Bee Sting Habanero Hot Sauce

Bee Sting Honey n' Habanero Pepper Sauce

Some of you have had some KFC. I've had some, probably everyone has had some. I say this because at KFC, they not too long ago became the subject of a national report on HFCS in which it publicized them spiking their honey packets with that noxious derivative. They were far from alone and several other producers, including grocery store brands, were equally guilty of this addition, which was likely made in the name of price, but has the additional side effect of over-sweetening the product.

I mention all this because this sauce has, as its first ingredient, HFCS. So, if you've guessed by now that this is an over-sweetened product along those lines, give yourself a cigar. The other elements of this, some onion flavoring, garlic, various peppers, sort of come together to create a rather noxious overtone to this when eaten straight. On food, it does slightly better, but this is not a well-executed sauce. Conceptually, mixing honey with habanero is not a bad idea, but as with everything else food-related, quality of ingredients leads to quality of product and not only using a substandard element, such as HFCS, but leading with it, adds a cheapness to the taste.

Heat here is precious little. One of the suggestions is for ice cream, which evidently is the new trend of sauce makers - to try and wreck everyone's desserts with hot sauce - but this wouldn't be particularly good there. As it stands, it does well with fried foods or wherever else you'd use a dipping sauce, but either registers as too cloying or having a noticeable off-taste on other foods.

Bottom line: While I give this high marks conceptually, the execution is frankly horrid and this is neither a good-tasting nor particularly useful, flavorful or picante sauce.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 2
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 2

Pukka Hot Sauce Review

Busha Browne's Pukka Hot Pepper Sauce

I sometimes wonder from what planet the guys who write the copy for hot sauce labels emerge. Take this one, "BE WARNED. IT IS VERY HOT AND NOT FOR THE FAINTHEARTED." From the front, "EXTRA HOT AND FIERY. USE WITH DISCRETION." Evidently whoever wrote it didn't also taste it, as the only way this sauce is actually hot is if you make it physically that way, in a temperature sense. As far as spiciness, this has precious little heat, maybe slightly more than a Tabasco or in that range somewhere.

But...and this is a big one...we all know by now that the only thing which matters is flavor and in that regard, this one delivers in a major way. The Scotch Bonnet, one of my personal favorites, is in full force here and delivers not only major deliciousness, but that slight bit of sweetness along with it as well. Heat, as mentioned, is miniscule, but that can mostly be forgiven. Could I have used more? Certainly, but not enough people are utilizing that pepper these days, so part of me is just glad someone is, though the Bad Brains Burn Babylon (ahhh, the alliteration!) sauce is notably better.

This is a Caribbean sauce, which is similar in many ways to a Louisiana-style sauce, but carries a bit more heat, a lot more spices generally and definitely an undeniable sweetness element to it that sets it apart. Still, practical usage puts these on the same types of foods. Personally, as much as I'm enjoying some of these diversions into the Caribbean, my money is still on the diehard, tried-and-true and often brutal and bracing Louisiana side of things.

Bottom line: This one has been around for a while and with good reason. It is a very flavorful sauce that adds a nice cutting element to foods, though a very minor amount of heat.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 5

Slap Ya Mama Hot Sauce Review

Slap Ya Mama Cajun Pepper Sauce

Then there's this, not to be confused with "Slap Yo Momma" or "Slap Your Momma" or any other "Slap-" named hot sauce. This one is calling itself a Cajun sauce, but it is your basic Louisiana-style sauce, albeit an extremely poor one. There's no real way that someone should be able to take the ingredients of aged red pepper mash (I'm guessing Jalapeno, but possibly also Cayenne), vinegar, salt and water and make an actual bad-tasting sauce, but these guys have managed it, possibly due to the "other spices" constituting part of the ingredient list.

I have recently discovered World Market and this is one from there, but it definitely will be the last one. Over-salty, no heat, tends to make food taste not only worse but much worse and poor flavor, this is one of the worst sauces I've encountered, an anomaly in a category where the difficulty level to create something palatable is fairly low.

Bottom line: I would rather eat Tabasco than this and I typically avoid Tabasco like the plague.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: -8
            Flexibility: 0
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 0 (or -2)

El Yucateco Black Label Reserve Hot Sauce Review

El Yucateco Black Label Reserve Chile Habanero Sauce

NOTE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOGwoRN9qm8

Ahhh, the "reserve" tag, which is frequently used to market things as "special" or of limited quantity, usually hopefully to receive a better price. Pricing is the same on this, but I don't know why they'd call it a reserve, especially, as there is nothing particularly special about it and the "black label" part only serves to really set it aside from their more common market entries.

El Yucateco is a sauce manufacturer I've always sort of struggled with a bit as their sauces are inconsistent in terms of cost per ounce with a lot of their competitors in the market yet the quality is nowhere near enough to get it in the leagues with a lot of the more specialty makers. They have some interesting sauces, but aside from El Yucateco Green, which is a true taste marvel (despite that odd bright green coloring), they are just not really overall at a high level.

I do love that Green, however and when this came out, I was hoping for a much more amplified version of that sauce. What we have here, though, is more coloration problems. This one is thick, oily, sludgy-looking and maybe the most unappealing, unappetizing and borderline nauseating sauce I've yet seen. Taste-wise it is much better, but my immediate impression was a mouthful of ash. My love for fire-roasted things is well, well documented, both in this blog and elsewhere, but like everything else, only when it contributes positively to the flavor. Here it does not. Additionally, the flavor here has a sort of off-beat to it, which adds to the oddness and heat here is much milder, maybe half of the Green, maybe even less than that.

Bottom line: Although I was initially happy to discover it there, this is not at all another Wal-Mart gem. Instead, this is as near a total misfire as a sauce can get. It has limited availability, which is ultimately a blessing here, since this seems very unlikely to catch on.


Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 1
            Flexibility: 1
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 1