2K22 Q2 Update

Q2 2K22 Update

I’m given to understand that tomorrow is the 13th anniversary of Burn Your Tongue being in the Quilted Bear in the Newgate Mall in Ogden. By far my favorite spicy dispensary and the best of its kind, to my reckoning, here’s wishing Roger a hearty congratulations and happy anniversary and look forward to many more to come! If you haven’t checked out the OG BYT location, it’s well worth the drive, though he has a few other satellites as well that may be closer. I absolutely urge you to support this living legend, Utah’s own heat ambassador!

As promised, high time we get to the update of The Hot Ones sauces, which, going forward, will now be in the even-numbered quarterly updates until completed or until much closer to completed.

Here is the breakdown of the seasons. There were 16 seasons coming into 2022, with the first four covered by me. Since then, they have added two more seasons, so 18 (which I’ve updated in the Hot Ones list, link to the right), but I also fully covered 3 more seasons, 5, 8, and 17. This leaves me with 11 yet to go, although I am within a single sauce on some of those (see next paragraph). The #5 slot is done entirely throughout all the seasons and I’ll break down what is left for which slots when I re-update at the end of the year.

Even with the new seasons, it puts me at 97 sauces out of 180 total (18 seasons X 10 sauces per season) that are both available and that I would consider doing (meaning they do not have an onion component). Deleting duplicates puts us at 61 individual sauces remaining for me to do. Of that pool, I have done written mini-reviews on 10. Of the 51 remaining, I have written full reviews on 24, with just 1 not having a support video. This leaves another 27 sauces to fully realize the completion of at least written reviews, but I don’t foresee having a written review of any future Hot Ones sauce without a video, as that is much of the reason I get these sauces in the first place. I have 8 Hot Ones sauces at hand now, so I will go beyond the halfway point by the end of the year, which will also be the next update to this.

The seasons with sauces outstanding are as follows:

Season 6 - 1 remaining
Season 7 - 2 remaining (have one at hand)
Season 9 - 3 remaining
Season 10 - 2 remaining (have one at hand)
Season 11 - 3 remaining
Season 12 - 3 remaining
Season 13 - 4 remaining (have one at hand)
Season 14 - 4 remaining (have two at hand)
Season 15 - 1 remaining (have at hand)
Season 16 - 2 remaining (have one at hand)
Season 18 - 2 remaining

Staying with The Hot Ones for a minute, I had occasion to check out both of the spicy-related videos on Food Theorist with MatPat and Stephanie. I was somewhat disappointed to see that he did not test the capsaicin-neutralizing tablet (I think Donnie the Chilimancer did a video on it, which I will not be repeating, as I get nervous about tinkering with taste buds, also, if it worked, that would take a lot of the fun out of things). I think if MatPat is not able to eventually get on the actual Hot Ones show, for the third Food Theorist video trying to conquer spice burn, he should get in touch with myself, Bill Moore, Johnny Scoville (who does not seem to have prep at all, other than sometimes having something in his stomach first), Heat 101, Brian Ambs, and some of the other more prolific YouTube chileheads, who do this shit all the time and who are bound to have our own remedies. I suspect all of us will observe that it largely depends on our relative tolerance at the time.

Naturally, that got me thinking about chileheads and what everyone uses vs. what I do. A lot of chileheads, especially after slamming down fresh pods, I’ve been given to understand, do a purge. To me, this is a pointless waste and something I do not do (have never tossed my cookies, no matter how hot something has gotten, though a couple times it was a bit narrower than I expected). Yes, I know cap cramps well and dislike them intensely, but that is what building tolerance is for. I’ve been kicking around the idea of putting my own prep and heat remedies into a video (for a long time, I didn’t do this at all and just depended solely on tolerance, which meant I suffered...a lot), but I’m not in need of content just yet. Also, I kind of think that needs to be an event video (I have a few ideas for event videos, should the occasion ever present). Like MatPat, I also take a very science-based approach to cooling overly enthusiastic capsaicin punches, largely based on chemistry, which seems to work well for everything that is not a Reaper. That pepper remains largely in its own class. Clearly body chemistry has some part to things as well.
                                               
My approach, I suspect, is somewhat different as I don’t really care about mouth, or head heat, such as lips, etc., in general. I try to take care not to get it on my fingers, though, as skin contact in sensitive areas is not pleasant (see the first Gordon Ramsay Hot Ones episode for what I mean there) and definitely not in my eyes. As far as after-effects, for a while, Habanero would be weird the next day, though it’s been a long time now since that was the case. Really, the only one the next (sometimes same) day that can sometimes be problematic is the Reaper...

More what I’m concerned about is cap cramps, as I find those wholly unwelcome and take what may be excessive lengths to avoid them. I have sort of an “ol ironguts” stomach, which is helpful, but trying to key into what I can do to keep from cramping has taken quite a bit of experimentation. I will say, as regards the Food Theorist videos I mentioned, that those two were somewhat on the right track with some of their solutions, but oddly did not touch on any of the specific items I find most effective (and usually use).

I also tinkered around with the Burn After Eating sauce from Karma (reviewed elsewhere here), a sauce that more and more I think effectively does what Murder By Primo (also reviewed elsewhere here) was trying to do, which is to pair well with Italian foods, particularly those with tomato-rich sauces. I don’t like Burn After Eating on wings or chicken strips, particularly (although I guess I could make a nice (and fiery) chicken Mozz with it at some point [HMMMMM]), but I made some especially nice bruscetta and pizza with it and I think that is probably how I will wind up using the rest of the bottle, after the Q2 wing thing, which is using it in cooking and/or various Italian-ish red sauces.

I wrapped filming of mustards to cover grilling season for 2022 and am now working, very slowly, albeit, on 2023. I still have a lot of 2021 non-sauce FOH content that has not been posted, but hopefully that will be wrapped by the end of Q3. I’m really slow-walking doing additional content there, as my backlog is overly huge, to the point where a lot of stuff I really wanted to do this year I will not get to at all, most probably. In some ways, a good problem to have, but it also can feel a bit disjointed.

Speaking of Bill Moore, who I mentioned earlier, I notice he has evidently stopped making videos and did apparently earlier in the year. I happened to be wondering why I wasn’t seeing his stuff pop up, but YT is really weird and funky with recommends sometimes, so it didn’t strike me until after the last quarterly update posted, but he’s seemingly doing the opposite of me, where he did videos first and now is moving to the blog, whereas I did the inverse. His blog seems to be a combination of reviews and food applications, along with some wonderful pictures, so definitely well worth checking out. I did strike me as a bit abrupt, but his output is legendary and significant and if this new direction is where his passion is, maybe he will bring back blogging, a scene which I think has been a bit on the deader side for a while now. As for me, no plans to change. Once I accomplish everything I have in mind for more immediate future for the FOH series, then we’ll see, but I still have a pretty full projection plate, putting me well into 2023 already, if not beyond.

I would also be remiss not to note that Main Event Pong has also stopped producing content, which is a shame as I found his heat challenges to be generally pretty entertaining. There is a lot to talk about in terms of creator burnout and so on, but I produce content for three channels currently (and am considering starting a 4th), with thousands of videos. Zero of the channels are monetized and none can be, even if I could collectively use all the subscribers. I went into the channels all as a labor of love, but it can be hard to transition that into an actual paying gig and once it becomes exclusively work, the fun can get sucked out. There’s the old saying of love what you’re doing and it will never seem like work, and I love doing the FOH stuff for the YouTube channel and this blog, but they are also unquestionably work. For me, my various artistic projects, which I consider these, have a sort of built in ending to them, either when I’ve said all I want to say or the project reaches a natural conclusion. Two of my other channels are closing in on the latter category, I think, but the FOH series, in support of this blog, still seems to have a lot of miles left ahead of it.

This quarter I also wound up doing my first-ever pre-release sauce, which was the Silk City Ram Skull sauce. It was a lot of fun and pretty cool doing that and I’m absolutely open to doing more of those in the future. I also created the previously mentioned Spicy Mustards FOH playlist (link for that, as with all the others, is on the menu to the right) and did more maintenance on the FOH videos, including adding chapters for all videos in 2022 (I do not believe I will be going back further...at least at this point). The Everything Else Spicy playlist has probably stabilized for now, as I don’t really envision a need to create a new list out of what’s left there. I am casually debating either a fast food/restaurant specific playlist and/or possibly one of just challenges, but I don’t generally consider a playlist necessary or worthwhile until I have at least 10 videos of that type. Neither of those are quite at that point.

The first Sauce Lake City (Saucetown) Fest happened this year. I was set to be a judge, but a dental problem finally got the point where I could hold off no longer and it well and truly fucked my mouth up (and I possibly caught some sort of infection from being unmasked in the building for 2+ hours - COVID tests came up negative repeatedly, but I’m still not quite back to normal, even now). Regrettably, my mouth was not remotely healed enough to accommodate the levels required attendant to the task on the day of judging and I sadly had to withdraw, along with still not being restored enough to actually attend the day of, but that weekend is a hard one for me at the best of times and I also ran into a scheduling conflict, so...double whammy. It was a shame as I was greatly looking forward to participating and helping the event where I could. I’m hopeful the event will go on next year and I will be able to participate in a much greater capacity.

And to wrap up this update, in May, this blog hit 300 full reviews, with over 1/3 of those coming in the last 3 years. It’s also, as of now, nearing the blog post total of last year, so this year will be the new high point pretty handily. It could conceivably hit 400 posts total by the end of this year. Also did a very rough word count to find this blog is well over 300,000 words...and finally finished through the sauces from 2020.

Wuju Extra Hot Hot Sauce Review

Wuju Extra Hot

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXWJ5ET5Aog

This is another of the Albuquerque finds from earlier in the year and from a company I'd not heard of before, which reminded me of wushu, though there is no connection. It seems like I never quite seem to come across enough Asian-type sauces and though I don't eat a lot of Asian food these days, I do like to have one around, so I thought this might be a good pickup. What it is another interesting and unique sauce, but one that I think is somewhat challenged by the approach.

What I mean here is that it starts with agave syrup and yellow mustard and from there adds a kitchen-sink list of ingredients, including orange concentrate, brown sugar, mango, chili powder and curry powder, and rounds it all off with cumin. The sauce by itself is rather pleasant, reminding me a bit of a nice sweet dijon, with a back current of the curry and the cumin. I wouldn't want to eat it by itself, but the notes are intriguing. Unfortunately, they vanish entirely once this is combined with food.

I've spent quite a bit of the bottle trying to track down where this would go best and that means it's hit the usual suspects of chicken strips and pizza and burgers and Asian-y foods and grilled meats. It's fine on all of them, but in every case, it seems like I'm just not quite getting to where this sauce wants to go and I'd invariably rather have something else. The strategy with so many distinct and diverse tastes is to come up with a sauce that can have ubiquitous uses and indeed, there's nothing where it didn't work at all. It just underperformed as a food addition. I suppose you could make the case it detracted in those instances where I had to use a lot more of it to get it to read at all, but nothing was outright bad or inedible because of that. 

The issue here is wanting to be too many things at once. I don't know enough about Indian food to know if they were making a stab at that, but mustards in general do not go with a lot of things. They need something fairly strong taste-wise to stand up to the pungent punch. The mustard here is tempered considerably, but the addition of more Mexican-y spices seems to move away from both Asian and Indian foods. It's unclear where this is meant to fit and the website gives a veritable laundry list of applications, some of which don't make a lot of sense to me. Mustard on tacos or in hummus? Ahhh, no. I think not. 

This is supposed to be the Extra Hot version of the regular sauce, because...I have no idea, actually. The ingredient panels are identical. I suppose this one has maybe more Habanero (I didn't get the Original), but there is not what I would call any sort of heat to this. It is very smooth and consistent and does stick well to foods.

Bottom line: This is one of those sauces where if you happen to like the result of this combination of ingredients, you'll probably wind up using it in a variety of places and being happy with it. It isn't striking a lot of those notes and chords with me and I can't find a natural food fit for it, so YMMV.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3

Rising Smoke Pineapple Oasis Hot Sauce Review

Rising Smoke Pineapple Oasis

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

Another from one of the newer sauce companies and my understanding was that there was a smoke component to their sauces, hence the company name. I might be misunderstanding that, however, as there is no smoke flavor to be had in this particular sauce. Instead, while it positions itself along the lines of pineapple-coconut, with the coconut coming from one of the vinegars, instead this is a much stronger fresh ginger flavor, thanks to the ginger puree. Ginger is one of those ingredients that requires some caution. Use too little and it gets lost, but use too little and it can easily becoming dominant, like it is here. I like fresh ginger quite a lot, but here it overtakes the sauce, leaving it a bit one-note.

The pepper is the Aji pepper, which is a relatively mild Caribbean pepper. I don't read a lot of it or the roasted yellow bells particularly, with it mostly being fresh ginger tempered with a slight pineapple back end. Heat is almost entirely non-existent. With ginger as high in the flavor profile as this is, yet a touch on the sweeter side, this does very nicely with Asian dishes, but cuts the normal applications for fruit-based sweet hots nearly in half. This is not something I find palatable on pizza, for instance, and it is mostly just ok on chicken strips. I sort of dislike it on grilled meats, so that flexibility window is a bit narrow for this one. 

Consistency-wise, it is more or less like you'd expect with crushed pineapple as the first ingredient and relatively loose additional ingredients from there. One of the aspects of this is that it tends to separate rather readily once out of the bottle. Inside the bottle can be deceiving, since it is contained by glass walls. Once outside, nearly immediately, a pool of water juice will take its leave, or try to, and the pulp will sort of sit there in a pile. The overall effect leans a bit towards the unrefined side, though, I don't have issue with it on a taste front, being a fan of ginger in all its myriad forms.

Bottom line: If you're looking for a sauce that's ginger-forward with a touch of sweetness, this is your sauce. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3

Silk City Jezebel Hot Sauce Review

Silk City Jezebel

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97_26aj1Pkk

The historical story of Jezebel is a fascinating one, particularly how the name transmutated over the years to eventually get to a description of a "morally unrestrained woman," but how any of the varied meanings translate to a hot sauce is a curious one to me. This is yet another hallmark of Silk City, I think. In addition to excellent sauces, there is the naming convention for the sauces, which is always a point of interest for me.

Here we have another flask, of course. If Ram Skull (reviewed elsewhere here) was the blueberry-strawberry hot sauce, this one is the raspberry. I also think this sauce is a bit more successful in that regard as the raspberry notes here are a lot more deliciously prominent than were either the blueberry or the strawberry in the Ram Skull. This sauce is not quite as watery, which is probably helping things, but the apples and Habanero again show up. The apple-Habanero combination is an excellent one and is a nice base for the Silk City fruit-forward sauces, I think, though I definitely prefer the less watery versions. This one is still quite runny, however. That runniness impacts somewhat negatively the flexibility, as the more watery fruit-based sweet hots get, the more likely they are to run off the food entirely. This presents a significant problem for sauces of this type, as one of the more primary uses for this style is as a dipping sauce. If a sauce is sweet enough (this one is not), it can also work well as a grilling sauce...but not if overly watery. Indeed, both this and the Ram Skull seem a lot to me to be closer to the vein of elixirs than actual sauces...

Heat-wise, again with Habanero, this is quite moderate. It can serve as a good introduction to the vast and varied world of hot sauces, and some alternative uses, such as mixing into beverages. That may have been the intent, a sort of best of both worlds vibe. 

Bottom line: If you are prone to raspberries in your hot sauce, this is definitely one to take a swing at. Overall, a very accessible and quite tasty sauce.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 9
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 5

Mayan Fire Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Mayan Fire Habanero 

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5HH3Tt13D8

Found this gem on the trip to Albuquerque for The Fiery Show 2022. I don't now recall the appeal towards this bottle, other than having CaJohn's Mayan Sun (I have been unable to find that particular sauce) in mind prior to going to the event. Once I got back, I wasn't quite sure what I had on my hands, so I put it on the shelf and forgot about it for a while. I came across it the other day, while looking to see what was left of the on-deck pile (not really a pile, more like a few rows, I guess) and took a closer look. I remember glancing at the label to make sure there were no ingredients I didn't want before buying it, but didn't have acute enough recall as to what I had in mind for it. 

What we have here is, more or less, a Louisiana-style sauce using Habanero instead of Cayenne. There is also quite a bit more than normal xanthan gum used here, so it is a bit thicker than the quite watery consistency normally with the Louisiana-style. The major change is the flavor of Habanero vs. that of Cayenne. The taste of Cayenne, for me, is akin to a very warm and beloved old blanket, comforting on a deep level. Here, we have a lot more bitterness than the Cayenne, with a touch more heat, though not to a great extent. 

I was wondering, given the Habanero nature, how this would do with Mexican style foods, but despite the reference to Mayan stuff, it is not really intended for that, I wouldn't think. It's quite a bit more vinegary than usually lends itself to that cuisine style, but does quite nicely anywhere that you would more normally use the Cayenne. The vinegar hit isn't quite as pronounced, but is fairly prominent. 

Bottom line: I found this to be quite likable, overall. It certainly won't replace Cayenne as my preferred pepper for Louisiana-style sauces, but it is more than acceptable anywhere I would normally use that kind of sauce.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 6