Z's Berzerkerz Rage Hot Sauce Review

Z's Berzerkerz Rage Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_jfR4gHE20

I was oh so tempted to make this a literal one sentence review, which would read thusly: "This sauce needs to be sweeter." But then, I thought better of it, because, as every writer out there knows, why use 6 words when you can use 60 or 600. That single sentence, while true, is not sufficient to do justice to this sauce, however. I will also note that I did attempt to sweeten it myself with maple syrup, which ruined the maple syrup, but did make things sweeter, though even with the citrus knocked down a bit, the thyme still wound up somewhat as wrecking ball. 

Berries and Ghost pepper, which we have here, is usually a stunning combination. Those two ingredients go together magnificently. Unfortunately, this sauce is not really content to just leave it there and adds in elements, jarring flavor elements, such as lime, thyme, and citric acid, which tends to detract from the blackberries. It also makes the sauce quite unpleasantly sour, which is not a good combination to pair with the thyme.

For me, if you're making a sauce, particularly a fruit-based sauce, I am automatically going to assume it will be sweet. It doesn't have to be Torani syrup sweet, but I am expecting a strongly sweet element, one which is largely absent here. If a fruit's name is in the name of the sauce, this one has a subtitle of Blackberry Ghost Pepper, I am expecting the fruit element to be largely forward in the flavor profile and things, perhaps not built around it entirely, but at least based in that. Here, we have blackberry as the lead ingredient (and there are plenty of blackberry seeds and pulp to be found here), but the sauce itself is also quite runny. 

I don't find the combination of stuff in this sauce to work particularly well together in a composite (and am not certain I would like them separated, either). Part of my issue here is I don't understand what they were going for. It suggests pork, chicken, Asian dipping, cheesecake, and ice cream. I don't eat a lot of cheesecake these days, but would also not want thyme on it, if I was. The sauce was not enjoyable for me on either of the meats nor on the ice cream. As to Asian, the ginger that is here is not present enough in the flavor profile for that really to make a lot of sense. So, it's a sauce that is somewhat baffling and doesn't have a ready place.

Calling something "rage" should also indicate a fairly prominent heat profile, but the Ghost peppers here are a touch on the muted side. One can tell there is a superhot present, as what heat is there is pretty immediate, but it is a fairly low burn. Adding in the call with "berzerker" also leads one's mind to somewhere that the sauce does not quite deliver to. 

Bottom line: This sauce misses for me and misses hard and is one I find a bit lacking in identity. I appreciate the experimentalism, as always, but I don't find this one successful.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 1

 

Hoff Smoken Ghost Hot Sauce Review

Hoff & Pepper Smoken Ghost Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po2FrOYmdt8

Hoff is another of the newer sort of boutique hot sauce companies that has come to my attention in recent years and I've had them on the list for a while. Here, we have the company putting forth a sauce specifically into a category, everyday sauce, that has no actual meaning, or rather, a meaning that varies from user to user. Now, before anyone is prompted to write me, I am aware that everyday is meant to mean exactly that, ubiquitous daily usage in an all-purpose sense, but for some people, that will be a fruit-based sweet hot or a Louisiana-style sauce. It's very difficult to find one single sauce that works well for all cuisine styles, with Mexican and Asian distinctively flavored enough that they are nearly always the exceptions, even if a sauce has full coverage of nearly everything else.

For this, I think you probably would be fine using it on Mexican foods (definitely not on Asian), but it is also not a sauce I find enjoyable in high concentrations. Using the red Jalapeno to lend it sort of a tomatoey aspect, then dosing that with the combination of Chipotle & Habanero is both wise and wonderful, but Chipotle can be a vicious sword. Smokiness will add a degree of complexity to things, but too much, and you face down a bitter aspect. Ghosts, while one of my very favorite chiles, is a superhot and bitterness is part and parcel of the equation with those. The higher you go up the heat scale, the more bitterness tends to play into the flavor profile. Thus, using this sauce with things (and somewhat sparingly, so as not to overpower the dish), is the way to go, but leaving it solo, such as a chicken strip dipping sauce, for example, is not an application I find pleasant. While this sauce is certainly flexible, it is that part which moves it away from the "everyday" part for me.

It is a very rich sauce, medium thickness, sort of like a yellow mustard. It is mostly smooth, though there are some chile particulates in it. The Ghost lends a nice touch of heat to things, but it is mostly a pleasant warmth rather than raging fire. I mean, I can see where they were trying to go with this. Most of the "everyday" sauces out there are pretty mild, so taking the best-tasting superhot and using it to spike up a solid flavorful formulation, but for me, it is not pulled off entirely successfully.

Bottom line: Definitely a hot sauce company to watch out for, with one of the more interesting entries into this category. If you wish your everyday sauce had more punch to it, this is worth a go.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 6

The General's Shock & Awe Hot Sauce Review

The General's Shock & Awe Hot Sauce

Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8ObuJQMuIA

The questions I have about this sauce company continue with this one. The good news is that the weird aftertaste of the Dead Red, reviewed elsewhere here and which covers quite a bit of that commentary, is to less effect here, but the less good news is that the sauce overall  has a large funkiness and unpleasantness. I'm more convinced that the oddness of flavor has to do with the garlic addition with this sauce, but overall, the blend is such that this is an incredibly hard to use sauce, one that tends to foul the flavor of everything it's on. 

Here, we have a slogan devised relative to General Colin Powell's strategy during the first Gulf War, presumably designed to infer a high heat content, but there is not a great deal of heat here. Definitely a heat reflective of the Habaneros, but not a particularly strong degree of it. The color is more or less what you'd expect from orange Habaneros making up the vast majority of this sauce. It is not one I find particularly appetizing, though. The consistency is quite smooth, though the foolish plastic simulation of a grenade handle had some sort of issue with the foam cap padding inside and it doesn't fit entirely correctly on my bottle, which is probably more nuisance than anything.. 

This is the second of the Heatseeker box I wound up getting and it is one that I will attempt to use as part of a recipe, but that is really the last ditch hope for this. It is highly unappealing when it overpowers food, which doesn't take a lot, unfortunately, and unless it is wildly successful in the cooking application, it will not go beyond that application.

Bottom line: The strongest indicator yet that the company behind it is more focused on marketing than on flavorful sauces.  This is not a good sauce.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 1

Top Best Chilehead Foodie Wonderful Most Good Hot Sauce Brands

Most recent update: 02/17/24

Apologies for the clickbaity title, but I'm trying to keep on theme here...

This is a post I've been on and off threatening for years, largely because people like lists, including me, and because I've read a lot of crappy ones, from thrillist, from epicurious, from tasteofhome, from nymag, a sodium-oriented one from eaththis, from the spruceeats, even CNN has gotten into the act. Most of these use what I consider flawed reasoning and I tend to agree with very few of them (I will not be linking any of them, so use teh Googlez, if interested). The why behind my reading them is research for this blog (and in a subsidiary sense, the FOH video series), as the chilehead community, particularly those who do written work, is fairly small. There are a lot more with video channels, but those tend not to be particularly well-suited for lists, or are at least not being used for that.

I have held off because the actual list, in my mind, where I keep it, keep constantly changing, which makes the post quickly obsolete (and I hate going back and re-editing, though I will be doing it anyway to keep this list current). The prompting for me to finally do this is a recent post by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue over on his Facebook page (check it out if you want to find the link to that one) about a list he came across on a site called Wishlisted. It was not really constructed either by foodies or chileheads in mind, to wit, here is their stated criteria: "In creating this list, we took into account brands that are highly talked about, uses [sic] quality ingredients, gives back to the community [?], and most importantly makes some blazin’ hot sauce." This is then followed by a list which backs somewhat away from the last criteria. I was tempted to reprint their list, along with my reaction to each entry, but I won't do that, as I'd then have to do it for all the other, more ridiculous lists I mentioned as well. Instead, I will save a paragraph of commentary at the end. Their 2022 list (not sure if it is weighted, but this is the posted order), then:

13 Stars
The Heatonist
Elijah's Extreme
Frank's Red Hot
Torchbearer
Angry Goat
Siete
Pex
Yellowbird
Kultivar

Ok.Of these, 3 (Elijah's, Siete, Kultivar) are from companies where I've not had any of the sauces yet. I'm familiar with all of them, save Kultivar. In the case of Siete and IIRC Elijah's, it is because both heavily favor using onions. The other is on my list to get to, as is Elijah's, once I find something of theirs tolerable, but the inclusion of Frank's pretty explicitly means flavor is not really a factor in their findings, as well as killing the idea of "blazin'" that they mentioned. As to The Heatonist, stunning success story, yes, but they are more hot sauce outlet than producer, to my mind. If we're considering The Hot Ones sauces, I have reviewed a number of them and found them to be really hit and miss.

So, to my list. I suppose you could conceivably just click on my Table Of Contents page for this blog (see link at right) and count which makers appear the most, but that might not be the best indicator, exactly. Here, then, is my list (in alphabetical, not weighted, order):

Angry Goat

Hard not to agree with their inclusion, as they're one of the more interesting in what I think of as the "new wave" of makers. While not every single one of their sauces are a hit with me, I do appreciate their inventiveness and originality and I find they do a great job of balancing heat with flavor.

Blair's 

As the first of the old school (old wave?) of makers, though the company has fallen into a number of challenges, the shock wave of Blair Lazar on the industry was one of the larger turning points in its history. His Pure Death (reviewed elsewhere here) is the stuff of magic and still one of my all-time favorite sauces.

CaJohn's

It's not hyperbole for me to state that more than any other single company, a hot sauce list without this company on it is a largely worthless list. This is the maker with by far the most entries in the blog (and probably on the FOH video series) and whose consistent quality is unparalleled. I once wrote that if there was such a sure thing in the industry, it is them, which still stands and has for the life of this blog (Happy Beaver, reviewed elsewhere here, was this blog's first ever SOTY (Sauce Of The Year - see link on right)). Every sauce entry from the brilliance of John Hard is potentially a SOTYcontender, which is a feat in itself, given how many sauces this company has out there, and with the apparent ease with which he is able to flip styles and make something at the top of that category.

Eddie Ojeda's Twisted

I wish there were more sauces from this company. Everything I've had from them has been a marvel, with a huge emphasis on flavor. These are possibly the best-tasting fruit sauces on the market, though heat is not necessarily left behind in service to it. Just deliciously well-crafted stuff.

Gindo's 

The ultimate expression of a boutique and gourmet sensibility in hot sauce. This is like one of those hole-in-the-wall places slinging up amazing food, that secret only you know about, the gem dazzling more than all others. That this is not included on most lists of this type I see means they are criminally unregarded and still a secret, for now. Like CaJohn's, every entry from them could be a contender for SOTY, which is a decidedly rare attribute. The deliciousness Chris Ginder is able to summon is a marvel and a must, if you care at all about this type of food.

Silk City

Like Angry Goat, there is a major emphasis on experimentalism, as well as an intense focus onto farm fresh ingredients. Also, like Angry Goat, not every sauce is great, but when they're on, they're near untouchable, often creating SOTY-contending creations. Most of the sauces also sometimes come in flasks and there is a dedication to a $10 retail price point for those flasks that I find admirable, particularly with how high quality they are. To put a finer point on this, for the last couple of years (this is the 2024 update, right here), I have made it a point to make a annual pilgrimage to the Silk City website, to make a buy of whatever sauces I've missed over the year. No only do I not do this with any other sauce company, none are in consideration.

______________

At this point, I ran into a stumbling block. There are companies like Hellfire, Jersey Barnfire, Karma, and Volcanic, where there is high promise but not quite enough sauces for me to make a judgment, then a few others like High River, Irazu, Pex, Torchbearer, and Voodoo Chjle, where I really liked some of their sauces, but not quite enough to put the company on a list of this type. Should I include Dave's, if only because of the profound influence of his sauces, which I don't really love, had on the industry? If so, that makes it more of a Hall Of Fame list rather than my personal top anything. What about Puckerbutt, which I'm ashamed to admit, took me a decade to finally get to? I'm a huge fan of Smokin' Ed Currie, who has maybe single-handedly done more to revolutionize the chilehead community than anyone and who I agree with considerably as to thoughts on the respective peppers, but who also has made a sauce that I've run across yet, over which I've been smitten.

Speaking of that, if it's just love, should I include Trappey for Red Devil, one of the sauces I loved so much I've consumed that maybe more than any other single sauce (Cholula Original is probably close, though), despite not having any at all for at least the last 9 years? We have too the case of Big Red's, where I love the company itself a great deal, but only find some of the sauces favorable. There's a case for Honorable Mentions, but that list is longer than the main list itself and much more subject to change. Should I include the makers of my Sauce Of The Year winners, though some of the makers have that sauce only as entry? Even a list of my favorite sauces has some agony, unless I do it by category...

This blog is 10+ years old, well over 300 sauces (nearing 500 - 2024 update again), and I still don't have a concrete answer to any of this, other than the ones I mentioned. Lists like this are somewhat difficult to do well, when all entries have to be worthy and at least competitive with everything else on it, that list, by the way, is where most of the lists I see fall apart. The genesis of the blog was a gigantic list, respective to me, and in a lot of ways it still functions in that way, but by creating a list of this type, I'm explicitly recommending you spend your money on certain thing, at the very least, encouraging towards those companies appearing on it, which is a responsibility I do not take lightly.

To conclude, what I think I'll be doing is to keep this list perpetually updated.

Mega Valley Spicy Sweet Aleppo Hot Sauce Review

Mega Valley Foods Spicy Sweet Aleppo Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb8xDwqwIsw

The only Aleppo I was familiar with prior to coming across this was the city in Syria, which is also evidently where these peppers originated (though they are now available from Turkey and the US, due to the Syrian strife). Aleppo typically take a form more similar to the dried red pizza pepper flakes, though they are slightly sweeter and milder than the usual ones. I'd never had a sauce using those peppers, so when I came across what I thought was a new pepper for a sauce, I was immediately interested. Here, however, we have a sauce that starts with those, but then adds Cayenne, Habanero, and another nameless pepper. The resulting sauce is a bit lacking in identity as a result.

This seems modeled as an everyday sauce, but for me, the sweetness from the honey comes across as a bit odd, almost like a funky version of a sweet and sour sauce, almost in a straight split ratio, though it also comes across as a bit strange and off-putting, given the vinegars and pepper combination. The various suggestions are for roasted vegetables, eggs, sandwiches, stews, etc., though none of those foods are ones I particularly like with sweetness. It's a bit sour for my taste on pizza, which leaves generally chicken as the best usage of this, though I'd generally rather have something else. 

Heat-wise, there is basically none to speak of, despite those other peppers. Aleppo is not generally spicy, the next ingredient chile powder (which I'm taking as possibly powdered Arbol, such as you might get at a grocery store), is not particularly either, then Cayenne, which is almost never. There are Habaneros, but such a moderate amount that they serve up little against the preponderance of other elements.

Bottom line: I really haven't found a setting where I like this sauce a great deal and have struggled through about half a bottle of it trying to find where to put it. The flavor is much more odd than interesting and this is one that can be safely skipped.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 1

Hank's Heat Hot Sauce Review

Hank's Heat Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Plqw7-DQtg

This may be coincidence, but these guys came onto my radar at around the same time as Gindo's (and Hoff's, reviews forthcoming there) and like Gindo's, there seems to be a preference for the larger square bottles. The two companies also have a Honey Habanero sauce in the lineup (review for Hank's forthcoming, Gindo's reviewed elsewhere on this blog), but after that, the similarities seem to end. Hank's evidently has a base (a Louisiana-style sauce) that they use as a platform for all of their sauces (and use pretty much exclusively the large square bottles), where Gindo's is much more boutique (most of their sauces are Limited Editions, in the regular 5 oz. round bottles), a difference in aesthetic that extends all the way to the labeling. Indeed, the labeling of Hank's is pretty plain and somewhat difficult to read, given the use of a brown base, which does not lend itself well to contrast. 

The focus here seems to be more on the sauce, though, with them here taking the concept of a more or less basic Cajun sauce and turning it on its head. We have the additions of wine, Habanero, and basil to round out the usual addition of garlic. Here, the garlic is fresh and the quality reads through immediately. In terms of Cajun style sauces, this is one of the better ones and somewhat gives my usual preference for Lousiana-style sauces a run for the money. Here, the garlic is not flattening the other flavors, but rather complimenting them, to an overall absolutely delicious result. The Habanero appears to be there mostly for heat, the presence of the wine is indistinct, other than in slight grace notes, and the basil, aside from getting pieces of it, mostly lost, but as a composite, the effect is extremely well done. 

Heat-wise, even with the addition of Habanero, there is precious little of it, but that's typical of both Louisiana-style and the off-shoot of Cajun style. Those sauces are more meant to restore balance and cut through the richness of various dishes a bit moreso than as heat delivery vehicles. Habanero is a good heat building pepper, though, and consumption of enough of this will give a nice heat roundness to the mouth, which is a gorgeous way to finish.

Bottom line: Very strong offering for my first sauce from this company and quite impressive. If you prefer Cajun style to Louisiana-style or like a good dose of quality garlic, this is an absolute must...and first contender for SOTY 2022

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 9
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 8

Gindo's Blood Orange Ghost Hot Sauce Review

Gindo's Blood Orange Ghost Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pekIb1pwqh8

I said, in a somewhat recent review to this, that I thought if there is such a thing as a "sure thing" among sauce manufacturer's, it would be John Hard of CaJohn's, which I still hold to be true, but I now will add a second, that being Chris Ginder of Gindo's. Everything I've had so far, like CaJohn's, a small smattering of what's available, has been excellent, this sauce no less, but in the case of Gindo's, the model is far more intriguing. Embracing the boutique aesthetic, there appear to be three main sauces that are regularly available and everything else is Limited Edition, a concept I find alternately fascinating and infuriating, as the website also lists nicely everything I missed (this one is already a vault sauce, meaning it is out of rotation). Given how delicious these sauces are, I feel the loss somewhat more acutely, though I just found out about this company last year. They have also adopted a subscription service, which the Limited Edition sauces feed into, I suspect, so from a business perspective, a nice tie-in there...if I ever decide to do one of those, this will be atop my list. 

That aside, what we have here is a most intriguing sauce. Blood orange (or regular orange) and Habanero seems to be a combination I've run across here and there, but this one ups the ante considerably with the brilliant usage of Ancient peppers (a pepper, like Peppadew, I wish a lot more sauce makers would utilize). The Ghost appears to be here for heat, but it is difficult to pick out one particular flavor as there is quite a number of them, which makes a beautifully fantastic whole. The main note is citrus-y, with a definite orange lean, but cantaloupe and pineapple also figure heavily into the equation, with grace notes of peppercorn rounding things out. All of this is laced within vinegar that treads the line into over-astringent but is careful to never quite step across. This is one of the more stunning examples of a truly gourmet hot sauce I can think, which fits into the motif of Gindo's perfectly.

This is not a blazing sauce, but there is enough heat here to both keep chileheads interested and non-chileheads somewhat at bay. It is a sauce that is so delicious, one could happily oversauce with (it is a bit chunky but flows fairly smoothly and quickly), but the citrus notes tend to steer it from the creamier dishes or anything with tomato sauce in it. One of my favorite things about Gindo's is that there is always a fairly lengthy list of dishes to pair the sauce with, yet another aspect I wish more manufacturer's would adopt, and indeed there are many items there that I hadn't thought of directly for this sauce, but might need to take for a spin. For me, I found it best on things involving non-red meat, so fish, pork, and chicken, maybe especially chicken. 

Bottom line: Yet another winner from the kitchen of Ginder and which now cements Gindo's for me as another manufacturer making sauces that could potentially always be in contention for SOTY, though this particular one is not.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Crystal Extra Hot Hot Sauce Review

Crystal Extra Hot Hot Sauce

Note: Sipport video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVfu1VV9_pw

For all of my lofty commentary about sauces and my admittedly elitist taste commensurate to that, if there is one sauce I've seen on people's tables more than any other, trotted out for all manner of foods, it is probably Crystal. I presume this to be due to cost, as it is invariably towards the least expensive of options. The flavor I would compare to being akin to a hammer, as it tends not to have any subtlety but is a very forceful and aggressive hit of harsh white vinegar, with a slight back end of cayenne. Nothing wrong with that, it knows what it is and that's really all it wants to be.

For me, though, it was nothing too much more than an "in a pinch" sauce, where I would use it if it was at hand, judiciously, mind you, and there was nothing better. Due to them molding the restrictor opening into the actual glass of the bottle, though, this resulted in numerous oversaucings. That same effect is here with this, but this particular Crystal has been stepped on with the addition of extract, following the leads of Frank's and Texas Pete, both national at the same level, both the same category of sauce, and both also reviewed elsewhere here. Given that flavor has not even been exactly great for Crystal, I thought they would probably fare the best as they had a lot less room to fall than the other two and that was how it shook out, more or less. All of them definitely have a higher heat punch than their regular entries into the market, but of those, Texas Pete fared by far the worst, with Frank's as it normally is, more or less in the middle, and this one being the least changed from its regular version.

There is no pretense here. This is a straightforward, watery, Louisiana-style sauce, that hits like a wrecking ball with a vinegar hit, followed by a passing reference to cayenne, and here, with a back chaser of extract, which somewhat competes with the vinegar for presence. It's not as if this is scorching or anything. Of those 3, none of them have really an accelerated degree of heat, even with the extract, but it definitely provides the hot kick that regular Crystal doesn't particularly have, though it is in the same heavy-handed, clumsy manner as the regular Crystal approaches food.

Bottom line: Hotter than regular Crystal, but extract never improves the flavor, including here. It does worsen it less than the other two mentioned above, though, so that's...something?

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 3
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 3