the Louisiana style coin, so to speak. Not only is this a strong contender to become a new staple for me, but it's also my new leader for sauce of the year.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 6
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 6
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9
Overall: 7
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