Smokin' Gun Hot Sauce Review

Wicked Cactus Smokin' Gun

We may as well just get right into it. Despite me having high hopes for the Wicked Cactus line going in (I bought almost the entire line), this particularly entry is one of the most disappointing things I've had. If you're like me, chipotle is on your list. I've got powdered chipotle, dried chipotles and more than a passing familiarity with Embasa or La Costena or Herdez, in a pinch or even San Marcos, if they can be found, canned chipotles. Most of them come in something called adobo sauce, which features vinegar, spices and sometimes ancho chiles.

To be blunt, this product could have begun and ended with its first ingredient, "Chipotle Peppers in Adobe,", assuming they mean adobo as in sauce rather than actual adobe as in building material. Listing water and vinegar as ingredients is a bit redundant as those are already in adobo sauce and while the lime juice and roasted garlic that make up the rest of the ingredient lists may or may not be present already, the amount here is so miniscule as to escape detection, particularly in the context of the smokiness of the chipotles and the prominence of the adobo sauce.

Again, assuming you're familiar with canned chipotles, you're already aware that the adobo sauce can add a flavorful addition to something, but is not very good by itself. What we have here strikes me as someone pouring off the adobo from the canned chipotles, possibly blending or pureeing the chipotle peppers in the sauce and then re-bottling it, probably with the additional vinegar and water and possibly the lime juice as thinning agents. As with the adobo sauce, there is little to no heat here and I'm hard pressed to give this much credence as a hot sauce at all. It certainly isn't hot and is no more flavorful than the adobo sauce from any of those brands of canned chipotles I mentioned.

Bottom line: It's difficult to the point of impossible for me to see the function of this sauce. Canned chipotles are not exactly expensive and you could as easily make this sauce at home. I'm rating this sauce taken by itself, but, again, like the adobo, it will probably work well with something else, rather than standalone. As a standalone, however, it is not really worth bothering with.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 1