Lingham Hot Sauce Review

Lingham's Hot Sauce

Lingham, not to be confused with the Indian (country) word "lingam", as some websites seem apt to
do (I'll let you discover the differences yourself), has been making hot sauce for a very long time, over 100 years or so. While I strongly suspect Tabasco from the earlier years would not be markedly different from the current version, this one strikes me as that it probably has changed and this has much to do with the nature of the sauce itself.

This one is thick and gloppy, almost like if you took one of those bright red mall "sweet & sour" dipping sauces, the ones that are a full-on sugar hit with not a trace of sour and gave it more or less the consistency of a really thick ketchup. What you would have is then not so far off from this, although this one, given that the base is unspecified chiles, does have a more notable kick, though it is slight.

This one would lend itself nicely as a dipping sauce, then, for fried egg rolls or shrimp or something along those lines, wherever you would use that other mall sauce. You could also sub it out for a sweet chili sauce, which it more or less is already, though the consistency is a lot thicker. I have not found a lot of use for it, as others do the sweet chili sauce better, I don't eat fried egg rolls and eat fried food sparingly these days, if at all and it doesn't mesh with anything else, with the overpowering sweetness threatening to choke off and kill nearly all other tastes. I'm glad I tasted it, as I like to be able to hit those sort of "historic" sauces, but I will definitely not be the one to finish off this bottle.

Bottom line: Sweet is the strongest sensation here. Very little heat. Super-thick, almost gloppy consistency. This sauce has its uses...just not really a fit much for me.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 3

Dat'l Do It Devil Drops Hot Sauce Review

Dat'l Do It Devil Drops Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9xeHGQenCw

I've been excited to try something with the Datil peppers for a while, but these jokers (Dat'l Do It) have a propensity for sticking onions in everything, including the Captain Sorenson sauce they do for the Firehouse sandwich chain, which makes them pretty much an immediate no-go.

I found this one not too long ago and picked it up, as it was one of the few sauces from them that didn't have that nasty element to things. As it seems somewhat unquantifiable, it took me a while to get to it and I still can't quite decide exactly where to place it. It's a very thin sauce, with a restrictor cap, most reminiscent of a Louisiana-style sauce, but is definitely not a good example that kind of sauce at all. Habanero, Worcestershire, carrot and tamarind, among others, also all show up, which nicely adds to the confusion. I suspect that this is the company doing a "take" on a popular style of sauce, perhaps to try to get Florida-style to resonate in the same way that Louisiana-style did, but it's hard to say that the effort, if that is what it is, will be successful here. I think I would place it a bit closer to a Cajun style, which tends to have more additional elements, than a Louisiana-style.

Flavor of this sauce is really its own thing and it's overall pretty pleasant, though rather mild. It works fairly well in settings where you would normally choose a Louisiana-style sauce, though on fried foods, a Cayenne-based sauce does much better. as the taste here gets lost. Conversely, on a creamier-sauce, sort of a mid-range to a Carbonara, this one did better in a direct comparison. With a heavier fat/richness element, such as a very good macaroni & cheese, the Cayenne-based sauce would be a bit necessary to cut through and make its presence know, but in places where the flavor isn't quite as encompassing, this would be a reasonable choice.

It is not one that you would reach for if you wanted heat, however. The mildness in flavor is rather readily matched a mildness in piquancy.

Bottom line: I did enjoy the flavor here quite a bit, when I could get to it, as it's one of the very few sort of unique sauces I've run across. It isn't especially useful, overall, though and certainly does not carry much of a heat load. While enjoyable, it's hard to see a reason to keep this on hand.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 6