Gator Hammock Lethal Gator Hot Sauce Review

Gator Hammock Lethal Gator Hot Sauce

Now I love cracked pepper. Black peppercorns to me for a long time were the epitome of awesome. I like the green and red ones as well but I don't tend to like any of these elements in hot sauce and I'll tell you why. It's because, as anyone who's had a heaping dose of it can tell you, it tends towards bitter. So, let's consider hot sauce...it is cooked down, concentrated and distilled, in a way, which tends to amplify elements like that. In this case, it is to such an extent that it overrides nearly everything else. All you need to do is see the vast amount of black flecks to know that it's a component to an excessive degree.

It features several peppers: Cayenne, Habanero, Jalapeno and one of my all-time favorites, the criminally underutilized Scotch Bonnet but damn if you can pick out much more than the Habanero here and there. Despite this being the hottest entry, I wouldn't put the overall heat much beyond moderate and, as noted, the flavor is far from spectacular. If you were looking to cook with it, this wouldn't be a bad consideration for a pot of chili or something, but there are other things that serve that purpose better and it would really be nothing more than to just use this up. At around $8 a bottle or so, this is a very expensive thing to have that only fills that role.

Bottom line: This is one of the few sauces that one hopes for settling, as it's not a bad sauce when the bitterness of the black pepper isn't overpowering everything, but I made it through maybe 1/3 of a bottle before I called it quits as it was wrecking nearly everything I put it on. Total miss.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 5
            Flavor: 0
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 2

B. J. Bull Hot Sauce Review

B. J. Bull Hot & Spicy Special Sauce

I want to preface this by noting that there is only one place in the world, at least as of this writing and of which I'm aware, where this can be obtained and that is the B. J. Bull Bakery in Elko, Nevada. This is also done, from what I understand, in-house, in small batches.

The original intent is to go with pasties, ala the Cornwall variety and in that case, it does exceedingly well, particularly with the creamier ones, such as the chicken type made in the store. I imagine it would also do particularly well with beef. I have tried it on a number of other foods, as I had to take a bottle home with me and it has done, for the most part, remarkably well, with enough assertiveness not to get lost, but not so much as to overpower things. I've used it as dipping sauce and as accent and it performs equally well in either setting. It won't work for all foods and the very strong-flavored type, such as Mexican, for example, will clash in a big way, but it does very well overall.

It has quite a lot of ingredients and usually in that type of setting, I begin to worry if there is some masking or amateurish "kitchen-sink" notions going on with the chef, but I tell you, it works to perfection here and most of the things can be picked out and all of them combine to a stunning effect. Some of the things included here are chiles (obviously, but 3 or 4 different types), garlic, cloves, tomato puree, light brown sugar (if you're thinking a little barbeque sauce aspect here, you're not far off, but it is definitely NOT a barbeque sauce), currants, curry and good old cracked black pepper.

I'll be honest (as always) and mention this is not a super-roaring "tear your face off" type sauce. There is some heat, but it is mostly of the nice and subtle variety, enough to be present, but, again, not to be overbearing. It is a welcome addition, but part of the entire picture, as all of the components are. It also comes in a very large bottle for a very minimal $6, making this one of the best deals around.

Bottom line: Is this worth the drive to Elko? Probably not (and I'm guessing they would ship you some), but I would, however, detour out of the way a bit to get some of those pasties, pies and another bottle of this sauce. Definitely worth taking for a spin (all of them).


Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Wicked Cactus Aliento Del Diablo Hot Sauce Review

Wicked Cactus Aliento Del Diablo Hot Sauce

At the time I saw a lot of production out of Wicked Cactus, this was the hottest they were offering. Not sure if they're still around, as they've kind of dropped off the radar a bit. They had some hallmarks and one of them was for using Ghost Pepper chili dust to spike nearly everything. It tasted a lot like they were using smoked dust, which I didn't mind and in a way, it sort of made sense to give all of their stuff a recognizable signature note...however, often that note was the one pealing the loudest and it wasn't always necessarily the best one to have there.

As to this, it is basically a liquefied version of that note, more or less. This sauce has one of the worst suspension problems I've seen and it takes near-constant agitation to keep it in line. This, as you may expect, is a monumental pain and frankly the sauce isn't flavorful enough to make this too worthwhile. It actually strikes me more as a heat/flavor enhancer than actual sauce, though the heat is pretty far from considerable here.

"Aliento del Diablo" translates literally to "breath of devil", but they more probably meant Devil's Breath and smelling someone else's breath tends not to be super pleasurable and while they meant this for the sort of fiery connotations, it is more the other one that come into the fore here. The first ingredient is anything other than a pepper, which always makes me doubt immediately the veracity of claims of "scorching" or otherwise heat. If I really wanted the smoky sort of pepper taste here, which sort of strikes me a bit more as Habanero, then I could just buy the dust myself rather than use this sauce, mostly because I don't have to constantly agitate that.

Bottom line: As the *ahem* "torchbearer" of the Wicked Cactus line, it was neither the hottest nor the most flavorful and far from the best. It is a sauce that does not particularly go with anything, unless you intend on cooking with it, but that's more just making lemonade at that point. More or less a total misfire, from nearly any aspect.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 3
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 2