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

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

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...

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