Best Hot Sauce 2017 + Recap

Every once in a while, I think about how long I’ve done this and it sort of seems surreal so much time has passed. This is now the 6^th year I’ve been picking a SOTY and while it’s still slower than I’d like, I think I’m finally settling in to more of a regular order of things. The days of me blazing through sauces hot and heavy are probably realistically over, but my interest in heat remains strong, so there’s no thoughts of abandoning or otherwise stopping the flow here. 2017 was sort of an uneven year for sauces. I had mostly middle of the road ones overall. I also did a lot of catching up on pictures, though at some point, I will probably take another crack at getting it even closer to complete, but that is in no way a priority or urgency.

As usual, all sauces not directly linked here can be clicked to from the Table Of Contents page.

Total posts (including this post): 170
Total views (as of this writing): 10,758
Total single sauce full reviews: 136
Total double sauce full reviews: 2
Total sauces full reviewed: 138
Total mini-sauce reviews: 20
Total sauces reviewed, combined: 158
Total unopened sauces waiting on shelf for review: 5
Total opened sauces waiting for review: 0
Total open bottles in fridge: 8
Door sauces: 6
Back of fridge sauces: 2
 Highest viewed review: 393 - O' Brother Chipotle-Habanero Hot Sauce
Highest viewed article, any type: 393 - O' Brother Chipotle-Habanero Hot Sauce

In relatively related news, since I got it, the sauce I’ve probably used the most is not in the running for SOTY, but deserves an honorable mention anyway and again, this is one that can be obtained at the grocery store. It was one where I never knew I needed a ramen sauce until I did and once I had it, I wondered how I ever lived without it. That sauce is the Private Selection Shichimi Togarishi and it’s probably the sauce I’ve had the single-most greatest amount, though realistically, that’s more related to several dietary changes. I’m still also using the Boar’s Head directly as a pizza sauce, so a fair amount of that as well. Two of the door fridge sauces are actually those two mentioned in this paragraph, so mostly probably I will always have at least 2, though those are really not so good outside of those specific uses for which I keep them.

Speaking of, my current standby sauces, notes in the TOC where I've done a review, are:
*Emeritus Everyday sauce: Trappey's Red Devil
*Emeritus Asian-style sauce: Huy Fong Chili-Garlic Sauce
*Everyday sauce (and current overall favorite): Blair’s Pure Death Sauce
*Grilling sauce: CaJohn's Bourbon-Infused Chipotle Habanero (BICH)
*Ramen/Japanese sauce: Private Selection Shichimi Togarishi
*Pizza sauce (as in used instead of actual pizza sauce): Boar’s Head Jalapeno Pepper Sauce
Mexican-style sauce: Arizona Pepper’s Chipotle Habanero Pepper Sauce
*Asian-style sauce: Zenso Sweet Chili Sauce
*Louisiana-style sauce: Irazu Cayenne
 Sweet-hot sauce: CaJohn's Happy Beaver

*= Not looking for a replacement

 Again, competition this year was rather minimal. With the 5 still waiting on the shelf, I have some strong hopes for 2018, but I’m probably not going on any sauce rampages until I (finally) clear out the unopened ones that have been waiting. I stopped by one of my usual brick & mortar haunts, which was the southern of the 2 (Pirate O’s in Draper – the northern one is Burn Your Tongue in Ogden) and they had nothing new after I did my last clear-out, so next visit will probably be BYT at some point in the New Year.

Anyway, in more or less a runaway, your clear winner this year: Z’s Shield Maiden Hot Sauce. One of the things I like best about a lot of the SOTY is that they choose themselves. Despite some fairly stiff competition from Torchbearer’s The Rapture, which was the main leader for nearly all of this year and a fine, well-made and tasty sauce, despite being far and away the hottest I’ve had in the line-up without aid of extract, the Shield Maiden hit me immediately in a way reminiscent of still one of my all-time favorites, Black’s Pure Death. While it is perhaps not up to that incredible level, I find myself liking it more and more over time and look forward to using it, something true of all other SOTY winners as well. In point of fact, I’ve whipped through a bottle of each of the previous winners this year, something that perhaps contributed to the bit of a struggle to choose this year’s and I will definitely be picking up more Shield Maiden when I come across it again.

Previous TSAAF Sauce Of The Year winners:
2012: CaJohn’s Happy Beaver
2013: Blair’s Pure Death
2014: Born To Hula’s Ghost Of Ancho
2015: Voodoo Chile’s Voo Dew Honey Doo
2016: Pirate O’s Surface Of The Sun Hot Sauce

There is, of course, also my wine about blog, the Happy Sippin’ Companion (HSC), which has now 63 posts, 57 of which are reviews. It has drawn, to date, 1,033 views in the 4 years it’s been active.

Then we have Yelp. My review count is now 1400 reviews and 159 updates, which is a total of 1559 reviews, all in. I was "First To Review" 161 times.  I joined in September 2013, for reference. I also have 796 "Friends" (feel free to add me, if you wish), 37 "Followers" and am up to 18 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 and in fact, decided to draw the line at 1400 this year. More will be sure to launch in early January, so stay tuned if you like those.

For those of you who made it, I appreciate you 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.

Tiki Bar Hot Sauce Review

CaJohn's Tiki Bar Hotter Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o3WnzR3MX8

I like to keep a fruit-based sauce or two around, but when I saw papaya in this one, after what turned out to be an ultimately unhappy experience with a prior product, I was a bit leery, but if there's one guy I trust to make a great sauce, it's CaJohn and so I went for it...and was instantly rewarded. Think of this as one of the best teriyaki sauces you've had in your life (in fact, I'm sorely tempted to go to a Hawaiian place and get some musubi to double-check myself) and you'll be about there. The label bills this sauce as the "hotter hot sauce", which makes about zero sense here as there is precious little heat to be had. Also of interest is that the ingredients mentions the word "chile" a couple times, but with no indication of which chile, very unusual for CaJohn's products, which usually are very specific in which pepper is burning you up at the time.

Bottom line: This is not, it should be noted, precisely a teriyaki sauce, but that is definitely the closest thing to it and I would keep a bottle of this around specifically for that purpose. Another very tasty entry from one of the reigning kings of the hot sauce world.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor:7

Overall: 6

Z's Twang Hot Sauce Review

Z's Hot Sauce Twang!

Another entry from Z's, which I'm starting to see in a lot more brick and mortars. I've tried to keep my hot sauce spending exclusive to those locations when possible and I've happily seen all of their inventory increase as far as selection. This one is based on Utah and I believe came largely from farmer's markets and now into retail, so a good building there. Given how excited I was about the Shield Maiden sauce (reviewed elsewhere on this blog), I thought I'd take a shot at their everyday sauce, as I was hoping it was more like a milder version of the awesome Shield Maiden...

 ...and immediately noted that it was going for an earthiness with the apple cider vinegar. I typically dislike that stuff, so it was a good test to see if my typical disdain for that element could be overpowered by the sauce. Initially, I found the sauce pretty enjoyable. Aside from the apple cider vinegar, flavor was excellent, though heat was somewhat minimal. Unfortunately, my propensity is to wind up focusing on the vinegar flavor notes and I found myself enjoying the sauce much less over time.

It is definitely highly flexible, though and this would do well as a table sauce for breakfast, works reasonably well on chicken strips and pizza and is indeed a pretty solid all-around sauce...if only it just used a different vinegar...

Bottom line: I started from mildly liking this sauce to more tolerating it towards the end. While not bad, there are a lot of other sauces I'd rather have.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 9
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 5

Psycho Tropic Hot Sauce Review

Voodoo Chile Psycho Tropic Hot Sauce

Interesting choice to name it after a term used with high specificity in regards to mind-altering drugs, but hyperbole is part of the joy of the hot sauce world and oneupsmanship in general, I suppose. In this case, the name is broken up into the more pedestrian and somewhat generic "psycho" along with "tropic" standing alone, in obvious reference to the preponderance of tropic fruits in this blend. Now, I'm a pretty big fan of this company, their Honey Doo Peppadew sauce won SOTY not so long ago and so anything I see from them, as long as it doesn't contain deal-breaking elements, I'm in to try.

For this one, the main flavors are papaya and guava, which lends the impression of more or less a basic fruity sweetness. If you don't particularly like those flavors and I don't in general, this sauce will fall fairly flat, though it took me a bit longer than usual to decide I ultimately didn't like the flavor much. Like most fruit sauces, this one is far better with fried foods or saltier foods in general and if you do enjoy the flavor, it makes a very solid dipping sauce.

Heat, despite containing the current record holder for SHUs, the Carolina Reapers, is a bit on the lighter side than what I was expecting. There are also Datil Peppers and Scotch Bonnet, which round this out nicely, though the heat is definitely more on the moderate side. I don't find either the Reapers or Datils particularly flavorful but Scotch Bonnet is one of my favorites and I wish it tasted more like those than the others. Heat is probably edging towards too much for most people, but chileheads will not find this much of a challenge, if at all. I do wonder if this has been reformulated, as the ad copy cites sweet onions and I neither taste them nor see them on the ingredient panel of my bottle...

Bottom line: This one will be largely dependent on how much you like the stronger flavors I've mentioned in this review. For me, the taste here is mostly a miss, but consistency is good and the heat is definitely acceptable.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 3