TSAAF At 100

After the last posting, this blog has finally reached 100 sauces reviewed. Well, full reviews, that is. If I count the Mini-Reviews I did in the beginning, but no longer do, it’s more like 118. It has taken [3 years, 1 month, 19 days – oddly enough, I launched it on a 09/11] to hit that, owing to a few things. Those things include dietary changes, job changes (while this was a highly rewarding move, in this one respect, it delayed reaching this total considerably, though obviously that’s minor comparatively), repeats of sauces (though this is kind of the point, except for one forgettable one that I predictably forgot…and then wasted money on again and another that got a second chance and improved its rating somewhat) and even lifestyle changes. I try to finish all of the sauces generally, which tends to delay things still more, given those other circumstances, a number of which I’ve written about in various updates. I also don’t include other stuff in there; no snacks, no wing sauces, no barbeque sauces, no dry blends, no fast food or restaurant offerings, just straight hot sauce. 

After that much time, even though in the grand scheme of things, this is relatively meaningless, this still feels like somewhat of a big deal to me. I fully realize a lot of sites feature quite a number more reviews than this. One of the things I’m proudest of is that there are a lot of sauces here in this blog that are reviewed nowhere else. As much as spicy food is making its way into the mainstream, hot sauces on the fringe are not. It’s still mostly mass market stuff, which is kind of a pity. Still, I’m happy to at least provide what amounts to singular and unique reviews. This will compromise the next part a bit, in a way, but I think it’s a worthy change and serves more as enhancement.

The next part is, of course, the change to this blog upon hitting 100. That particular change will be adding photos of the bottles, particularly the front label (which started with the 100^th post), something I’ve been obviously telegraphing for a while now. This will have to be a work in progress, though and some of these will not wind up with pictures as several sauces are now gone the way of the dinosaur, never to be heard from again. Quite a few of them are still out there, but I’m not buying more bottles. I love y’all, but I’m not picking up bottles of bullshit for the sake of a picture. Maybe if I run into it in a store, but definitely not paying for inferior product or trying to slog through it just for the sake of the TSAAF, mighty and fun as it is…anyway, keep checking back for your favorites in the meantime, but I will make a separate post once the backlog is caught up or it will show up in one of the General Updates. As of this writing, 18 entries are done (basically everything open and in the fridge and what I could find in the store during this week’s grocery shopping), which includes 2 of the current 3 past “Sauce Of The Years” and the all-time most popular individual sauce on the TSAAF, the Valentina Xtra Hot. I have 62 left to do, as of now, but that list might be cut down radically, if I have a difficult time finding some of the sauces on the shelves.

I’ve also finished some general housekeeping. I’ve done a fair amount of cycling the open sauces this year and in addition to that, I’ve gone back through the history of the blog, both to fix a bunch of broken links when I changed the URL to the blog itself earlier this year as well as removing a number of posts, mostly commenting about the various results of a tournament Scott Roberts was running once upon a time (over a couple years ago now) on his website to anoint a crown prince of sauces that wound up basically being abandoned after it became clear that the results were too easily skewed by marketing forces and not necessarily a solid representation of what he was trying to achieve. It was a noble idea, to be sure, but the reality didn’t quite live up to the lofty premise.

A number of those sauces are long gone now and the contest never did get finally decided, so keeping those up was pointless, despite the various meanderings I put in there, as I’m wont to do, regarding various other items, such as snacks or whatever else I’d tried that some company or another had tried to market as spicy and my various thoughts. A lot of that is outside of what I really wanted the blog to do and while I like the General Updates as historical markers, I probably have enough of those as it is.

Even at something as relatively low as 100 sauces, unless you intend on going to the shows or ordering more or less online frequently, it becomes fairly difficult finding that many sauces without repeats, particularly when you have strong aversions to a fairly common ingredient, such as onions, as I do. Add to that my revulsion to extract and it’s not really too much of a wonder it took this long to get here…but it’s here now.

As always, if there’s any other changes you’d like to see, shoot me a line. Thanks for dropping by.

Voodoo Chile Voo Dew Honey Doo Hot Sauce Review

Voodoo Chile VooDew HoneyDoo Hot Sauce - [TSAAF Sauce Of The Year 2015]

This is it (finally). My 100th review of hot sauces and in it, we meet yet another first. The review preceding this was my first bacon hot sauce; this is my first Peppadew pepper hot sauce. Now Peppadew, as a pepper, is an astonishingly mild one, more sweet and tasty than anything else, so in a way, it's akin to trying to make hot sauce out of Bell or Cherry peppers, but this one relies on good ol' Cayenne and Habanero to add a dash of the heat to proceedings. That is not to say this is a firebreather; indeed, it is not, but there is enough there to give a charge and keep things interesting, yet comfortable all the while, meaning you can eat a goodly amount of this readily.

What matters in a hot sauce? Flavor, above all else and this one is packed full of it. It's at once slightly sweet, yet with plenty of tang and a complexity of flavors that all adds up to the final result of utterly delicious. In fact, mentioning Cherry peppers, those pickled ones are one of my favorite things and the first whiff of this upon opening the bottle brings me right there. To say it hits all the notes right is an understatement. It definitely is one of the best-tasting sauces I've had.

It also does very well going with nearly anything you put it with. I say nearly only because I haven't tried it on a few things yet, but the fairly wide variety I have used it on (I've not stopped putting this on stuff since I opened the bottle) has responded well. A couple reviews back, I mentioned the Caribbean Hell-Fire did a nice job of flavoring and complementing the food, rather than being overpowering, yet great-tasting, such as the Pure Death I was comparing it to and this one is like that. Excellent, fantastic flavor, yet it serves as complimentary, embellishing the food rather than overriding it. All in all, a very unique, yet incredibly skillful and well-crafted and created sauce. Small wonder it took home a Scovie Award...

Bottom line: This is nearly everything you'd ever want in a sauce, though it could use a slight dash more heat. It is something I've been thoroughly enjoying again and while I don't have a ready place for it in the stable, I wouldn't hesitate to get another bottle. Yet another Sauce Of The Year contender.

Breakdown:

   Heat level: 4
   Flavor: 10
   Flexibility: 10
   Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 9

Porcus: Infernum Hot Sauce Review

Voodoo Chile Procus: Infernum Hot Sauce

Lots of fun verbiage on the label touting this or that, mostly references to the underworld, which I'll let you read at your disposal, if you're so moved and can find a bottle. The picture of the Hellpig on the label is pretty cool, though. I can't quite tell if the sauce is bad in ideal or execution, perhaps a bit of both. It's take me this long to get to a bacon-flavored anything that's not bacon and if this is indeed, as the label claims, the best that bacon hot sauce has to offer, it will be a good long while before I get to it again.

Many, many ingredients precede anything that says "chile" or "pepper" and when it does, it is some nebulous and mysterious "blend". Lots of flavors going on here and with the inclusion of apple cider vinegar, the first ingredient, in fact, we wind up with something that tastes slightly rancid and very sou
r and it goes downhill from there. Nothing like a sauce that makes you gag with every bite...

There is a slight bacon-ish flavor there, but it is far too muted to do any good. I think the conception here is questionable, too. Ok, I get it, because bacon, right, but with hot sauce, I think it's more that you can put the sauce in or on the meat, but not put the meat (or meat flavoring) in the sauce itself. There is also little to no heat here. That this was a more expensive sauce is just rubbing salt in the wound and friends, I got fleeced on this one, taken for a ride big time.

Bottom line: This is a gross sauce, one of the worst I've run across, that I have no idea where you'd ever use as it wrecks everything you put it on.

Breakdown:

   Heat level: 0
   Flavor: -40
   Flexibility: 0
   Enjoyment to dollar factor: -28

Overall: 0

Tortuga Caribbean Hell-Fire Hot Sauce Review

Tortuga Caribbean Hell-Fire Hot Sauce

Now, I've said it before and I'll say it again that lord knows I love Cayenne pepper as my favorite and probably Louisiana as my all-around favorite style of sauce, but a very close second is probably the Scotch Bonnet. Yes, I know it's a close relative of the Habanero, which I have sort somewhat of an antagonistic relationship with, but I've loved the Scotch Bonnets since the day I had one. I think they have a more vibrant and fruitier flavor, are much better-tasting overall and are nearly the ultimate as far as peppers go with great taste and very good heat. This extends to the sauces as well and some of the sauces I've enjoyed most have utilized that pepper.

Now, I got this one when I was shopping for new Louisiana-style sauces, as frequently the Caribbean style will be close enough that I can make it work, albeit somewhat sweeter typically. That is also the case here, but this is pretty far away from a Louisiana-style. If anything, it's closer to more of an Asian sweet chili sauce, yet it's nowhere near that cloying, as those can frequently be. It doesn't have much of a vinegar blast, yet there is enough there to temper the sweetness of the cane sugar and refined enough that it's more of a hint. It also allows those wonderful Scotch Bonnets to shine through. This is a simply a very well-crafted and very well-designed sauce.

It's this kind of skill in creating it that allows it to be so versatile. It's one of those sauces that you can use on nearly anything. Much like the Blair Pure Death sauce, this one can be used nearly everywhere, but unlike that other sauce, it's not hugely overpowering but so flavorful you can't help but love it anyway. This one accents and uplifts the food, in exactly the manner we hope for when we buy sauce, assuming that you're like me and buy for flavor and greater enjoyment and not in an exercise of blasting your mouth skin into tiny stringy pieces.

No discussion is really complete without mentioning the heat and while there's not a ton of it here, there is enough there that you're likely to miss it and it really gives a nice round level...bordering on a good solid punch to the mush, but never quite making it all the way there. It's around the aforementioned Pure Death, but not quite there. All in all, very well-tempered.

Bottom line: In case you hadn't gotten it by now, I've finally come across my first contender of 2015 for Sauce Of The Year. This thing is simply great and definitely a worthy addition to your stable.

Breakdown:

   Heat level: 5
   Flavor: 9
   Flexibility: 10
   Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 9

General Update Q3 2015

As regular readers of this column (or its archives) will know, TSAAF is greatly inspired by Scott Robert’s website (if you’re a chilehead, you should already know it, but if not, it’s http://www.scottrobertsweb.com/) and he has undergone another site renovation, as he is periodically prone to do, in an effort to both improve and keep things fresh. If you haven’t been there in a while, go check it out. I think it’s his best one yet. 

Obviously, the TSAAF has done little to none of this sort of thing since in the inception, it being the sort of thing that one has to make time to do so, as finding that time is out of the question. Scott works, I believe, in the field and is well immersed in the technology, which lends itself nicely to that task whereas I have no such interest, experience or facility to change things up greatly. The blog itself is not so far off from what I had in mind, as it is, aside from whatever change comes to pass (spoiler: probably adding a picture of the actual sauce bottle to the reviews - if anyone has any suggestions, I’m still wide open to those…) when it finally hits 100 sauce reviews. 

That number is fast approaching. As of this writing, it now stands at 97 (out of 129, including this, posts total), so doing the quick math, 3 more reviews in 3 months isn’t out of the question…I won’t, however, say it will be easy. Simple to type, sure, but not easy, given a shift in my job a couple months ago that has me traveling far more than at any other time in my professional career. Unlike Scott, I don’t now, never have and never will carry hot sauce with me into restaurants, so it will have to be when I’m home…I’ve also resumed an earlier diet shift from the spring that I temporarily dropped. Real talk here for a minute, the number one thing we put hot sauce on is meat and/or pizza. I haven’t had pizza at home in many months and can’t remember the last time there was a frozen one here at all. As to meat, my wife has elected to try on the vegetarian/vegan hat on again.  Since I eat out every day, if not more often, I try to make things easier by greatly tapering my meat intake at home. My son isn’t really a mega meat eater, either, so that just means there is less of it around in general. That then means a lesser opportunity for sauce, so there can frequently be a considerable lull in finding a use for hot sauce. On the plus side, open bottles are at a pretty low point, which means lots of room for new ones as the opportunities come up.

Less positively, I still don’t have any real contenders for Sauce Of The Year, with now 9 months gone. I’m not in full-on panic mode just yet, but I may wind up opening it up to previous years and get more bottles of previous contenders, both to see how they have held up and also to hold a “showdown” of sorts, possibly, where instead of trying to fit them in to whatever I happen to be doing, I make it a point to thoroughly test all of them. If it comes down to that, I will furnish a blow by blow breakdown of that testing. 

Wine blog is also churning along. I think that one is up to 32 different wines reviewed. I anticipate that one getting to around 40 or so by the end of the year.

In the arena of Yelp, my anniversary date of signing up is September 13^th and in the 2 years and 2 weeks-ish I’ve been on, I’ve hit 880+ reviews. I’m not going to breakdown the full stats until the end of the year, but I do an odd thing and typically write a fast review of a place if I haven’t reviewed it yet, but don’t always post it. Sometimes I will jot notes for a placeholder setting, sometimes it will be an actual change to an existing review or rating, but I frequently let a lot of those sit and sometimes gel for a bit. Where I’m going with this is that at any given time, I’ve got probably a couple dozen of those things waiting…I also have now 6 separate lists of places I want to get to, so that train will keep on rolling for some time to come…feel free to add me by following the widget and clicking through if you’re also on there and care to do that.

Next General Update will be the End Of The Year one, unless I hit 100 before that, in which case, that may get its own special post…stay tuned.