Irazu Cayenne Hot Sauce Review

Irazu Volcanic Cayenne Pepper Sauce

UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqsmH95OMls

I've got to say that I'm really becoming an admirer of Irazu. I think they make some very high quality and quite tasty sauces in a variety of categories. The devil's in the details, so the saying goes and Irazu seems to make some very clever twists to differentiate their offerings from the norm in those categories. Take this one, for instance.

Now, it's no secret that a good Lousiana-style sauce is one of my very favorites and there are a few things that they need if they really want to win me over. The first one is to use Cayenne as a base. Cayenne, as a pepper, has long been one of my most favored and possibly my very favorite overall and if any other pepper is used as a base for this sauce, other than Cayenne, I inevitably wind up thinking that it would have been better if Cayenne were used or how much I missed the Cayenne in it. Choosing a vinegar requires some care, for if it's too harsh, it will tend to run the food. Heat tends to be a bit minor on these sauces, because spiking them tends to ruin the flavor or the balance.

What Irazu did here was a very clever thing. To combat the lack of heat that these sauces frequently run into, they added Naga Jolokia pepper pulp. Not a ton, to be sure, but just enough to give it a little edge, thereby accomplishing both the spiking and leaving the phenomenal flavor that Cayenne is known for and imparts, intact. This, in fact, may be one of the best uses for the ghost pepper I've yet seen. It definitely is the smartest, as it avoids the somewhat noxious taste that ghost peppers can sometimes have.

Bottom line: If this is not the best Louisiana-style sauce out there, it's in the running. This one is very well-designed and though there's not a whole lot of heat, there's noticeably more than usual. Flavor is everything you'd expect from a Louisiana-style sauce.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 7

Brick & Mortar Hot Sauce Locations in Salt Lake City, UT (Revised)

Update 04.12.15

Two and a half years removed from the original post of this, so we are well due and we have some changes...

When we last left off, we had basically Grove Market and a place called Chili & Max in a mall downtown slinging the sauce. Grove Market, while probably still having the largest collection of any brick and mortar in the state, in terms of different kinds of sauces at least, had a definite stock rotation issue and several of their sauces were discolored. I, regrettably, have not been back to re-check the store, partly for that issue, but partly also because I had already acquired every single sauce they had that was of interest to me at the time. It is on my agenda to re-visit, at some future point and once I do, I will update this then. Chili & Max is long gone, lost to the whims of declining mall visitors and revenue.

There are a couple new players into this arena, though, that I've discovered lately. One of them is in an area called Cottonwood Heights (basically a suburb to the SE of Salt Lake City) called World Market. This is a fairly large chain and they had a decent selection of hot sauces, of which I took full advantage. Most of them were also pretty fresh, with only one of them even remotely close to the expiration date. The downside to this store is the selection can be really hit or miss, but not to the extent of a Big Lots or normal grocery store.

Speaking of those, nearly all of them have really started to elevate their hot sauce offerings. The heat range there tends to be a fairly mild Habanero sauce, but at least they're making progress, in sheer selection of different types within that heat level, if nothing else.

The other big player is an import shop called Pirate O's. This one comes pretty close to giving Grove a run for its money, in terms of different brands of sauces, with lots of novelty sauces, as well as a very cool idea, which is smaller sized bottles of stuff, so you don't wind up with a 5 oz. bottle you have to chuck if you hate the sauce. The downside to those bottles, of course, is it can be challenging to get the sauce out of those little openings, but this is still a very good way to try a bunch of sauces for relatively cheap. I didn't take advantage of those smaller bottles yet, but I may do that. This store also goes from mild Jalapeno and Tabasco all the way up to several of the absurd extract sauces. Not content to stop there, they also have a full selection of hot BBQ, salsa, wing and other associated sauces, dry rubs and they don't stop there. Snacks ranging from spicy nuts all the way to beef jerky and Death Rain chips are all represented. In many, many ways, this place is a chilehead's dream and several sauces I found here I've seen nowhere else, including online. They could definitely use a few different brands there, such as the Danny Cash stuff, but they do a very, very nice job. It was definitely the most impressive section of this type, including Grove, given how far into the related areas this place has put on the shelf. This is the first - and so far, only - must for chileheads I've found along the I-15 corridor. It also is the furthest south hot sauce place I've yet found...at least in Utah.

Hurtin' Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Dave's Gourmet Hurtin' Habanero Hot Sauce

Ahhh, the alliteration is strong with this one. Like probably everyone else, my familiarity with Dave's is mostly with the infamous Insanity line of sauces. As I've mentioned in the past, we used to keep a bottle of this on hand years ago for drunken party challenges (though I think the industry has moved well beyond that some time ago) but wouldn't use it ourselves as both me and my then-roommate considered it one of the more noxious substances invented. Thus was my initial exposure to both Dave's and the horrors of using chemical extracts in sauces to generate heat.

So, naturally, for years, I didn't give a second look to this line of sauces. Having finally seen it recently on grocery store shelves, I did give some of the bottles a look, but saw either onions or extract, two mega no-nos for me and passed them on by as well. Finally, by chance, I came across this and picked up a bottle up...so it could sit more easily on my shelf after sitting on a grocery store shelf. Once I got past the discolored bit that I didn't notice due to the black plastic seal around the neck, it was much smoother sailing.

I could probably best sum up this sauce by saying it is basically a more amplified version of Cholula. It reminds me of that more than anything else, though it is somewhat hotter, though only moderately so. If you like that style of sauce, you will like this one, but it tastes more like that, which itself seems to rely heavily on Ancho peppers than any sort of Habanero flavoring. I like that style of sauce, though I've eaten so much of it over the years, I can barely stand to look at the wood caps anymore and I find this to ultimately be one of the better-tasting versions of it.

Bottom line: This sauce goes a long way to cement the position of Dave's Gourmet in the industry. Though not hot, it is a very well-crafted and tasty sauce and in my view, a much better and slightly more expensive substitute for the aforementioned Cholula.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 6