Best Hot Sauce 2016 + Recap

Like last year, this was not a strong year for sauces…mostly because I didn’t get to many of them. In fact, I’m going to let the numbers speak for themselves (all sauces not directly linked here can be clicked to directly from the Table Of Contents page).

Total posts (including this post): 147

Total views (as of this writing): 8768

Total single sauce full reviews: 119

Total double sauce full reviews: 1

Total sauces full reviewed: 120

Total mini-sauce reviews: 20

Total sauces reviewed, combined: 146

Total unopened sauces waiting on shelf for review: 9

Total opened sauces waiting for review: 0

Total open bottles in fridge: 13

Door sauces: 4

Back of fridge sauces: 3

Highest viewed review: 357 - Valentina's Extra Hot

Highest viewed article, any type: 357 - Valentina’s Extra Hot

If you compare and contrast these vs. last year, they are all down comparatively and last year itself was a down year to begin with…so the slide continues, mostly unabated. In fact, for the last 3 years, I’ve used Black Friday/Cyber Monday to load up and re-stock, but I still have sufficient of a backload as to make that pointless. It is taking me a long, long time to claw through sauces, for the most part and I can’t even imagine when I’m going to re-up again. I don’t see this changing notably, if at all, in 2017. I do still need to re-visit the pictures of some of the older sauces that haven’t made it up yet as well, but that is about as back burner as it can be.

Despite the sort of molasses crawl I’m doing with sauces this year, I did have a few contenders. For a while, I thought it would be between the Water Of Life from Terrapin Station (link to this sauce and all others I've reviewed is in TOC) and Pirate O’s Surface Of The Sun, but in reviewing this, that was because I was mistaken on the ratings. WOL came in at a 7, while SOTS was an 8, sort of rendering their competition over immediately. I would have given the edge to the SOTS for pure flexibility, but I did find another 8, that being the Boar’s Head Jalapeno, which is remarkably flavorful and flexible. I also found another 7 in B.J. Bull’s Hot Sauce, but that one wore on me after a bit and the Jak Jeckel Red, also at 7, which I liked better, but not enough for it to be in actual running for SOTY.

So, competition this year was rather minimal. SOTS was the leader, in my mind, but to compare vs. BHJ head to head, we have an edge to SOTS in heat and in value, about equal in flavor and a very slight edge to the BHJ in terms of flexibility. Thus, it was not much of a competition and SOTS was not seriously challenged at any point. However, if I'm being honest, this year is a notable step down from previous winners, a trend I'm hoping changes back in the other direction next year. As it is, your clear winner this year, with a rating a point less than the eventual winners of the last 4 years and less than some of the runners up of those previous years:
 

Pirate O’s Surface Of The Sun Hot Sauce

Previous TSAAF Sauce Of The Year winners:

2012 Sauce Of The Year: CaJohn’s Happy Beaver

2013 Sauce Of The Year: Blair’s Pure Death

2014 Sauce Of The Year: Born To Hula’s Ghost Of Ancho

2015 Sauce Of The Year: Voodoo Chile’s Voo Dew Honey Doo

My current standby sauces are unchanged. They are:

*Emeritus Everyday sauce: Trappey's Red Devil

*Everyday sauce: Blair’s Pure Death Sauce

*Grilling sauce: CaJohn's Bourbon-Infused Chipotle Habanero (BICH)

 Mexican-style sauce: Arizona Pepper’s Chipotle Habanero Pepper Sauce

*Emeritus Asian-style sauce: Huy Fong Chili-Garlic Sauce

 *Asian-style sauce: Zenso Sweet Chili Sauce

 *Louisiana-style sauce: Irazu Cayenne

 Sweet-hot sauce: CaJohn's Happy Beaver

 *Wife's sauce: DannyCash's Salvation Garlic-Serrano and/or Bottled-Up Anger

 *= Not looking for a replacement

There is, of course, also my wine about blog, the Happy Sippin’ Companion (HSC), which has now 55 posts, 50 of which are reviews. It has drawn, to date, 741 views.

Then we have Yelp. My review count is now 1209 reviews and 144 updates, which is a total of 1353 reviews, all in. I was "First To Review" 138 times.  I also have 755 "Friends" (feel free to add me, if you wish), 30 "Followers" and am up to 16 Lists. My distribution of ratings and further metrics are available on my Yelp page, which you can click to from my widget. As always, I have several on tap that I haven’t gotten around to posting as of yet.

So, as we put another one in the books, as always, thanks for dropping by. If there’s any changes to suggest or sauces you’d like to see me get to, please drop me a line in the comment section of any of the reviews.

Pirate O's Surface Of The Sun Hot Sauce Review

Pirate O's Surface Of The Sun Hot Sauce - [TSAAF Sauce Of The Year 2016]

This is obviously a relabel job and I don't know who is actually producing the sauce, but for all that, this is one of the better new ones I've had this year. There are a few things of note about it. The first of which is that it comes in a notably larger bottle than "normal" hot sauces. The second is that it is, strictly speaking, much closer to a BBQ sauce than an actual "straight" hot sauce, per se and lastly, this is the first time I think I've been exposed to green Tabasco and I must say that I find it oddly intriguing and much more palatable than the traditional red.

It does have a very nice medium-level spikiness to the heat, enough to take some attention, but not so much as to be intrusive. The flavor is definitely the main thing here and the sort of embracing approach they've taken to this sauce as its characteristic lends itself well to a fairly wide variety of different foods. I haven't tried it on Mexican food yet, but that is sort of the lone exception. There are certainly sauces I like better on fish, unquestionably, but revving up some accompanying cous cous, say, this does the job a lot better than what I would use on the fish.

Flavor profile is excellent, but I can see it being off-putting to someone who wants more of a straight hot sauce than the sort of BBQ-tinged near-hybrid this is. I don't particularly like ketchup, which precludes the vast majority of BBQ sauces for me, but this is a very effective substitute for me, despite the fact that its consistency is very runny and much closer to what one would anticipate in a hot sauce than a BBQ sauce, which is meant to stick to food. I've never seen a BBQ sauce that runny ever, in fact and the label portrays it specifically as a hot sauce.

Bottom line: This was an afterthought purchase, but it was definitely one of the shining lights of this year. In a sort of competition vacuum, this becomes the closest thing, thus far, to a SOTY contender.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 8

Cholula Chipotle Hot Sauce Review

Cholula Chipotle Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juW3LtNiaUM

After the awfulness of the Chili-Garlic version, admittedly, I thought of doing this mostly for coverage, but I'm happy to say that this is more what I was hoping for when I bought both, which is a modification to a tried and true that represents more a chance of pace of Cholula's already winning formula, perhaps equally tasty, but more another option than a separate sauce or anything else and more than anything, that's what we find here.

Obviously, Chipotle is a very strong taste, so there is no mistaking that and if you're not a fan of that flavor, you may want to steer your way clear of this. There is not really liking that flavor a little bit or going into it partially; either you do enjoy or you don't. I do, as one might imagine, though as with all things, I prefer not to be beaten over the head and have one note be overpowering. Very easy to do with this particular flavoring, of course and Cholula frankly does a great job of tempering it. In fact, if you're not familiar with Chipotle flavoring, but are familiar with Cholua, this is a great entry point into some new flavor territory.

As with the other Cholula sauces, there is not really any heat to be found here particularly, so I'd be shocked if anyone found this challenging on any level in that respect.

Bottom line: A very nice addition to the Cholula flavor stable. I can't say I like it better than regular Cholula, per se, but I suppose that was rather the point: separate but equal.

UPDATE: After shooting the video, I have noticed an artificiality to the flavor that is unfortunately a note I am not able to ignore. I have re-rated the sauce to reflect that.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 3

Cholula Chili-Garlic Hot Sauce Review

Cholula Chili-Garlic Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dv0NKMS3EU

Cholula has definitely made a well-deserved name for itself with its very strong entry into a mass-produced sauce, which, while nothing stunning to me after all this time (and I've probably quite a few 5-gallon buckets over the years), is the equal of any of the various Mexican style sauces with high market penetration. The taste is worn out on me and I moved well beyond it even prior to discovering my current allure as a chilehead, but it is still an acceptable standby and the wooden cap I still find comforting to a degree.

That aside, all of the "old" names, such as this, Tabasco, et. al., are no dummies and have not lost the lesson that they need to expand and adapt to survive. Chili-garlic, in particular Habanero-Garlic, has definitely made some strong waves for itself as a separate category and it's no surprise Cholula has elected to make an entry into that. Sadly, it is a poor one.

As good as they do their regular sauce, they do this one poorly. It is thin and gruely, more like a Louisiana-style sauce than a self-respecting Mexican sauce. I don't detect any difference at all in chilis used, but instead is an overbearing, nearly overpowering at times aspect of garlic that has all the wonderfulness of that bottled minced garlic, which is to say, none at all. With Cholula in general, there is precious little heat and this follows, only somehow lower.

Bottom line: Disgusting flavor, low heat and a watery texture make this a surefire miss.


Breakdown:

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

Overall: 0

Pain Is Good Cayenne Hot Sauce Review

Pain Is Good Cayenne Hot Sauce

Seen quite a few of these flask bottles around and wasn't super-in-love with the labeling of three guys apparently screaming due to the ferocity of the sauce blazing out there, so passed it by for years. I forget how long ago now, but I saw it and figured I'd finally give it a shot, being in need of a Louisiana style sauce and all, a condition in which I seemingly perpetually find myself...

Anyway, this is another that elects to undermine the beauty in simplicity that is a Louisiana style sauce with lots of stray elements. Does it need onion powder and tomato paste (??!!!) and garlic powder and cayenne powder with the cayenne peppers and celery salt, of all things? Not if you're trying to make an actual good Louisiana-style sauce, it doesn't. This also contains the wrong vinegar.

Because of all this "complexity", this sauce is a mess, without an identity and meandering all over the place. The flavors contrast and fight each other, rather than complement, even with intense agitation and this shifts focus and detracts from the flavor of the food, which its somewhat jarring taste also tends to impose that same confusion. There is little to no heat to this, which makes it mostly, if not nearly entirely, pointless.

Bottom line: With the ludicrous title of the sauce, one expects something intense, with high piquancy, but this is neither of those things and is not even particularly interesting. Can (and should) be avoided.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 1

Q3 2K16 Update

This is the first time in the history of this blog of back to back blog updates, but sauce usage fell right off the radar pretty much this quarter, which is to be expected, given the busiest time of the year for my job, which tends to mean a ton of travel and about the last thing I want to do is pack sauce around and where I go generally does not have tons of sauce hanging around that is not mass-produced stuff. I also eat out a lot, in general, but especially on those trips and I’m not the guy whipping out a bottle of hot sauce at a restaurant. 

This did give me a nice chance to clean out the fridge and I’m nearly out of open bottles now. Q4 sees me hanging around the city a bit more, so I’m hoping for more chances…truth be told, I don’t have ANY contenders at all for the SOTY and the same dilemma as last year is going on. I feel confident something will come up and Roger at Burn Your Tongue in Ogden has a lot of cool stuff coming, so I’m not super worried…yet.

Speaking of Burn Your Tongue, if you’re a chilehead and located from Nephi north, it’s worth the drive up, so definitely keep your eye on his social media stuff as he expands. 

I’ve also continued to try everything spicy offered by any of the chain restaurants and several of whatever local ones I could find. I remember being moderately impressed by a ghost chili something-or-other at TGI Friday’s, but apparently not enough to remember the name. It was not what I’d consider challenging for a chilehead, but surprisingly more than expected for them or any other chain. Aside from that, lots of Habanero-flavored stuff floating around but not a lot of it any good…

Q2 2K16 Update

Some housekeeping from the last go-around, when I made this nifty Table Of Contents and then promptly forgot to update it. That has been corrected now, so it’s usable and up to date. I also added some more sauce bottle photos, though I still have a number that I’m working on. I hope to be able to get this wrapped up by the end of the year, but finding time is persistently an issue…

I added another 7 sauces this last quarter, which is nearly double what I did the previous quarter. Slowly by slowly starting to replenish the door shelf, though I also need to wipe about most of what is there, then go on another shopping trip in the near future as mostly what I have waiting on the on-deck shelf is superhots and I don’t, by and large, always find those suitable for everyday eating. Obviously, I like them a lot, but they tend to get overbearing and impose themselves on both the food and my taste buds and that can quickly get tiresome and unpleasant. The whole point of this is to find a happy medium of adding some nice heat, but more importantly, enhancing and elevating the food to a tastier level.

I’ve also eaten through every single one of the recent corporate “hot “offerings in the fast food world and universally, all of them are junk and not something I care to repeat. I keep debating doing a write-up on those, but then ultimately decide that, despite my temptation, they are not worth my time and effort to do that. It is nice to see Sriracha doing so well in various snack foods. Though I’ve long since tired and moved beyond the flavor, it will always hold fond remembrances and a special place in my heart accordingly and David Tran seems to me to be one of the “good guys” in the industry.

As always, if there is a sauce you want me to try, as long as it does not have either onions or extract, let me know and I’ll take a look at getting it in the queue. Thanks for dropping  in.