Irazu Fire-Roasted Habanero & Garlic Hot Sauce Review

Irazu Volcanic Pepper Fire-Roasted Habanero & Garlic Sauce

UPDATE: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2bQWOpIjMc

Habanero and Garlic are one of those interesting combinations of sauces that seems to crop up every now and again, often enough to be familiar but not so prevalent as to quite be its own category. These sauces invariably are best on lighter colored meats, such as chicken or pork and especially seafood and there is a certain similarity among them enough that you know instantly what you're getting into and expect. Having mined that territory thoroughly enough, I wasn't really looking to re-enter it when I picked this up, as Blair's Pure Death covers that nicely enough on its own, but put the words "fire-roasted" in front of something and I'm instantly interested.

For this particular sauce, the Garlic is very apparent upon opening this bottle and is what we would call heavy on the nose. Taste-wise, there is a good blend of that wonderful fire-roasted flavor, along with that of the Habanero and of course, that Garlic, though Habanero is probably the lightest of those flavors. I actually liked the flavor of the fire-roasted Habaneros so much that I now harbor thoughts that Habanero, which is not a flavor I'm especially in love with, should always be fire-roasted.

Despite the fact that this particular sauce is named after an active Costa Rican volcano, the heat here is fairly minimal. It is a very flavorful and tasty sauce, but not particularly hot, definitely not anywhere near what I was anticipating. In a way, this is sort of unfortunate, as it, while no contender for the Ghost Of Ancho currently leading the race for Sauce Of The Year 2014, would be something I would strongly consider keeping on hand and just may anyway.

Bottom line: This is one I'm a bit on the fence about, but the odds are good that when I go back to a hot sauce emporium to re-up, I may wind up leaving with another bottle of this.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 6

Arizona Gunslinger Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Arizona Gunslinger Habanero Pepper Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_emM7UlTcaE

This particular brand, perhaps because it originates not too far away in Mesa, AZ, seems to show up frequently here and I finally got around to getting a bottle from them. I chose the hottest I could find at the time, which was the Habanero. A couple of pistols and the legend "Smokin' Hot" appear on the label, but frankly, this is more of a Jalapeno sauce than anything. Habanero is listed as the first ingredient, followed closely by Jalapeno, but frankly, salt is the most dominant aspect here. It's a shame, as this sauce had potential. There is little heat in it, but the blend of flavors, if you put it on something, for instance, needing salt, is pretty good. This could be something to keep on hand, but not at the risk of sending one into hypertension.

Aside from that, the company made a very odd decision to put a restrictor cap on a sauce that's fairly thick.  I'd put the consistency at approaching ketchup, which is easy to control, but booting that cap becomes a pretty quick necessity. It does seem to do well on a variety of foods, though, again, it does remarkably better on those that are either salt-free or undersalted. It is not quite a table sauce, but a slightly uptick to that and if they dialed down the sauce, might be something I would keep on hand.

Bottom line: This sauce is sort of a shame as it could be one I would consider keeping on hand, as the heat level is low enough for my wife to tolerate and it does strike me as otherwise being a good sauce for Mexican-type foods. Still, I prefer my seasonings to be more separate (i.e. hot sauce as hot sauce and salt as salt, not a combination of the two) and as such, will not be replacing this bottle.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 3
           Flexibility: 5
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3

Brick and Mortar Hot Sauce Locations in Ogden, Utah

The last time I did a post on this subject, near the start of this blog, I casually referenced this place and noted it was in a Quilted Bear in the Newgate Mall of Ogden, Utah. Truth be told, it is a part of Quilted Bear, not a subset. The receipt says Quilted Bear, you pay Quilted Bear and Burn Your Tongue/Simply Spicy Stuff is just another of their vendors.

This is not to take anything away from both of them, who teamed up to do a really special and neat thing, but you are shopping at Quilted Bear and the hot sauce is basically almost dead center in the middle of the store. Selection covers the range of sauces from Louisiana style all the way to fruit style and from mild all the way to the extract-laden yuckfests with their stratospheric SHU ratings. It's all there, even if it often is just 1 bottle or so to represent a given area in the whole gamut.

The bottles are very competitively priced, to the point where if they had the selection, I would not ever need to utilize the web to order sauces. Given the somewhat miniscule selection of sauce lines, however, that is not quite the case, but the next go-around, I will be mining Chili & Max in Salt Lake rather than going online. I wound up with 10 different sauces, including another bottle of my Sauce Of The Year 2012, CaJohn's Happy Beaver, but I don't think it will be too long for that trip.

The service here is nothing short of phenomenal and I may wind up there again, just to deal with the wonderful girls at that place. That part was truly my pleasure and possibly I can see about ordering some sauces if I don't find something new that I haven't already tried, am able to eat and am interested. This, by far, is the best hot sauce shop in Utah and it's not really a hot sauce shop. The city of Ogden and its attendant chileheads are truly fortunate to have such a place. I wish we did here.

More of my thoughts can be found in my Yelp review on this business.