Best Hot Sauce 2019 + Recap
Now in it’s 8th year for TSAAF and a lot of changes. Yes, definitely started slow, partially because I was having sourcing issues, that is until I discovered my favorite purveyor, Burn Your Tongue, was back in action again, and Roger, the proprietor of that fine company, gave me a shot in the arm and a boot in the ass to get going again. Thanks again for the support, brother! I can’t overstate it enough, as this blog was clearly headed into me finishing up the remaining sauces and then probably into hiatus, without Roger’s boost. It helps to have someone behind you in projects like this, for sure.
I also had occasion to meet Roger in person and it was great to hang out, check out some of his new stuff and talk hot sauces and the hot sauce world at large. We have a few things on the backburner and hopefully, we’ll be able to get some pretty cool stuff in front of you for 2020. He also gave me some goodies, which is the first time (that I recall anyway) I’ve accepted anything spicy for purposes of review. Many of the sauces will be showing up in 2020, but some of the other items have already shown up on the YouTube FOH series. You can find those in the “Everything Else” playlist, available here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAnn6WnuE_CK6y3X2bCzZTkh3bGUyv8H1
Speaking of playlists, as I first mentioned in the Special Annoucement post a few months ago, I have since added video support on YouTube for some of the sauces, which is in this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAnn6WnuE_CLmTR1bCja2mywi-trXdAJO.
It also bears mentioning that the FOH video series is NOT limited to hot sauces only, as this blog is. Right now, I am posting sauce support videos every Sunday and the additional content as it arises (but mostly Wednesdays). I have gone through a number of subjects not appropriate for the blog, such as snacks, a few head to head battles, including an ongoing nut tournament, a review of all of the hot sauce offerings of the major Mexican fast food chain restaurants in the area (actually, that one is a bit iffy, as it could conceivably fit on the blog and those chains do have some of those sauces on grocer’s shelves now), and intend on going through some of the spicy restaurant menu offerings at some point as well. I’ve tried every single restaurant spicy item, chain or otherwise, I’ve been able to find, both where I am and when traveling, though all of them were prior to me doing the FOH series. A number of them were also prior to me discontinuing eating anything with extract, so not sure how many of those I’m going to re-do on camera. Anything comes out in chains, I’m there, but without exception, everything I’ve had at one of those, ghost pepper, reaper pepper, whatever, has been pretty tame. If there is stuff you want to see, though, let me know. I’m having a blast filming that and hopefully you will enjoy watching as well.
I’m going to be doing some planning in the near future (right now, I have content filmed and scheduled through January), as many of the sauces on the blog are discontinued or otherwise unavailable, so the percentage of previously sauces that I’m able to do video support on is somewhat limited. I had a similar problem, in fact, when I tried to add pictures to the reviews. I want to get all the remaining SOTY winners and all of the remaining standby sauces done and up as quickly as possible, though availability on a number of the SOTY entries is proving challenging.
2019 overall was another slow year for both posts and sauces, though slightly more active than 2018, though, as mentioned, nearly solely in back half. Once again, it was late, as in Quarter 4 late, before I got any SOTY contenders, but once I did, there were some solid entries. Before I get to that, though, a bit of housekeeping. I have moved my unopened sauces to a shelf about a yard away from the desk where I’m typing this now, where they are eyeing me and telling me to hurry up and get to them, so hopefully will be able to keep better momentum or at least more consistency. The videos are a blast, though and I love doing them, so that has proven to be great motivation.
As usual, all sauces can be clicked to from the Table Of Contents page, which, thanks to the FOH video support, I have kept consistently updated throughout the year.
Total posts (including this post): 205
Total views (as of this writing): ~18,072
Total single sauce full reviews: 165
Total double sauce full reviews: 2
Total sauces full reviewed: 167
Total mini-sauce reviews: 26
Total sauces reviewed, combined: 193
Total sauces with FOH video content: 15
Total unopened sauces waiting on shelf for review: 14
Total opened sauces waiting for review: 0
Total open sauces waiting for video support: 1
Total open bottles in fridge: 12
Highest viewed review: 868 - O' Brother Chipotle-Habanero Hot Sauce
Highest viewed article, any type: 868 - O' Brother Chipotle-Habanero Hot Sauce
Current standby sauces 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)
*Pizza sauce (as in used instead of actual pizza sauce): Boar’s Head Jalapeno Pepper Sauce
Mexican-style sauce: ???
*Asian-style sweet sauce: Zenso Sweet Chili Sauce
*Louisiana-style sauce: Irazu Cayenne
Sweet-hot sauce: CaJohn's Happy Beaver
*= Not looking for a replacement
Some changes there. Kroger has 86'ed the delightful Private Selection Shichimi Togarishi, so the Irazu is now doing double-duty there on the ramen. I don’t know that I will get another sauce just for that particular food (as usually happens, I get really, really tired of it). The Shichimi was not useful for anything else, but it was spectacular in that setting. On the Mexican front, I probably should have updated it a year or two ago, when I was first unable to get more of the sauce I had in there, but it was not a priority and I went most of last year without any contenders. I think the Arizona Peppers was something from Target, possibly, and have not been able to find it since. Sloppy, shameful housekeeping on my part. Anyway, finding a good standby sauce there is back on the table for 2020...I had some strong entries this year, but that sauce category seems to be one that I’m particular about, moreso than other sauce types...I am leaning towards the Jersey Barnfire, though...
With precious little competition, and to no surprise for those of you sharp-eyed enough to see the update to the blog TOC earlier today, the SOTY for 2019 is the Torchbearer Ultimate Annihilation sauce. I had a whole video planned out, where I was going to do me a little bit of competition, but the Ultimate Annihilation was a 9 and there was nothing else that high. Probably, longtime readers knew, as soon as I compared it to Blair’s Pure Death, one of my all-time favorite sauces, that it would be a strong contender, if not a lock outright. Torchbearer tends to make excellent sauces and I’m pleased with this entry into the Hall of Flame for 2019. This is truly a worthy and excellent sauce and even though I initially thought First Blood would be in there closer to the end, once I had the Torchbearer, that became the sauce to beat. Congratulations to the Torchbearer Sauces team!
Previous TSAAF Sauce Of The Year winners (links in Table Of Contents page):
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
2017: Z’s Shield Maiden Hot Sauce
2018: Taco Jesus Cayenne Pepper Sauce
There is also my wine about blog, the Happy Sippin’ Companion (HSC), which has now 71 posts, 63 of which are reviews. It has drawn, to date, ~1,300 views in the 5 years it’s been active. It has been put on inactive status as of 2019, with no plans currently to resurrect it. I both got a bit wined out and also seem to be struggling with a greater influx of allergies this year, which has introduced a number of issues with former consumption items that were previously trouble-free, such as wine.
Then we have Yelp. My distribution of ratings and further metrics are available on my Yelp page, which you can click to from my widget.
As mentioned, I’m very excited for 2020. Lots more sauces to try (once I wade through and whittle down the open bottles in the refrigerator door a bit), lots more food adventures to go on with the FOH video series, which has been incredibly liberating and invigorating. We will hit the 200 mark for overall sauces reviewed next year on this blog, a benchmark which I’m very excited about and who knows, maybe even 200 full reviews outright. I’m already done a written review concurrent with an FOH addendum posting (which is my first ever 6 bottle review) and gotten into a lot more hot treats other than just the sauces, so I’m pretty eager to see what 2020 will bring for new experiences on this front. I’m hoping you’ll join me.
As always, I appreciate you dropping by. If there’s any changes to suggest or sauces you’d like to see me get to or any video ideas you may have, please drop me a line in the comment section of any of the reviews or support videos.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Dat’l Do It Brewer’s 6 Pack Limited Edition Hot Sauce(s) Mini-Review
Dat’l Do It Brewer’s 6 Pack Limited Edition Hot Sauce(s)
As mentioned in the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV7NNvkc12s), this blog post is being posted concurrent with the video (as in on the same day, not necessarily to the minute, unless I can time it well enough) support for it. I think in concept this six pack of sauces thing is not a bad idea, but like a lot of concepts, execution does not meet the ideal. This a good case in point. Three of the six sauces I tossed after filming, as they were both bad sauces and not something I was about to eat just for the sake of eating. All of them detracted from the chicken chunk I put them on and were far from great shakes solo. Specifically, those were the “Asian Teriyaki,” the Cayenne, and the Garlic.
The other three were marginally better, but managed to make it into the fridge for potential usage. Those were the Chipotle, Jalapeno and Habanero. Of those, only the Habanero had any heat and it was relatively minuscule, basically a 1 on the scale. The labels are meant to mimic various beers and the sauces themselves are an approximation of various other sauces, which I will get into more soon. They were all very vinegar-forward sauces, very astringent and very watery. None of them had a restrictor cap, but all of them needed one.
In addition to the attempts with chicken strips in the video, I also tested the three remaining on some tacos. Of those, the Jalapeno was ok, but the other two read as far too vinegary to be very enjoyable, particularly the Chipotle. I also used them in a bbq sauce base I was making for bbq pork, which transported a ton of vinegar, but not anywhere near the flavor I was also wanting. I think my best bet is to treat them all like vaguely pepper-flavored vinegar and use accordingly.
Sauce by sauce breakdown looks like this:
Cayenne - this was your basic stab at a Louisiana style sauce, but it was cheap-tasting on a level that makes Crystal look high end. This was one of the poorest overall in terms of flavor.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 0
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 0
Garlic - this was the previous sauce, with some sort of garlic concentrate added. Adding a fake garlic taste profile to an already bad-tasting sauce worked about as well as expected.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 0
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 0
Asian Teriyaki - the first that I tried and easily one of the most clumsily and ineptly named, with the superfluous and meaningless “Asian” descriptor added to it. Can’t imagine any actual Asian sauce tasting anywhere like this, which is a much more pungent version of the first sauce, with a very slightly stab at teriyaki on the back end. Definitely never had anything remotely like this in any Asian dish or sauce and particularly not in a teriyaki sauce. Borderline offensive and not only to the palate.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 0
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 0
Jalapeno - this was one was kind of interesting. Lots of astringency to it, lots of pungency, but also a brightness to it that was somewhat interesting. This is one that is on the knife edge and I believe it is taking a shot towards the Tabasco Jalapeno, but also might along the lines of the Culinary Tours Jalapeno as a green hot sauce. This one might be ultimately also hitting the trash, but I’m intrigued enough to keep it around for now.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 2
Flexibility: 2
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 1
Chipotle - rather than being twice as hot as Jalapeno, this one was mostly a flavoring system. Very nice sauce and by far the best tasting of the six, this one tastes like a lower grade version of the Tabasco Chipotle.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 4
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 3
Habanero - easily the hottest of them all (though that is not saying much), this one is more like a Louisiana style sauce, just using a different pepper rather than the Tabasco Habanero. I don’t personally care for the flavor of Habanero a great deal, so the flavor was not so great to me, but was probably the second best tasting sauce, which speaks to how bad some of the others were.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 2
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 2
Bottom line: This is a gift set that it is difficult to see where the appeal might lie. It will not please chileheads or fans of flavor. It is more novelty than anything and does not even remotely live up to the promise of the manufacturer or the idea nor does it represent those styles of sauces or, in a couple cases, even the flavor of the peppers themselves, particularly well. Even for $10, this is ultimately not worth getting.
Cumulative Breakdown (Entire Set):
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 1
Flexibility: 2
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1
Overall: 1
The other three were marginally better, but managed to make it into the fridge for potential usage. Those were the Chipotle, Jalapeno and Habanero. Of those, only the Habanero had any heat and it was relatively minuscule, basically a 1 on the scale. The labels are meant to mimic various beers and the sauces themselves are an approximation of various other sauces, which I will get into more soon. They were all very vinegar-forward sauces, very astringent and very watery. None of them had a restrictor cap, but all of them needed one.
In addition to the attempts with chicken strips in the video, I also tested the three remaining on some tacos. Of those, the Jalapeno was ok, but the other two read as far too vinegary to be very enjoyable, particularly the Chipotle. I also used them in a bbq sauce base I was making for bbq pork, which transported a ton of vinegar, but not anywhere near the flavor I was also wanting. I think my best bet is to treat them all like vaguely pepper-flavored vinegar and use accordingly.
Sauce by sauce breakdown looks like this:
Cayenne - this was your basic stab at a Louisiana style sauce, but it was cheap-tasting on a level that makes Crystal look high end. This was one of the poorest overall in terms of flavor.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 0
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 0
Garlic - this was the previous sauce, with some sort of garlic concentrate added. Adding a fake garlic taste profile to an already bad-tasting sauce worked about as well as expected.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 0
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 0
Asian Teriyaki - the first that I tried and easily one of the most clumsily and ineptly named, with the superfluous and meaningless “Asian” descriptor added to it. Can’t imagine any actual Asian sauce tasting anywhere like this, which is a much more pungent version of the first sauce, with a very slightly stab at teriyaki on the back end. Definitely never had anything remotely like this in any Asian dish or sauce and particularly not in a teriyaki sauce. Borderline offensive and not only to the palate.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 0
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 0
Jalapeno - this was one was kind of interesting. Lots of astringency to it, lots of pungency, but also a brightness to it that was somewhat interesting. This is one that is on the knife edge and I believe it is taking a shot towards the Tabasco Jalapeno, but also might along the lines of the Culinary Tours Jalapeno as a green hot sauce. This one might be ultimately also hitting the trash, but I’m intrigued enough to keep it around for now.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 2
Flexibility: 2
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 1
Chipotle - rather than being twice as hot as Jalapeno, this one was mostly a flavoring system. Very nice sauce and by far the best tasting of the six, this one tastes like a lower grade version of the Tabasco Chipotle.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 4
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 3
Habanero - easily the hottest of them all (though that is not saying much), this one is more like a Louisiana style sauce, just using a different pepper rather than the Tabasco Habanero. I don’t personally care for the flavor of Habanero a great deal, so the flavor was not so great to me, but was probably the second best tasting sauce, which speaks to how bad some of the others were.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 2
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 2
Bottom line: This is a gift set that it is difficult to see where the appeal might lie. It will not please chileheads or fans of flavor. It is more novelty than anything and does not even remotely live up to the promise of the manufacturer or the idea nor does it represent those styles of sauces or, in a couple cases, even the flavor of the peppers themselves, particularly well. Even for $10, this is ultimately not worth getting.
Cumulative Breakdown (Entire Set):
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 1
Flexibility: 2
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1
Overall: 1
Monday, December 16, 2019
CaJohn's Dread Hot Sauce Review
CaJohn's The Formidable Dread Hot Sauce
UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA-GBob1dPg
Caribbean sauces are always kind of fun to me, treading an interesting line between Louisiana-style and a somewhat complex fruit-based sauce. They are almost always hotter than their bayou cousin sauces and inevitably a lot more complicated, much like the rich history of the cuisine there, which tries to utilize nearly everything available (see various Jerked chicken recipes). Often that propensity can pigeon-hole the sauces a bit, as intense heat and varying sweetness won't always work well in the various settings.
Indeed, that is the case here. It works well with lighter meats, but creates some dilemmas elsewhere, often to the detriment of whatever it's being used on. The lines become a lot more topsy-turvy. For most foods, when we use hot sauce, we want flavor amplified. This sauce likes to run it through a kaleidoscope lens and then set everything on fire. With the ample Moruga Scorpions playing havoc, this is also not a sauce to be taken lightly. I wound up with the full brunt of it trying to chase the complexities of the flavor profile. We have vanilla and lime and rum and a host of other Caribbean (and maybe pirate) staples and I caught fleeting glimpses of the flavor, but never all at once, thanks to the steady flavor profile of the peppers, and ate quite a bit of sauce trying. This is initially a bit low key, but the build gets nice fairly rapidly and I'd put it at a solid 6, maybe edging up a bit towards a 7 at full burn. The label lists it for experienced chileheads and in terms of heat, I'd agree, but also finding those subtle nuances of flavor. Most people would be distracted by the heat, I think.
Bottom line: This is a sauce that I find more of a special occasion sauce. Like the vast majority of CaJohn's sauces, this is extremely well-done, but its distinctness removes it from a lot of foods or even everyday use as a table sauce.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 7
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 6
UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA-GBob1dPgCaribbean sauces are always kind of fun to me, treading an interesting line between Louisiana-style and a somewhat complex fruit-based sauce. They are almost always hotter than their bayou cousin sauces and inevitably a lot more complicated, much like the rich history of the cuisine there, which tries to utilize nearly everything available (see various Jerked chicken recipes). Often that propensity can pigeon-hole the sauces a bit, as intense heat and varying sweetness won't always work well in the various settings.
Indeed, that is the case here. It works well with lighter meats, but creates some dilemmas elsewhere, often to the detriment of whatever it's being used on. The lines become a lot more topsy-turvy. For most foods, when we use hot sauce, we want flavor amplified. This sauce likes to run it through a kaleidoscope lens and then set everything on fire. With the ample Moruga Scorpions playing havoc, this is also not a sauce to be taken lightly. I wound up with the full brunt of it trying to chase the complexities of the flavor profile. We have vanilla and lime and rum and a host of other Caribbean (and maybe pirate) staples and I caught fleeting glimpses of the flavor, but never all at once, thanks to the steady flavor profile of the peppers, and ate quite a bit of sauce trying. This is initially a bit low key, but the build gets nice fairly rapidly and I'd put it at a solid 6, maybe edging up a bit towards a 7 at full burn. The label lists it for experienced chileheads and in terms of heat, I'd agree, but also finding those subtle nuances of flavor. Most people would be distracted by the heat, I think.
Bottom line: This is a sauce that I find more of a special occasion sauce. Like the vast majority of CaJohn's sauces, this is extremely well-done, but its distinctness removes it from a lot of foods or even everyday use as a table sauce.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 7
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 6
Saturday, December 7, 2019
Danny Cash Ghost (Dirt) Rider Hot Sauce Review
Danny Cash's Ghost Rider Jolokia Ghost Chile Hot Sauce
UPDATE: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpwfGISWh3E
This is one that's been hanging around the on deck shelf a while, a good long while, long enough that the sauce has gotten a label refresh and name change to "Dirt Rider," prompted, no doubt, by an objection from someone at Marvel over the usage of flamey motorcycles along with the name usage of "Ghost Rider." Dirt Rider also seems to have a couple of variations, as a sauce, so this won't strictly cover that side of things, although one of these is an item for item duplication of this Ghost Rider sauce.
That fun aside, this is rated at 18/10 on the bottle, which is overstating it a bit more than a tad and is also pegged as extremely hot. Any of the peppers that formerly held the Guinness SHU record provide ample snort and the Jolokias that make up this sauce leave little doubt of that. Still, this sauce is also a strong indicator that the vaunted Ghost peppers can also be flavorful. This is quite a good tasting sauce, by itself and when it can be left to shine as a composite sauce. Let me expand on that a bit.
Some sauces, such as the Louisiana style, are very aggressive in their vinegar-forwardness and so they do a good job of standing up when used with food. The vinegar will temper over-rich cream sauces nicely, while hopefully some nice heat comes behind to kick the food enjoyment. You get some blend, but the sauce is mostly still detectable...in the right amounts. This facet can turn against you and overpower (and potentially wreck) the food. Other sauces will want to blend in much more considerably, notably the Mexican style sauces, changing the composite flavor less notably, but driving the heat up somewhat. For this one, it's one of the few where the sauce by itself is pretty tasty and works well with things like chicken strips or pizza, which tend not to detract from the sauce during the initial bite, rather mixing in the mouth during chewing, but mixed into things, such as macaroni and cheese, the vinegar vanishes, along with most of the pepper subtleties, leaving a very solid heat, but also a lot of the bitterness that seems to accompany most of the superhots. This obviously renders its usefulness down somewhat.
I had hopes of using it in place of a Louisiana-style, given that it comes with a pretty nifty restrictor cap, but this one is much more finicky than I had initially realized. It definitely is one that does well, perhaps great, even, on the "right" foods or setting, but get it away from that and you wind up wishing you had something else.
Bottom line: The sauce by itself is another well-blended Cash *ahem* marvel, but in practical use, it has fairly narrow applications (though it does outstanding with those) and outside of those, tends towards bitter. It also does pack a solid wallop, so probably best reserved for chileheads.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 7
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 5
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 7
UPDATE: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpwfGISWh3EThis is one that's been hanging around the on deck shelf a while, a good long while, long enough that the sauce has gotten a label refresh and name change to "Dirt Rider," prompted, no doubt, by an objection from someone at Marvel over the usage of flamey motorcycles along with the name usage of "Ghost Rider." Dirt Rider also seems to have a couple of variations, as a sauce, so this won't strictly cover that side of things, although one of these is an item for item duplication of this Ghost Rider sauce.
That fun aside, this is rated at 18/10 on the bottle, which is overstating it a bit more than a tad and is also pegged as extremely hot. Any of the peppers that formerly held the Guinness SHU record provide ample snort and the Jolokias that make up this sauce leave little doubt of that. Still, this sauce is also a strong indicator that the vaunted Ghost peppers can also be flavorful. This is quite a good tasting sauce, by itself and when it can be left to shine as a composite sauce. Let me expand on that a bit.
Some sauces, such as the Louisiana style, are very aggressive in their vinegar-forwardness and so they do a good job of standing up when used with food. The vinegar will temper over-rich cream sauces nicely, while hopefully some nice heat comes behind to kick the food enjoyment. You get some blend, but the sauce is mostly still detectable...in the right amounts. This facet can turn against you and overpower (and potentially wreck) the food. Other sauces will want to blend in much more considerably, notably the Mexican style sauces, changing the composite flavor less notably, but driving the heat up somewhat. For this one, it's one of the few where the sauce by itself is pretty tasty and works well with things like chicken strips or pizza, which tend not to detract from the sauce during the initial bite, rather mixing in the mouth during chewing, but mixed into things, such as macaroni and cheese, the vinegar vanishes, along with most of the pepper subtleties, leaving a very solid heat, but also a lot of the bitterness that seems to accompany most of the superhots. This obviously renders its usefulness down somewhat.
I had hopes of using it in place of a Louisiana-style, given that it comes with a pretty nifty restrictor cap, but this one is much more finicky than I had initially realized. It definitely is one that does well, perhaps great, even, on the "right" foods or setting, but get it away from that and you wind up wishing you had something else.
Bottom line: The sauce by itself is another well-blended Cash *ahem* marvel, but in practical use, it has fairly narrow applications (though it does outstanding with those) and outside of those, tends towards bitter. It also does pack a solid wallop, so probably best reserved for chileheads.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 7
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 5
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 7
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Samfuego Onyx Reaper Hot Sauce Review
Samfuego Habitual Special Edition Onyx Reaper Sauce
UPDATE: Video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSYyOSqK2Cs
I had not heard of Peach Reaper prior to picking up this sauce. I had heard of the Butch T, but not in relation to a Reaper. Evidently, there is not a Butch T Scorpion Reaper. The bumper paragraph on the side also mentioned some sweetness from black garlic, an ingredient apparently now the new "in thing,", and a touch of Meso Chipotle for smoke. It almost reminds of a holistic approach to health, where various ingredients are meant to have an anti-oxidant effect and when used in conjunction with others, etc. etc. They also added, to make it "interesting," things like daikon and black cherry tomatoes. There are also purple carrots. And dark chocolate. And prickly pears. That is not even the entire list...
I think this approach is successful to a degree. The flavor is, indeed, interesting and unique. I think it may have gone a bit too far, as it also strikes me as being without identity. I'm not clear on where they were trying to go with this. You have a superhot aspect, but this really comes across, particularly with how thick it is and the smooth-ish consistency of the sauce, as a stab towards a mole'. I'm not hugely a fan of those and am very particular as well about which I will consider, so this is not a particularly resonant sauce for me.
It leads with cider vinegar, so this, despite using the current hottest superhot, is not, itself, particularly overly hot. Indeed, it is not until the seventh ingredient that we see an actual pepper. Since I have it stuck in my mind as primarily in relation to a mole, I used it on various Mexican dishes. Prior to that, as a chicken strip dipping sauces and on pizza as well. On the Mexican food, it did somewhat better, as long as there was not a strong flavor. If there was, it became a struggle for supremacy and instant clashing. I don't find this sauce wonderful by itself, but it does not play very nicely with other foods, either, so I don't know where it fits. I'm loathe to call it badly flavored or anything, but the best use, for me, was in a black bean soup, a dish I rarely have.
Bottom line: If you like unique sauces with unique ingredients bringing unique flavors, this is worth a try. I'm not sorry I bought it, but I have little use for it, probably will not use the bottle nor buy again.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 3
Flavor: 3
Flexibility: 1
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 2
UPDATE: Video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSYyOSqK2CsI had not heard of Peach Reaper prior to picking up this sauce. I had heard of the Butch T, but not in relation to a Reaper. Evidently, there is not a Butch T Scorpion Reaper. The bumper paragraph on the side also mentioned some sweetness from black garlic, an ingredient apparently now the new "in thing,", and a touch of Meso Chipotle for smoke. It almost reminds of a holistic approach to health, where various ingredients are meant to have an anti-oxidant effect and when used in conjunction with others, etc. etc. They also added, to make it "interesting," things like daikon and black cherry tomatoes. There are also purple carrots. And dark chocolate. And prickly pears. That is not even the entire list...
I think this approach is successful to a degree. The flavor is, indeed, interesting and unique. I think it may have gone a bit too far, as it also strikes me as being without identity. I'm not clear on where they were trying to go with this. You have a superhot aspect, but this really comes across, particularly with how thick it is and the smooth-ish consistency of the sauce, as a stab towards a mole'. I'm not hugely a fan of those and am very particular as well about which I will consider, so this is not a particularly resonant sauce for me.
It leads with cider vinegar, so this, despite using the current hottest superhot, is not, itself, particularly overly hot. Indeed, it is not until the seventh ingredient that we see an actual pepper. Since I have it stuck in my mind as primarily in relation to a mole, I used it on various Mexican dishes. Prior to that, as a chicken strip dipping sauces and on pizza as well. On the Mexican food, it did somewhat better, as long as there was not a strong flavor. If there was, it became a struggle for supremacy and instant clashing. I don't find this sauce wonderful by itself, but it does not play very nicely with other foods, either, so I don't know where it fits. I'm loathe to call it badly flavored or anything, but the best use, for me, was in a black bean soup, a dish I rarely have.
Bottom line: If you like unique sauces with unique ingredients bringing unique flavors, this is worth a try. I'm not sorry I bought it, but I have little use for it, probably will not use the bottle nor buy again.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 3
Flavor: 3
Flexibility: 1
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 2
Sunday, November 17, 2019
Torchbearer Ultimate Annihilation Hot Sauce Review
Torchbearer Ultimate Annihilation Hot Sauce - [TSAAF Sauce Of The Year 2019]
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgXlKvSQosQ
Sticking with the superhots for back to back reviews is unusual by itself, but having back to back SOTY candidates...very unusual, yet here we are. The best way I can think of to describe this one is a fairly close analogy to my much beloved Blair's Pure Death sauce (check the TOC if you want to read that one). If you're thinking that this will give it a nod, you're probably right, but the ingredient panels are significantly different.
One of the ways that I can tell my tolerance is up is that a sauce like this, which Torchbearer puts at a very solid 250,000 SHU is notably hotter than Pure Death, yet takes quite a bit before it starts to get things revved. Part of this is some of the heat coming from Habaneros, whose slow burn takes some time to wind up, but it is the overwhelmingly delicious Chocolate Habanero variety. There is some other items in here as well, where the Pure Death is 4 ingredients total. Flavor-wise, very similar, but Ultimate Annihilation is painted a bit more towards the flavor of the superhot Jolokias, which takes it down a touch in flavor, which I suppose makes up for it being hotter. Both of them share the same accessibility to various foods, which is generally quite good on everything that is not Mexican food, so they are great on about the same amount of stuff, though I think Pure Death being one of the all-time greatest sauces helps it quite a bit more here.
The consistency is virtually identical, very thick, very chunky, almost more of a puree, same bright orange-ish coloration. Torchbearer has really been coming on lately, so if you have trouble finding the Pure Death, this is a very excellent substitute and probably more readily available. Of the sauces from them, this is far and away my favorite and I half-wonder if I had found this first rather than the Pure Death, if they would not have been somewhat switched in terms of favor.
Bottom line: Another great entry from Torchbearer. This is a greatly flavorful sauce, with a good dose of heat, which may move it more into the realm of chileheads or developing chileheads only and another SOTY candidate.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 8
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 9
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10
Overall: 9
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgXlKvSQosQ Sticking with the superhots for back to back reviews is unusual by itself, but having back to back SOTY candidates...very unusual, yet here we are. The best way I can think of to describe this one is a fairly close analogy to my much beloved Blair's Pure Death sauce (check the TOC if you want to read that one). If you're thinking that this will give it a nod, you're probably right, but the ingredient panels are significantly different.
One of the ways that I can tell my tolerance is up is that a sauce like this, which Torchbearer puts at a very solid 250,000 SHU is notably hotter than Pure Death, yet takes quite a bit before it starts to get things revved. Part of this is some of the heat coming from Habaneros, whose slow burn takes some time to wind up, but it is the overwhelmingly delicious Chocolate Habanero variety. There is some other items in here as well, where the Pure Death is 4 ingredients total. Flavor-wise, very similar, but Ultimate Annihilation is painted a bit more towards the flavor of the superhot Jolokias, which takes it down a touch in flavor, which I suppose makes up for it being hotter. Both of them share the same accessibility to various foods, which is generally quite good on everything that is not Mexican food, so they are great on about the same amount of stuff, though I think Pure Death being one of the all-time greatest sauces helps it quite a bit more here.
The consistency is virtually identical, very thick, very chunky, almost more of a puree, same bright orange-ish coloration. Torchbearer has really been coming on lately, so if you have trouble finding the Pure Death, this is a very excellent substitute and probably more readily available. Of the sauces from them, this is far and away my favorite and I half-wonder if I had found this first rather than the Pure Death, if they would not have been somewhat switched in terms of favor.
Bottom line: Another great entry from Torchbearer. This is a greatly flavorful sauce, with a good dose of heat, which may move it more into the realm of chileheads or developing chileheads only and another SOTY candidate.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 8
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 9
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10
Overall: 9
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Hellfire First Blood Hot Sauce Review
Hellfire First Blood Hot Sauce
UPDATE: Support video available here: https://youtu.be/sx2t-x0BPPE
After a sustained layoff, finally back to the Superhots and it's one I've been waiting to do for a while. The thing with sauces featuring Superhots is that often, such as in the case of Torchbearer, they will straddle a kind of weird line where they're not crazily flavorful but are full of the piquancy that the Superhot peppers seem to exude, a sort of quasi-bitterness, all while bringing the full mouth fury they're known for. As regular readers know, I'm all about the flavor first and the sauces that load up on Superhots seem to kind of miss this equation. It doesn't make the sauces necessarily bad-tasting, just not as good as other stuff I'd more regularly want to have and so they don't get eaten, unless I'm in the mood for that unique flavor profile.
This one brings some hitters, Trinidad Scorpions, Bhut Jolokias, 7-Pot Primos, Red Savina Habaneros, all pushing near the top of the current record holding SHU levels, two, maybe three of them were previous record-holders, if memory serves. So, this is not going to be a mild sauce. Hellfire confusingly puts it at a 9/10, but their rating scale is meaningless compared to a lot of the other offerings, such as one sauce that seems to share multiple labels and is billed the hottest non-extract sauce. Without drifting too far astream, the hottest non-extract sauce I've had to date is Torchbearer's Rapture, checking in at over a million SHU, which is the only sauce I can recall I've given a 10 for heat. That will be my 10 here, but I don't know where that other sauce from Hellfire falls and perhaps I will get to that in the near future.
Regardless, this one is tempered by an interesting combination of sun-dried tomatoes and a few other extraneous things. The sauce itself almost looks like a mash in terms of flow. It comes out a bit chunky, but the brilliant of using flavor-concentrated items, such as the sun-dried tomato kicks up accessibility quite a bit. I've used this in a variety of settings and it is wonderfully flexible. It doesn't work well in all cases, Mexican food and ramen noodles being two examples where I would not attempt it again, but it is not restricted to the range of chicken fingers, the way a lot of the other Superhot based sauces can be. Indeed, I would put it probably in the same range as Pure Death, one of my all-time highest rated sauces, for flexibility.
Flavor-wise, it is not up that vaunted territory. The flavor is quite good, despite having all of those Superhots in there, but this is not a lip-smacking yummy sort of sauce. This is one that will not let you forget you can easily oversauce something and wind up regretting it. Mouth heat can be strong if a lot is used, but it does not seem to hang in there for a great amount of time. I would put this one at somewhere between 350,000 and maybe a half million SHU, but I believe it is more varietal pepper-driven so other bottles and editions may compromise having an definite reading. There is not any information to this on the Hellfire site, unfortunately, aside from that odd 9/10 heat rating.
Bottom line: One of the more accessible Superhot sauces out there and one of the more flavorful. This is a great starting point for someone wanting to start reaching upwards a bit in their SHU progression with hot sauces and, it should bear noting, a definite SOTY candidate.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 6
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 9
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9
Overall: 8
UPDATE: Support video available here: https://youtu.be/sx2t-x0BPPEAfter a sustained layoff, finally back to the Superhots and it's one I've been waiting to do for a while. The thing with sauces featuring Superhots is that often, such as in the case of Torchbearer, they will straddle a kind of weird line where they're not crazily flavorful but are full of the piquancy that the Superhot peppers seem to exude, a sort of quasi-bitterness, all while bringing the full mouth fury they're known for. As regular readers know, I'm all about the flavor first and the sauces that load up on Superhots seem to kind of miss this equation. It doesn't make the sauces necessarily bad-tasting, just not as good as other stuff I'd more regularly want to have and so they don't get eaten, unless I'm in the mood for that unique flavor profile.
This one brings some hitters, Trinidad Scorpions, Bhut Jolokias, 7-Pot Primos, Red Savina Habaneros, all pushing near the top of the current record holding SHU levels, two, maybe three of them were previous record-holders, if memory serves. So, this is not going to be a mild sauce. Hellfire confusingly puts it at a 9/10, but their rating scale is meaningless compared to a lot of the other offerings, such as one sauce that seems to share multiple labels and is billed the hottest non-extract sauce. Without drifting too far astream, the hottest non-extract sauce I've had to date is Torchbearer's Rapture, checking in at over a million SHU, which is the only sauce I can recall I've given a 10 for heat. That will be my 10 here, but I don't know where that other sauce from Hellfire falls and perhaps I will get to that in the near future.
Regardless, this one is tempered by an interesting combination of sun-dried tomatoes and a few other extraneous things. The sauce itself almost looks like a mash in terms of flow. It comes out a bit chunky, but the brilliant of using flavor-concentrated items, such as the sun-dried tomato kicks up accessibility quite a bit. I've used this in a variety of settings and it is wonderfully flexible. It doesn't work well in all cases, Mexican food and ramen noodles being two examples where I would not attempt it again, but it is not restricted to the range of chicken fingers, the way a lot of the other Superhot based sauces can be. Indeed, I would put it probably in the same range as Pure Death, one of my all-time highest rated sauces, for flexibility.
Flavor-wise, it is not up that vaunted territory. The flavor is quite good, despite having all of those Superhots in there, but this is not a lip-smacking yummy sort of sauce. This is one that will not let you forget you can easily oversauce something and wind up regretting it. Mouth heat can be strong if a lot is used, but it does not seem to hang in there for a great amount of time. I would put this one at somewhere between 350,000 and maybe a half million SHU, but I believe it is more varietal pepper-driven so other bottles and editions may compromise having an definite reading. There is not any information to this on the Hellfire site, unfortunately, aside from that odd 9/10 heat rating.
Bottom line: One of the more accessible Superhot sauces out there and one of the more flavorful. This is a great starting point for someone wanting to start reaching upwards a bit in their SHU progression with hot sauces and, it should bear noting, a definite SOTY candidate.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 6
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 9
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9
Overall: 8
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Akita Sweet Chili Sauce Review
Akita Sweet Chili Sauce
UPDATE: Video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ybo-SMNons
This one is one of the later ones I'm getting to. For one reason or another, I thought I'd already posted this and discovered that was decidedly not the case, coming across it as I was going through the door of my refrigerator prior to determining what remained that needed video support content. I got this some time ago, hoping it would be similar to the Zenso, which is an excellently flavored sauce, but this one treads a weird middle ground between a sauce to use after the fact and one apparently to use in something, as the label indicates a stir fry sauce.
Flavor-wise, this comes across as a sweetened version of a concentrated garlic sauce, which is just as appetizing as it sounds. It has little sparks of heat in there and there are substantial chunks of chilis in this gloppy sauce, but they contribute very little to the flavor. My guess is possibly some sort of Thai chili, though an astonishingly mild version of those.
This has honestly been a pretty hard sauce to use, as the garlic is both not a pleasant one and is very aggressive in the taste. Using this sauce after the fact has tended to detract from the flavor of the dish and using it actually in stuff has worked slightly better, but it almost amounts to building a dish around the sauce, which is the inverse of how it should work. All in all, this justifiably wound up as a forgotten sauce and it is slated to be permanently binned.
Bottom line: Sweet chili should be a pretty easy target, but this one managed to mangle the job pretty thoroughly. Not quite sure where they were going with this, but better ingredients would have helped.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 1
Flexibility: 2
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1
Overall: 1
UPDATE: Video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ybo-SMNonsThis one is one of the later ones I'm getting to. For one reason or another, I thought I'd already posted this and discovered that was decidedly not the case, coming across it as I was going through the door of my refrigerator prior to determining what remained that needed video support content. I got this some time ago, hoping it would be similar to the Zenso, which is an excellently flavored sauce, but this one treads a weird middle ground between a sauce to use after the fact and one apparently to use in something, as the label indicates a stir fry sauce.
Flavor-wise, this comes across as a sweetened version of a concentrated garlic sauce, which is just as appetizing as it sounds. It has little sparks of heat in there and there are substantial chunks of chilis in this gloppy sauce, but they contribute very little to the flavor. My guess is possibly some sort of Thai chili, though an astonishingly mild version of those.
This has honestly been a pretty hard sauce to use, as the garlic is both not a pleasant one and is very aggressive in the taste. Using this sauce after the fact has tended to detract from the flavor of the dish and using it actually in stuff has worked slightly better, but it almost amounts to building a dish around the sauce, which is the inverse of how it should work. All in all, this justifiably wound up as a forgotten sauce and it is slated to be permanently binned.
Bottom line: Sweet chili should be a pretty easy target, but this one managed to mangle the job pretty thoroughly. Not quite sure where they were going with this, but better ingredients would have helped.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 1
Flexibility: 2
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1
Overall: 1
Monday, October 14, 2019
Motherlode Provisions Rocky Mountain Hot Sauce Review
Motherlode Provisions Rocky Mountain Hot Sauce
UPDATE: Support video now available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndnk-tUTjXI
I did their Wildfire review some time back and remember it somewhat favorably, but evidently forgot the actual name of the sauce and thought it was named Motherlode. Hence, when I saw this smallish bottle of Motherlode in the store, I connected the two as the same and bought it for the purpose of making a support video for the earlier Wildfire review. However, this is a different sauce, the much more tame version.
The best way to think of this is liquefied chili powder. You've got the classic Arbol, along with some Gaujillo, some Aji, and some Piquin, but no Pepins, as in the Wildfire. The Wildfire was much too tame by my reckoning to have a name like that, but this one is pretty straightforward, just Rocky Mountain Hot Sauce. If the other one was pointed squarely at Cholula, this one moves nearly neck and neck. It will work well in a much wider variety of foods, Mexican, obviously, but also eggs and pizza and ramen and could even possibly do passably as a dipping sauce.
The reason that chili powder does so well, to the point that even people who don't like spicy foods particularly, will keep it at hand is because not only is it readily available, but it has a nice warmth to it, a good sort of earthy feel. This sauce doesn't quite get to that point, but it is very similar. Flavor is very solid, doing well to accent things, but the sauce itself does not really add any heat to speak of. Chileheads will be gravely disappointed in this, but I would call this a great starter hot sauce, maybe along the lines of the Taco Bell Mild or La Victoria or the aforementioned Cholula or regular Valentina, in that it serves as a great introduction to chili flavor without adding any kind of mouth burn to the equation.
Bottom line: If you need a starter sauce, this is definitely one to consider. I'm a bit beyond this kind of thing and will probably finish the bottle, but not replace once it is gone.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 6
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 4
UPDATE: Support video now available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndnk-tUTjXI I did their Wildfire review some time back and remember it somewhat favorably, but evidently forgot the actual name of the sauce and thought it was named Motherlode. Hence, when I saw this smallish bottle of Motherlode in the store, I connected the two as the same and bought it for the purpose of making a support video for the earlier Wildfire review. However, this is a different sauce, the much more tame version.
The best way to think of this is liquefied chili powder. You've got the classic Arbol, along with some Gaujillo, some Aji, and some Piquin, but no Pepins, as in the Wildfire. The Wildfire was much too tame by my reckoning to have a name like that, but this one is pretty straightforward, just Rocky Mountain Hot Sauce. If the other one was pointed squarely at Cholula, this one moves nearly neck and neck. It will work well in a much wider variety of foods, Mexican, obviously, but also eggs and pizza and ramen and could even possibly do passably as a dipping sauce.
The reason that chili powder does so well, to the point that even people who don't like spicy foods particularly, will keep it at hand is because not only is it readily available, but it has a nice warmth to it, a good sort of earthy feel. This sauce doesn't quite get to that point, but it is very similar. Flavor is very solid, doing well to accent things, but the sauce itself does not really add any heat to speak of. Chileheads will be gravely disappointed in this, but I would call this a great starter hot sauce, maybe along the lines of the Taco Bell Mild or La Victoria or the aforementioned Cholula or regular Valentina, in that it serves as a great introduction to chili flavor without adding any kind of mouth burn to the equation.
Bottom line: If you need a starter sauce, this is definitely one to consider. I'm a bit beyond this kind of thing and will probably finish the bottle, but not replace once it is gone.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 6
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 4
Sunday, October 13, 2019
Johnny's Firecracker Bold Sauce Review
Johnny's Firecracker Bold Sauce
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYp9yrpk8lc
There is a restaurant in the city in which I live that serves a dish which, at one time, was one of my very most favorite things to have and it was called Firecracker Shrimp, though you could also get it with chicken. Often, if I find something I really like in a restaurant, I will be moved to try to get - or recreate - an element of it I like a lot. In this case, I didn't think the noodles and vegetables and shrimp separately were anything too challenging but rather the firecracker sauce itself, which had notes of the garlic, along with a discernible chili heat and flavor, all in a nicely sweet sauce that was easily balanced with a splash of soy. As things turn out, the set I ran with (there was, at that time, a group of 4 of us (all scattered to the winds now, with respective families) that ate and hung out together regularly) were often in that proximity and that contributed much to us going there. As the group eventually went our separate ways, I have not been back in some time, yet, as with any particularly striking food, that dish has never left my mind entirely.
Prior to the happy discovery that BYT was back and blazing (see notes from 2019), I was scrounging for sauce candidates. I had ordered from a number of sources online prior to discovering BYT in the first place, but had found all of them wanting, in one way or another. One of my other brick-and-mortar sources had also cut down their shelf space considerably and there was nothing there I had either not already tried (and reviewed) or was interested in. The last one I honestly kind of forgot about, but they tend more towards the much hotter side of the spectrum and that means extract and even if not, I don't always want something where the aggressive nature of it creates an instant challenge with taste. Sometimes, I want a bit of peace and a nice embellishment to the flavor, rather than a competition...probably most of the time, if I'm being honest.
By now, you've probably noticed I've not gotten to this sauce yet, but I will now. I saw this thing on the shelf one day when I was scrounging and thought I would give it a go. Heat is pretty minor and the taste approaches the overly sweet red sauce you can get at the Chinese mall food places, a bit too close for my comfort. The sauce itself sticks well, but is not especially flavorful and needs to go with something else to balance it out. It will work well in things with a variety of flavors, but performs poorly when there is not a fairly substantial amount of flavors, as a dipping sauce, for instance. For quite a while, I debated not reviewing it at all, but I have it and decided I may as well, as it is arguably closer to a hot sauce than not, as there is at least an intention of having some spicy element. Alas, I have not, as of this writing, attempted the firecracker dish I mentioned earlier, mostly due to me not having a wok, but I may be coming to that sooner rather than later.
Bottom line: Despite the label banter, this is a sauce that really needs to be combined as part of a dish, rather than a standalone. As a standalone, it suffers considerably in both the flavor and heat regards.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 3
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 3
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYp9yrpk8lc There is a restaurant in the city in which I live that serves a dish which, at one time, was one of my very most favorite things to have and it was called Firecracker Shrimp, though you could also get it with chicken. Often, if I find something I really like in a restaurant, I will be moved to try to get - or recreate - an element of it I like a lot. In this case, I didn't think the noodles and vegetables and shrimp separately were anything too challenging but rather the firecracker sauce itself, which had notes of the garlic, along with a discernible chili heat and flavor, all in a nicely sweet sauce that was easily balanced with a splash of soy. As things turn out, the set I ran with (there was, at that time, a group of 4 of us (all scattered to the winds now, with respective families) that ate and hung out together regularly) were often in that proximity and that contributed much to us going there. As the group eventually went our separate ways, I have not been back in some time, yet, as with any particularly striking food, that dish has never left my mind entirely.
Prior to the happy discovery that BYT was back and blazing (see notes from 2019), I was scrounging for sauce candidates. I had ordered from a number of sources online prior to discovering BYT in the first place, but had found all of them wanting, in one way or another. One of my other brick-and-mortar sources had also cut down their shelf space considerably and there was nothing there I had either not already tried (and reviewed) or was interested in. The last one I honestly kind of forgot about, but they tend more towards the much hotter side of the spectrum and that means extract and even if not, I don't always want something where the aggressive nature of it creates an instant challenge with taste. Sometimes, I want a bit of peace and a nice embellishment to the flavor, rather than a competition...probably most of the time, if I'm being honest.
By now, you've probably noticed I've not gotten to this sauce yet, but I will now. I saw this thing on the shelf one day when I was scrounging and thought I would give it a go. Heat is pretty minor and the taste approaches the overly sweet red sauce you can get at the Chinese mall food places, a bit too close for my comfort. The sauce itself sticks well, but is not especially flavorful and needs to go with something else to balance it out. It will work well in things with a variety of flavors, but performs poorly when there is not a fairly substantial amount of flavors, as a dipping sauce, for instance. For quite a while, I debated not reviewing it at all, but I have it and decided I may as well, as it is arguably closer to a hot sauce than not, as there is at least an intention of having some spicy element. Alas, I have not, as of this writing, attempted the firecracker dish I mentioned earlier, mostly due to me not having a wok, but I may be coming to that sooner rather than later.
Bottom line: Despite the label banter, this is a sauce that really needs to be combined as part of a dish, rather than a standalone. As a standalone, it suffers considerably in both the flavor and heat regards.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 3
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 3
Saturday, October 5, 2019
CaJohn's Tiki Bar Torch Hot Sauce Review
CaJohn's Tiki Bar Torch Hot Sauce
UPDATE: Video support now available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=til4pLGb6Hk
Not quite a couple years ago to the date, I wrote a review of the original Tiki Bar Hotter Hot Sauce, which I strongly suggest you read, if you haven't already, for reference. In it, I somewhat lamented that the heat was a bit minimal. I've since done a support video for it, where I found it to be very fruit-forward and my thoughts on it have changed a bit. I'm not going to go back and downrate it, but I will say that I like it a bit less than now. I found a bottle of this on the shelf the same time I picked up another bottle of the Tiki Bar (it occurs to me that there may have been a formulation change possibly also) prior to making that discovery, with the thought that as long as they weren't cheating with extract, an increase in heat could only be to the good.
This sauce is both lighter in color and far less fruit-heavy. Side by side, it both tastes better and packs a slightly hotter punch, despite being listed as X-Hot. The ingredient profiles are identical. Skip ahead to the next paragraph if you want to see commentary exclusive to the sauce, but this points up a larger problem for me and may significantly diminish my interest in CaJohn's sauces. When the company was sold last year to the Hot Shots Distributing Company, I was concerned, as it seemed founder John Hard would no longer be involved. Normally, Hard was very specific about what kinds of peppers were being used in the sauces, but here, that is over. When Hard listed something as hot, it was usually on a chilehead scale. I don't know who this sauce would be X-Hot for, but they would have to have a pretty sensitive palate for that to be the case. Seeing those things take place, though the sauces are still pretty strong entries, seems to be bolstering those ideas for me...
This one is much closer to a teriyaki sauce than the other, though it would need to have a greater soy sauce influence to truly get there. Like the other one, this one performs well in a variety of settings where you'd want more of a fruit-based or teriyaki sauce, so lighter meats, fried foods, Asian foods, Hawaiian foods, etc. I have not gotten around to testing it with musubi yet, but may do that for the support video for this when I film it, as I intend on doing a direct comparison.
Bottom line: This is more or less an upgrade to the linked sauce above and is its superior in every way. Probably my favorite all-around fruit-based sauce.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 3
Flavor: 9
Flexibility: 7
Enjoyment to dollar factor:8
Overall: 7
UPDATE: Video support now available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=til4pLGb6Hk Not quite a couple years ago to the date, I wrote a review of the original Tiki Bar Hotter Hot Sauce, which I strongly suggest you read, if you haven't already, for reference. In it, I somewhat lamented that the heat was a bit minimal. I've since done a support video for it, where I found it to be very fruit-forward and my thoughts on it have changed a bit. I'm not going to go back and downrate it, but I will say that I like it a bit less than now. I found a bottle of this on the shelf the same time I picked up another bottle of the Tiki Bar (it occurs to me that there may have been a formulation change possibly also) prior to making that discovery, with the thought that as long as they weren't cheating with extract, an increase in heat could only be to the good.
This sauce is both lighter in color and far less fruit-heavy. Side by side, it both tastes better and packs a slightly hotter punch, despite being listed as X-Hot. The ingredient profiles are identical. Skip ahead to the next paragraph if you want to see commentary exclusive to the sauce, but this points up a larger problem for me and may significantly diminish my interest in CaJohn's sauces. When the company was sold last year to the Hot Shots Distributing Company, I was concerned, as it seemed founder John Hard would no longer be involved. Normally, Hard was very specific about what kinds of peppers were being used in the sauces, but here, that is over. When Hard listed something as hot, it was usually on a chilehead scale. I don't know who this sauce would be X-Hot for, but they would have to have a pretty sensitive palate for that to be the case. Seeing those things take place, though the sauces are still pretty strong entries, seems to be bolstering those ideas for me...
This one is much closer to a teriyaki sauce than the other, though it would need to have a greater soy sauce influence to truly get there. Like the other one, this one performs well in a variety of settings where you'd want more of a fruit-based or teriyaki sauce, so lighter meats, fried foods, Asian foods, Hawaiian foods, etc. I have not gotten around to testing it with musubi yet, but may do that for the support video for this when I film it, as I intend on doing a direct comparison.
Bottom line: This is more or less an upgrade to the linked sauce above and is its superior in every way. Probably my favorite all-around fruit-based sauce.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 3
Flavor: 9
Flexibility: 7
Enjoyment to dollar factor:8
Overall: 7
Friday, September 20, 2019
Special Announcement
- SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT -
Dearest visitor(s):
After 7 years of this blog, I have decided to launch a video accompaniment series for the reviews. It will launch October 1, 2019. The series is called F.O.H., which stands for Fundamentals Of Heat. Installments are available at this link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuKBYOZxZi6Cne-UWwy-gqA/
I’ve been wanting to change it up a bit for some time and rather than add more still photos of me or the product solo or the product on various foods, ala Scott Roberts, I decided instead to do some support videos for the various sauces. It will take me a bit to get caught up with a backload of 160+ sauces and I will obviously not be doing all of them. All of the newer ones will be get both a written review and video accompaniment going forward, however. As with the blog itself, there will be no set posting schedule for the videos, though it looks like temporarily, for at least the rest of 2019, it will be new content every Sunday.
You can expect to see nifty stuff like a live look at the sauces as well as further discussion. I will also be consuming the various products both straight and as an accent to various foods. My testing sometimes covers several foods and not all of the foods I used to test the sauces will show up, but at least one representative food will. Additionally, I will be doing content that would not normally be on the blog, such as potentially trying all of the hot sauces of various restaurant chains or all of the spicy stuff on a given menu or something along those lines, possibly spicy snacks also.
Because YouTube is notoriously crappy about notifying subscribers of new content and because I will likely have some people following here but not there and vice versa, I have decided to go to a labeling system for the sauces that have additional video content. There will be an addition sign (+) in brackets in front of the respective sauce name and, also in brackets, the slogan “Video Available” behind the sauce name. The links for the respective video content will be on the page of the sauces themselves. Hopefully this will make things easy.
As always, I’m open to suggestions as to what you may want to see, if there is a way to notify everyone of new video content (aside from Twitter, Facebook, etc., which I’m not doing at present or in the foreseeable future) or any sauces you would like to see, assuming those sauces follow the prohibitions on onions and any extract use.
It is important to note the written sauce reviews are going nowhere. Those will also be posted in advance of any support video. While the video series will also feature some non-sauce content, the blog will remain solely as a repository for written reviews and solely about sauces.
Looking forward to a new chapter here and I hope you all enjoy.
Dearest visitor(s):
After 7 years of this blog, I have decided to launch a video accompaniment series for the reviews. It will launch October 1, 2019. The series is called F.O.H., which stands for Fundamentals Of Heat. Installments are available at this link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuKBYOZxZi6Cne-UWwy-gqA/
I’ve been wanting to change it up a bit for some time and rather than add more still photos of me or the product solo or the product on various foods, ala Scott Roberts, I decided instead to do some support videos for the various sauces. It will take me a bit to get caught up with a backload of 160+ sauces and I will obviously not be doing all of them. All of the newer ones will be get both a written review and video accompaniment going forward, however. As with the blog itself, there will be no set posting schedule for the videos, though it looks like temporarily, for at least the rest of 2019, it will be new content every Sunday.
You can expect to see nifty stuff like a live look at the sauces as well as further discussion. I will also be consuming the various products both straight and as an accent to various foods. My testing sometimes covers several foods and not all of the foods I used to test the sauces will show up, but at least one representative food will. Additionally, I will be doing content that would not normally be on the blog, such as potentially trying all of the hot sauces of various restaurant chains or all of the spicy stuff on a given menu or something along those lines, possibly spicy snacks also.
Because YouTube is notoriously crappy about notifying subscribers of new content and because I will likely have some people following here but not there and vice versa, I have decided to go to a labeling system for the sauces that have additional video content. There will be an addition sign (+) in brackets in front of the respective sauce name and, also in brackets, the slogan “Video Available” behind the sauce name. The links for the respective video content will be on the page of the sauces themselves. Hopefully this will make things easy.
As always, I’m open to suggestions as to what you may want to see, if there is a way to notify everyone of new video content (aside from Twitter, Facebook, etc., which I’m not doing at present or in the foreseeable future) or any sauces you would like to see, assuming those sauces follow the prohibitions on onions and any extract use.
It is important to note the written sauce reviews are going nowhere. Those will also be posted in advance of any support video. While the video series will also feature some non-sauce content, the blog will remain solely as a repository for written reviews and solely about sauces.
Looking forward to a new chapter here and I hope you all enjoy.
Monday, August 19, 2019
Jersey Barnfire Smoked Ghost Taco Hot Sauce Review
Jersey Barnfire Smoke Ghost Taco Hot Sauce
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://youtu.be/r5NxVwLp_JM
I like smoked peppers quite a lot. So, if I see something smoked, I'm usually immediately interested and have found those sauces to be rarely disappointing. In this case, again on the search for a good Mexican style sauce, I came across this. By the point I found it, I had pretty much reached my quota of the crazy hot sauces and wanted a few "normals" to kind of round things out. I look for sauce for flavor first, so I was pretty excited to try it, unfamiliar as I was with the brand.
The first thing I noticed, though, was the cap. It has a metal cap, which is pretty unusual for a hot sauce and I'm struggling to recall ever seeing one before. I'm sure I must have had a hot sauce like that somewhere, sometime, but it is not in memory, if I did. That part was a bit striking, if only for its rarity, I suppose. Inside, the sauce came out exactly how I think a good Mexican style sauce should, which is to say along the lines of either El Paso or La Victoria, those being the only things even remotely towards hot around the time I was growing up and something I accordingly came to associate with taco sauce, which this was listing itself as.
This sauce has all the normal flavorings of taco sauce, but with that smoked ghost in there, punches much harder. I wouldn't call it overly hot, but you can somewhat readily oversauce, which makes it drift away from what I would consider more of a table sauce, which the two I mentioned definitely are. The flavor here is quite good, very happily along the lines of what I was hoping and with that nice smoky addition, also does well moving a bit outside of the frame, such as usage as a dipping sauce. Naturally, the way the spices typically work, it is much better on Mexican style food, but it can step outside the bounds a bit, if need be, as well, which is a nice touch of flexibility.
Bottom line: This is one of my early favorite from the last haul I got and so far, of the new sauces, the only one I would really consider keeping at hand. I wouldn't say I love it, but it definitely is a nice change of pace and a good change-up to the usual entries in this segment.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 4
Flavor: 7
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 5
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://youtu.be/r5NxVwLp_JM I like smoked peppers quite a lot. So, if I see something smoked, I'm usually immediately interested and have found those sauces to be rarely disappointing. In this case, again on the search for a good Mexican style sauce, I came across this. By the point I found it, I had pretty much reached my quota of the crazy hot sauces and wanted a few "normals" to kind of round things out. I look for sauce for flavor first, so I was pretty excited to try it, unfamiliar as I was with the brand.
The first thing I noticed, though, was the cap. It has a metal cap, which is pretty unusual for a hot sauce and I'm struggling to recall ever seeing one before. I'm sure I must have had a hot sauce like that somewhere, sometime, but it is not in memory, if I did. That part was a bit striking, if only for its rarity, I suppose. Inside, the sauce came out exactly how I think a good Mexican style sauce should, which is to say along the lines of either El Paso or La Victoria, those being the only things even remotely towards hot around the time I was growing up and something I accordingly came to associate with taco sauce, which this was listing itself as.
This sauce has all the normal flavorings of taco sauce, but with that smoked ghost in there, punches much harder. I wouldn't call it overly hot, but you can somewhat readily oversauce, which makes it drift away from what I would consider more of a table sauce, which the two I mentioned definitely are. The flavor here is quite good, very happily along the lines of what I was hoping and with that nice smoky addition, also does well moving a bit outside of the frame, such as usage as a dipping sauce. Naturally, the way the spices typically work, it is much better on Mexican style food, but it can step outside the bounds a bit, if need be, as well, which is a nice touch of flexibility.
Bottom line: This is one of my early favorite from the last haul I got and so far, of the new sauces, the only one I would really consider keeping at hand. I wouldn't say I love it, but it definitely is a nice change of pace and a good change-up to the usual entries in this segment.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 4
Flavor: 7
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 5
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Fat Cat Guajillo Ghost Hot Sauce Review
Fat Cat Surprisingly Mild Guajillo Ghost Hot Sauce
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akgw4aW0Kao
Like most people online, I'm somewhat of a slave to all things feline, so yep, I love me the cat videos and the cat memes and all that stuff, so if some clever hot sauce decides to market a hot sauce right at me by putting a cat on the label, I'm at least interested. It is meaningless? Sure and maybe not a great reason to initially be interested, but labeling is part of selling and selling is a big part of keeping your hot sauce brand alive and flowing.
Still, for all that, the sauce has to be good. Flavor has to be there or just as quickly, that mnemonic nifty name you came up incorporating the word "cat" will be a double-edged sword and it will just as easily be memorable in the context of a brand to avoid. I think the sauces in the line-up are named well and cleverly, with this particular one being the least cutesy and, if I recall correctly, the least picante.
I'm not strictly familiar with what a Guajillo pepper was...or wasn't prior to starting this review, but it appears to be something along the lines of an Ancho. The famed Ghost pepper, of course, I'm well familiar with and the idea behind this sauce seemed more mole-ish to me. Indeed, seeing the sauce as it came out, dark and somewhat reminiscent of chocolate, seemed much more like a runny mole than an actual hot sauce. It lists out a number of foods it should pair with, but I found it worked best (and maybe only) with Mexican food and not at all well, for instance, as a chicken strip dipping sauce or on the BBQ grill.
Heat is very moderate here, as expected, but the sauce is a nicely flowing thicker sauce that does a really good job sticking to wherever you try to put it, generally. It's not really my idea of what an ideal Mexican style sauce should be, though that appears to be mostly where they're aiming, but it is a kind of nice change of pace and one that I'll finish out, but probably not replace.
Bottom line: Still mostly a hot sauce, there are some strong leanings towards mole with this. I don't eat moles enough to know if this bridges the gap successfully, but it was an interesting, if largely one-off, diversion from the regular Mexican style sauces. Will not be in regular rotation for me, but definitely worth trying out.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 5
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5
Overall: 4
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akgw4aW0Kao Like most people online, I'm somewhat of a slave to all things feline, so yep, I love me the cat videos and the cat memes and all that stuff, so if some clever hot sauce decides to market a hot sauce right at me by putting a cat on the label, I'm at least interested. It is meaningless? Sure and maybe not a great reason to initially be interested, but labeling is part of selling and selling is a big part of keeping your hot sauce brand alive and flowing.
Still, for all that, the sauce has to be good. Flavor has to be there or just as quickly, that mnemonic nifty name you came up incorporating the word "cat" will be a double-edged sword and it will just as easily be memorable in the context of a brand to avoid. I think the sauces in the line-up are named well and cleverly, with this particular one being the least cutesy and, if I recall correctly, the least picante.
I'm not strictly familiar with what a Guajillo pepper was...or wasn't prior to starting this review, but it appears to be something along the lines of an Ancho. The famed Ghost pepper, of course, I'm well familiar with and the idea behind this sauce seemed more mole-ish to me. Indeed, seeing the sauce as it came out, dark and somewhat reminiscent of chocolate, seemed much more like a runny mole than an actual hot sauce. It lists out a number of foods it should pair with, but I found it worked best (and maybe only) with Mexican food and not at all well, for instance, as a chicken strip dipping sauce or on the BBQ grill.
Heat is very moderate here, as expected, but the sauce is a nicely flowing thicker sauce that does a really good job sticking to wherever you try to put it, generally. It's not really my idea of what an ideal Mexican style sauce should be, though that appears to be mostly where they're aiming, but it is a kind of nice change of pace and one that I'll finish out, but probably not replace.
Bottom line: Still mostly a hot sauce, there are some strong leanings towards mole with this. I don't eat moles enough to know if this bridges the gap successfully, but it was an interesting, if largely one-off, diversion from the regular Mexican style sauces. Will not be in regular rotation for me, but definitely worth trying out.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 5
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5
Overall: 4
Saturday, August 17, 2019
CaJohn's El Castillo Hot Sauce Review
CaJohn's El Castillo Hot Sauce
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbuaU0rsCjw
As longtime readers of this blog know, finding a reliable Mexican-style hot sauce has largely been an exercise in frustration for me. Seeing one that was completely knew was pretty exciting and knowing CaJohn's approach to high quality, I had very high hopes. Indeed, which I first opened the bottle and had a little sip from a spoon, I thought I might have stumbled onto the best Mexican hot sauce I'd yet had...sadly, the rest of the bottle did not bear that out and while I think it's a solid entry into the Mexican style pantheon, I don't believe I will be keeping this on hand.
It has an interesting aroma, both citrusy as well as the unique and distinctive chili combination that typifies most Mexican food. Unusual for CaJohn's, the peppers are unnamed, though I would suspect some combination of Arbol, Serrano, and Habanero. This is a very piquant sauce, with both the vinegar and the citrus adding a lot of pungency, which is perhaps the most dominant aspect of this sauce. Heat is very mild with this sauce, which, along with the runniness, can contribute to inadvertent over-saucing fairly easily.
It works well on Mexican foods, but, like most Mexican-style sauces, does not really extend much beyond that. I found it a nice chance of pace from the various taco sauces at both Del Taco and Taco Bell, but one that also quickly wore out its welcome, at least somewhat because it is a bit too runny (nearly Louisiana style level) to be a strong contender here. I don't see it on the CaJohn's website, so possibly it is not being produced any longer, but after I enjoy what is left of the bottle, I don't see myself replacing it with more. Definitely an interesting and crisp taste on the style, though.
Bottom line: Like most CaJohn sauces, this is very well done, but is overly piquant for me.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 5
Flexibility: 2
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 4
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbuaU0rsCjw As longtime readers of this blog know, finding a reliable Mexican-style hot sauce has largely been an exercise in frustration for me. Seeing one that was completely knew was pretty exciting and knowing CaJohn's approach to high quality, I had very high hopes. Indeed, which I first opened the bottle and had a little sip from a spoon, I thought I might have stumbled onto the best Mexican hot sauce I'd yet had...sadly, the rest of the bottle did not bear that out and while I think it's a solid entry into the Mexican style pantheon, I don't believe I will be keeping this on hand.
It has an interesting aroma, both citrusy as well as the unique and distinctive chili combination that typifies most Mexican food. Unusual for CaJohn's, the peppers are unnamed, though I would suspect some combination of Arbol, Serrano, and Habanero. This is a very piquant sauce, with both the vinegar and the citrus adding a lot of pungency, which is perhaps the most dominant aspect of this sauce. Heat is very mild with this sauce, which, along with the runniness, can contribute to inadvertent over-saucing fairly easily.
It works well on Mexican foods, but, like most Mexican-style sauces, does not really extend much beyond that. I found it a nice chance of pace from the various taco sauces at both Del Taco and Taco Bell, but one that also quickly wore out its welcome, at least somewhat because it is a bit too runny (nearly Louisiana style level) to be a strong contender here. I don't see it on the CaJohn's website, so possibly it is not being produced any longer, but after I enjoy what is left of the bottle, I don't see myself replacing it with more. Definitely an interesting and crisp taste on the style, though.
Bottom line: Like most CaJohn sauces, this is very well done, but is overly piquant for me.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 5
Flexibility: 2
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 4
Monday, July 29, 2019
Honey-Do Hot Sauce Review
Honey-Do Tropic Hot Sauce
This is a curious entry, a sauce that has no idea what it really wants to do..or be..or even present itself. It's unclear why the name "honey-do" was chosen, as it doesn't really relate to the sauce and there is additionally no actual honey present, oddly enough. Why choose a name with an ingredient somewhat normally used in the hot sauce world if you're putting out a sauce in that world without that ingredient? It's like calling something Ghost Fire and then not having Jolokias and a sauce so mild it would make Frank's blush. This didn't color my perceptions of the sauce as I did not realize it was devoid of honey as an ingredient until I got more into the sauce testing.
We have a sauce calling itself "tropic", which almost always means fruit and fruit-sauce is inevitably best on lighter meats. Since I was grilling pork, I tried it out on that and additionally tried it further on what is generally the easiest test, the reliable old standby of chicken strips. It honestly failed pretty miserably. I had to toss the chop that was left from the grill, after struggling through the first half and though it was slightly better with the chicken strip, it did not add any heat nor improve the flavor so much as detracting from it considerably. I don't mind strong sauces (Blair's Pure Death, one of my all-time faves, is very strong), as long as it is also tasty. In this case, the sauce wrecked some of the food entirely.
The taste has this sort of odd, astringent quality, almost like they were trying to make a lighter version of A1. My guess is that the mangos were less than helpful here. Mangos in sauces always go one of two ways: either it is a well-done sweet and liveliness or it adds a sour note to things that tends to move things towards the unpalatable. Here, it is the latter, even with the inclusion of the sweeter red Habaneros and raisins. They really should have pitched some honey in there...it would have probably helped pretty considerably, as well as making more sense. There is precious little heat here, though little surprise, given how many ingredients ahead of the Habaneros.
Bottom line: Easily the worst sauce I've had in 2019 and the first, in quite a while, to have to be binned.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 0
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 0
This is a curious entry, a sauce that has no idea what it really wants to do..or be..or even present itself. It's unclear why the name "honey-do" was chosen, as it doesn't really relate to the sauce and there is additionally no actual honey present, oddly enough. Why choose a name with an ingredient somewhat normally used in the hot sauce world if you're putting out a sauce in that world without that ingredient? It's like calling something Ghost Fire and then not having Jolokias and a sauce so mild it would make Frank's blush. This didn't color my perceptions of the sauce as I did not realize it was devoid of honey as an ingredient until I got more into the sauce testing.We have a sauce calling itself "tropic", which almost always means fruit and fruit-sauce is inevitably best on lighter meats. Since I was grilling pork, I tried it out on that and additionally tried it further on what is generally the easiest test, the reliable old standby of chicken strips. It honestly failed pretty miserably. I had to toss the chop that was left from the grill, after struggling through the first half and though it was slightly better with the chicken strip, it did not add any heat nor improve the flavor so much as detracting from it considerably. I don't mind strong sauces (Blair's Pure Death, one of my all-time faves, is very strong), as long as it is also tasty. In this case, the sauce wrecked some of the food entirely.
The taste has this sort of odd, astringent quality, almost like they were trying to make a lighter version of A1. My guess is that the mangos were less than helpful here. Mangos in sauces always go one of two ways: either it is a well-done sweet and liveliness or it adds a sour note to things that tends to move things towards the unpalatable. Here, it is the latter, even with the inclusion of the sweeter red Habaneros and raisins. They really should have pitched some honey in there...it would have probably helped pretty considerably, as well as making more sense. There is precious little heat here, though little surprise, given how many ingredients ahead of the Habaneros.
Bottom line: Easily the worst sauce I've had in 2019 and the first, in quite a while, to have to be binned.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 0
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 0
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Hella Hot Carrot & Apple Hot Sauce Review
Hella Hot Carrot & Apple Hot Sauce
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kq6nP82lLY
This brand is evidently taking a stab at literalism, as most of their sauces seem to be fairly literally named for the main ingredients, along with the black and white pastiche of what is evidently the shop owner/founder on the label. All good, don't really care about naming conventions or labels a great deal, unless they're spectacular. These aren't, no big, if the sauce inside is awesome, but I will mention that I think it's a great idea that they post recipes and suggestions utilizing the sauces on the website. That is a pretty simple, yet brilliant, touch.
Getting to that sauce, this is one is a very definitely orangish hue, though perhaps on the lighter side of that scale. It looks a lot like what you might get if you pureed jalapenos, though there are none in this particular sauce, just apple (not specified as to which and the flavor is pretty much non-existent for that component, so no telling by that), carrot, lots and lots of carrot, Habanero and Serrano, which is an interesting combination that I don't recall seeing used before, but which makes a lot of sense.
I've had a fair number of carrot/Habanero sauces, but this is nothing like them. This tastes like nothing so much as super-finely shredded carrots, with the Habanero and Serrano notes. There are other spice notes in there as well, but specificity in ingredients is evidently not a weighty point to the company and so I'm not sure what they are. It tastes more like carrot than anything else, though, to the point where I almost wanted to make a carrot cake with it, just to see...
The sauce is very thick and a bit choppy, as a puree would also tend to be. This does allow it to be used by way of padding it on meat during grilling, for instance, but it works less well by itself as a dipping sauce. I found it somewhat of a novel concept, as I can't think of another sauce I've had like it, but ultimately, I'm not a huge fan of carrots, not enough to be overly fond of this sauce.
Bottom line: An interesting idea, but one that I'm not ultimately sure is successful. I will finish out the bottle, but will not be keeping it in rotation.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 3
Flavor: 3
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3
Overall: 3
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kq6nP82lLY This brand is evidently taking a stab at literalism, as most of their sauces seem to be fairly literally named for the main ingredients, along with the black and white pastiche of what is evidently the shop owner/founder on the label. All good, don't really care about naming conventions or labels a great deal, unless they're spectacular. These aren't, no big, if the sauce inside is awesome, but I will mention that I think it's a great idea that they post recipes and suggestions utilizing the sauces on the website. That is a pretty simple, yet brilliant, touch.
Getting to that sauce, this is one is a very definitely orangish hue, though perhaps on the lighter side of that scale. It looks a lot like what you might get if you pureed jalapenos, though there are none in this particular sauce, just apple (not specified as to which and the flavor is pretty much non-existent for that component, so no telling by that), carrot, lots and lots of carrot, Habanero and Serrano, which is an interesting combination that I don't recall seeing used before, but which makes a lot of sense.
I've had a fair number of carrot/Habanero sauces, but this is nothing like them. This tastes like nothing so much as super-finely shredded carrots, with the Habanero and Serrano notes. There are other spice notes in there as well, but specificity in ingredients is evidently not a weighty point to the company and so I'm not sure what they are. It tastes more like carrot than anything else, though, to the point where I almost wanted to make a carrot cake with it, just to see...
The sauce is very thick and a bit choppy, as a puree would also tend to be. This does allow it to be used by way of padding it on meat during grilling, for instance, but it works less well by itself as a dipping sauce. I found it somewhat of a novel concept, as I can't think of another sauce I've had like it, but ultimately, I'm not a huge fan of carrots, not enough to be overly fond of this sauce.
Bottom line: An interesting idea, but one that I'm not ultimately sure is successful. I will finish out the bottle, but will not be keeping it in rotation.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 3
Flavor: 3
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3
Overall: 3
Friday, July 26, 2019
2K19 Bi-Annual Update
I've decided to largely do away with doing quarterly posts, mostly because I've posted exactly 2 hot sauce reviews for this year. As the lifespan of this blog goes on, it becomes harder and harder to find new and interesting stuff, both because I've covered quite a bit already, but also dietary changes and not having good sources at hand...that is until I found out that my most very favorite hot sauce purveyor and emporium has returned, that being Burn Your Tongue, a mini-storefront located in a place called the Quilted Bear, itself located in the Newgate Mall in Ogden. I believe he has an online store as well, so readers not within reach of the Wasatch range of Utah are encouraged to check into him. He's a good guy and deserves your support!
I have probably a dozen or more sauces awaiting testing and so on and if the first 3 I've tried (I re-upped yesterday, as I write this) are any indication, I should have some very intriguing deliciousness in store. I think too much of the year has gone by to really reach some of the numbers of previous years, but it will be more than 2, certainly.
I'm also going to be doing something later in the year, which is a first for this blog, and that is accepting some sponsored sauces for review purposes. Roger, the awesome guy behind BYT and the man responsible for sort of giving me a shot in the arm, has graciously offered up some of his fine wares (he does not produce any directly, but is a retailer with a good 300+ available offerings) to get me back swinging away here at TSAAF and it is mightily appreciated. After a bit of back and forth, it was decided that he would pick some to surprise me, so look for those later on in the year and I will note which are sponsored within the review itself.
It also got me to thinking and I'm strongly considering recanting my previous idea that I wouldn't ever be doing videos of any of this. I'm now kicking that can around a bit, as well as the idea that maybe I could put up some of my testing criteria (I tend to use benchmarks a lot) for the respective sauces. Is that of interest to anyone out there? It is probably going to be a good deal of work to shoot footage of various foods and me trying the sauces, but it would be kind of cool to have a video link, as well as the pictures now in the reviews themselves. I probably wouldn't be launching this until next year, so there's a bit of time, but please drop me a line and let me know if this is of interest to you. If enough people want this type of content, I might even move it up to the anniversary date of the blog itself (09/11) to kick things off. I am still holding firm to the idea that I will never be doing stuff like podcasts, at least for now, though I guess if it made sense in the future...
I also had the Reaper ranch sauce at Taco Bell. If they just made a hotter version of their previous Lava sauce, that would have been great. As it was, the ranch kind of wrecks things for me. I don't believe I've had any other memorable spicier options at any of various restaurants out there, but I always keep my eye out. The Reaper ranch was kind of a surprise, but also sort of a shame. It had promise, but should have been better. I wish it had been...
I have probably a dozen or more sauces awaiting testing and so on and if the first 3 I've tried (I re-upped yesterday, as I write this) are any indication, I should have some very intriguing deliciousness in store. I think too much of the year has gone by to really reach some of the numbers of previous years, but it will be more than 2, certainly.
I'm also going to be doing something later in the year, which is a first for this blog, and that is accepting some sponsored sauces for review purposes. Roger, the awesome guy behind BYT and the man responsible for sort of giving me a shot in the arm, has graciously offered up some of his fine wares (he does not produce any directly, but is a retailer with a good 300+ available offerings) to get me back swinging away here at TSAAF and it is mightily appreciated. After a bit of back and forth, it was decided that he would pick some to surprise me, so look for those later on in the year and I will note which are sponsored within the review itself.
It also got me to thinking and I'm strongly considering recanting my previous idea that I wouldn't ever be doing videos of any of this. I'm now kicking that can around a bit, as well as the idea that maybe I could put up some of my testing criteria (I tend to use benchmarks a lot) for the respective sauces. Is that of interest to anyone out there? It is probably going to be a good deal of work to shoot footage of various foods and me trying the sauces, but it would be kind of cool to have a video link, as well as the pictures now in the reviews themselves. I probably wouldn't be launching this until next year, so there's a bit of time, but please drop me a line and let me know if this is of interest to you. If enough people want this type of content, I might even move it up to the anniversary date of the blog itself (09/11) to kick things off. I am still holding firm to the idea that I will never be doing stuff like podcasts, at least for now, though I guess if it made sense in the future...
I also had the Reaper ranch sauce at Taco Bell. If they just made a hotter version of their previous Lava sauce, that would have been great. As it was, the ranch kind of wrecks things for me. I don't believe I've had any other memorable spicier options at any of various restaurants out there, but I always keep my eye out. The Reaper ranch was kind of a surprise, but also sort of a shame. It had promise, but should have been better. I wish it had been...
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Skyline Chili Hot Sauce Review
Skyline Chili Hot Sauce
UPDATE: Support video (with Skyline Chili) now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mYcfwIWFGQ
Memory doesn't serve me well recalling where I came across this...it may have been one of the very few sauces I ordered from Amazon, but I also seem to think I saw it elsewhere on someone's shelf somewhere sometime...
In any case, we have yet another entry into the Louisiana-style sauce category, though this one is far closer to the runnier, watery version, ala Tabasco. The taste, thankfully, is not along those lines, but far more traditional. The bottle comes with a handy restrictor cap, which you definitely want, as this can get overpowering pretty quickly if you oversauce. This will add both a lot more astringency and more heat than may be desired, as this is one of the few Louisiana-style sauces that also packs a bit of a wallop, utilizing Jalapenos, Tabascos and Cayennes.
Apparently, there is something called Skyline chili, which this is also meant for and which piques my interest a bit, as using Louisiana-style sauce in a chili is not something I would normally consider. IF I find it, I will probably give it a go (not going to order it), but I certainly have not been using the sauce in that manner, but instead in the normal ways I typically use it and which it performs capably, though, as noted, one must be somewhat more judicio
us than normal when saucing.
Bottom line: Nothing ground-breaking here, but a strong entry into the Louisiana-style sauce category, that performs capably, though requiring a bit of caution.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 4
Flavor: 7
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8
Overall: 7
UPDATE: Support video (with Skyline Chili) now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mYcfwIWFGQ Memory doesn't serve me well recalling where I came across this...it may have been one of the very few sauces I ordered from Amazon, but I also seem to think I saw it elsewhere on someone's shelf somewhere sometime...
In any case, we have yet another entry into the Louisiana-style sauce category, though this one is far closer to the runnier, watery version, ala Tabasco. The taste, thankfully, is not along those lines, but far more traditional. The bottle comes with a handy restrictor cap, which you definitely want, as this can get overpowering pretty quickly if you oversauce. This will add both a lot more astringency and more heat than may be desired, as this is one of the few Louisiana-style sauces that also packs a bit of a wallop, utilizing Jalapenos, Tabascos and Cayennes.
Apparently, there is something called Skyline chili, which this is also meant for and which piques my interest a bit, as using Louisiana-style sauce in a chili is not something I would normally consider. IF I find it, I will probably give it a go (not going to order it), but I certainly have not been using the sauce in that manner, but instead in the normal ways I typically use it and which it performs capably, though, as noted, one must be somewhat more judicio
us than normal when saucing.
Bottom line: Nothing ground-breaking here, but a strong entry into the Louisiana-style sauce category, that performs capably, though requiring a bit of caution.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 4
Flavor: 7
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8
Overall: 7
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Schlotzsky's Hot Sauce Review
Schlotzsky's Moderately Hellacious Louisiana-style Hot Sauce
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8t9mxMFd2I
I almost never go to this chain, but if I see that a restaurant I happen to be in has a hot sauce offering, I generally at least look it over. This one was a tiny bottle, but it was also just a dollar, so I went for it, figuring that I can always use more entries into my overall favorite style of sauce.
This one is sort of a take on the old Tabasco bottles, that had the restrictor cap built into the glass itself in the mold, rather than a plastic addition. The sauce itself is pretty pedestrian, not sure who thought it was even slightly hellacious, let alone moderately, but advertising and all. The consistency, color, smell and taste is basically everything you would ever want in a Louisiana-style sauce, which I respect. With this style, there is no need (or point, really) in reinventing the wheel. If you're going to do it, it doesn't need transformation, just skilled execution and that is more or less what we have here.
There is precious little heat and flavor is about as middle of the road as you'd expect, with consistency being really a strong criteria for a mass market sauce. Have I had hotter sauces? Definitely, even in this style. Better-tasting, no question, but worse tasting as well and this one fits very solidly right in the middle.
Bottom line: This is a good one to have in your pocket, if your usual outlet for this style sauce is out...if nothing else, makes a great stopgap.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 7
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10
Overall: 7
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