Yampa Valley Purple Blaze Hot Sauce Review

Yampa Valley Sauce Company Purple Blaze

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ziPFcAUdWs

Another sort of random, stumble-upon find, of another sauce company both from Colorado and whom I've never heard of before. I have a bit of a partiality to sweet-hots, particularly fruit-based sweet hots, and when they also feature the darker berries, I'm usually intrigued. Even if the sauces aren't particularly wonderful, and there are definitely times when they are not, such as here, if the blueberry is forceful enough, those sauces can often be resurrected into wonderful breakfast concoctions with just a splash or so of a nice, pure maple syrup.

For this one, it's a rather watery sauce overall, but the flavors of blueberry, black pepper, and the Habanero, are fairly prominent. A lot of the time, the peppers will get lost in the mix, but not here. The down side to this, and to fruit-based sauces generally, is that if the fruit is unripe, you can often get a sour quality to the resulting sauce.This is more or less what we have here, as this is one of the sourer sauces I've come across, unpleasantly so. I suspect this is a function of the fruit being sour to begin with, the lack of additional sugar in the sauce to compensate, and the addition of the vinegar. Frankly, this sauce is not one I will consider using by itself, as that aspect is so dominant. It makes me rather strongly wonder if this batch was tasted prior to bottling, as it's hard for me to imagine this end flavor being intentional.

Fortunately, it can be salvaged neatly with the aforementioned maple syrup (or another liquid sweetener, I'd hazard), and then you get those wonderful flavors coming through without the brutal sour aspect, but by itself, it is rather unpalatable. Of course, as always, the rating below is reflective of the sauce by itself out of the bottle, not after I've fixed it. Heat-wise, the Habanero is perhaps there more as a flavoring element, as this is decidedly a not very hot sauce.

Bottom line: The good news here is that this can be fashioned into a pretty solid sauce with the aforementioned additions, but the down side here is that it has to be, as it is borderline inedible otherwise.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 2
            Flexibility: 0
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1

Overall: 1

Braswell's Good And Evil Hot Sauce Review

Braswell's Good And Evil

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j6OWahwSuw

This is one of he most inexpensive sauces on the entire blog. A number of times, I get commentary from people who are interested in sauces, but find them to be overly expensive to try on the off-chance that they may like it. If they find it overly hot, for instance, it will probably go to waste whereas something like a less than preferable mac & cheese or ketchup they may just resolve never to buy again and gut through what they have. I've tried to include mass market commercial sauces for this reason, even though they're not strictly either targeting nor satisfying for the chilehead crowd. This particular sauce was on sale for slightly over a dollar.

I've not heard of Braswell's before, but evidently they've been around for quite a number of years and even if I had to pitch the sauce, it's worth a shot for a dollar and change. I very nearly did pitch the sauce and indeed, this is another perpetually on the edge of me tossing it. The neck sauce had discolored notably by the time I opened it (I can't find a expiration date on it, but I've had sauces sometimes for multiple years hanging on a shelf sealed, so not super concerned about that, at least with hot sauces), so I pitched that. The smell of this sauce is ghastly, though. It may be one of the worst smelling sauces I've come across.

When it came to taste, things got a bit confused, though. This has heavy shades of orange and reminds me a bit of fruit cake, but it is rather quickly overtaken by the massive amounts of onion and garlic powder that seem to also be here.That would explain the odor, I suppose, but the flavor itself is not particularly wonderful. It's not quite bad, either, though, it's usage is probably not going to go beyond chicken strips. I find it generally so unappetizing that I've done limited testing on it, but aside from the aforementioned strips, it has notably lowered the flavors of everything else. It both kind of needs to be by itself and have something that can meld with the savory tastes here.

I don't know what to make of this label, either. It has pirates on it and the word "Jalapeno" over the "Good" side and "Habanero" over the "Evil" side. Both the peppers are in caps, as are those two adjectives, but the peppers are using an unevenly aligned font, which looks kind of cartoonish. That is on my bottle (see pictured). On the website, it is just "GOOD and EVIL." Habanero powder and Cayenne powder, the two elements supposedly "bringing the heat" are the two very last ingredients in this, so heat is rather minimal. 

Bottom line: Somewhat of a mess of a sauce that seems firmly intent on testing my slogan about life being too short for bad sauces. It's not quite enough bad to trigger it, but it's not particularly good either.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 3
            Flexibility: 1
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 2

Angry Goat Hot Cock Hot Sauce Review

Angry Goat Pepper Co. Hot Cock

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN1EcqAifXY

Well, can't get too far into this without mentioning the fun name..."cock sauce" is, of course, how sriracha was referred to colloquially for quite some time, referring to the rooster adorning the various bottles and this one indeed does have a rooster on the label as well. We shall take their meaning to be that and only that. Ahem. *cough*

Anyway, that aside, we continue to see the usage of animals on the labels and perhaps as inspiration, to a degree, for the various sauces, for the most part. Not all of their sauces do that, of course, but quite a few follow that motif. This is part of their "Forbidden Series," which I've been able to find little to no other information on, other than that another sauce called "Sweaty Beaver" is also a part of it. Perhaps this is meant to reference their more risque-named offerings.

In any case, what we have here seems a fascinating idea, namely, to take every single superhot variation you can find, in the color yellow, add in some yellow bells also, and run with it. This works wildly well, to be frank, on a number of levels. There are also peaches and some agave, to sweeten the deal a (very slight) bit, but generally, the flavor here is superhot, with the trademark bitterness along with the greater complexities of the Scotch Bonnet and Habanero. There are 7-Pots first, followed by the other two, then the Lemon Drop peppers as well as yellow Ghosties. The flavor of yellow bells is nice to really round things out and it gives it a somewhat nondescript general "chile pepper" flavor, though leaning more so towards the superhots.None of the peppers really asserts itself over another in terms of flavor. It is, in a lot of ways, a sauce without a distinctive flavor identity. 

This gives it a large degree of flexibility, though I frequently found myself wishing it was sweeter. Because there are no emulsifiers, this is another one that needs fairly regular and vigorous agitation or you can get radically different heat and flavor profiles with various usages. It's nice to be able to pick out peaches here and there, but it winds up being somewhat hit or miss. It's a medium thick sauce, with a lot of chunks, most of which wind up being grit from either the skin or the seeds, which I frankly would have preferred to be without. 

Like most of the rest of the Angry Goat sauces, I also find this one to be rather inventive, which is something I'm always happy to see. The label, as with many of their other ones, is also kind of bad. One part of note is that it rates heat here as 11/10, which is definitely not where I would put it. Initially, there is a lot of the flavor notes of superhots, but as with most 7-Pot Primo sauces, this one starts low and builds. Again, like some of those other 7-Pot sauces, this can get a lot of superhot intensity going, but even at its peak, it won't challenge too many chileheads. That intensity, though, and the levels with continued usage makes this one better reserved strictly for chileheads. I can't imagine too many normies digging this one.

Bottom line: Another excellent entry from one of my favorite sauce companies, with another unique and novel approach to an end product. If you're looking for a far more pepper forward superhot sauce, this is well worth a go.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 7

Louisiana Double Barrel Hot Sauce Review

Louisiana Double Barrel

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRWfMUt8evQ

The regular Louisiana hot sauce is more or less a pretty average, run of the mill, Louisiana-style Cayenne-based hot sauce. It's not one of the better ones, for me, and more one I'd look to using in a pinch, but it's not bad, either. It's just kind of there, treading along in the middle. It's the kind of sauce you'd say, "it's fine," about and leave it at that. Generally, you get a lot of it for not a whole bunch of money and while it's not great, you could definitely do a lot worse.

Here, we see them jumping on the liquor in hot sauce trend, which I've not found a lot of examples of that I think are exactly wonderful. So, not content to just ferment the mash in bourbon barrels, they also throw in some bourbon as well. It doesn't really read like that, though. You can definitely get the sense that there is some hard liquor flavored presence, but it doesn't really overshadow the sauce. It adds a slight new dimension, but not really enough to make an impression one way or the other. The larger issue for me is that this variation is notably far saltier than the regular stuff, which I find kind of unpleasant. It won't prevent me from using it or anything, just a bit of nuisance. 

There's no change to the cost for this "bold" new direction of theirs, just I suppose if you want to have a slight flavor variation to your Louisiana-style sauce. It is also a bit thicker than normal and noticeably thicker than most other Louisiana-style, which I'd guess is some reduction, possibly due to trying to cook any residual alcohol off. That may also be why the salt is heightened somewhat. Given that Cayenne is the main pepper driver, heat here is fairly minimal.

Bottom line: A long-established hot sauce company takes a stab at jumping on the trend of liquor, resulting in a sauce that, like all their others, is...fine.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 4

Jersey Barnfire Strawberry Scorpion Hot Sauce Review

Jersey Barnfire Strawberry Scorpion

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlKHg7t9VWA

We're back again with another dessert sauce, after quite some time of me observing that they're fairly rare, at least by my accounting, and we're back again with another strawberry sauce (I did the Sea Monster Danger Berry earlier in the year here on this very blog, as well as including it in a July 4 special FOH video posting). Strawberry, berries in general, seem to work really well with hot peppers, and I think it's partly because strawberries are almost never sufficiently sweet on their own in sauces and baked goodies. So, naturally, we see the addition of sugar, just to get to the appropriate strawberry impact, which very nicely pairs with peppers, in particular superhots. 

I suppose it's natural to compare this to the Danger Berry and there are a few differences. The flavor profile of both is mainly the same, sort of that strawberry punch you might get from a high quality syrup or possibly a nice salad dressing utilizing it, but here, we have Scorpions instead of Habanero powder, as was used in the Danger Berry. This works out much better, as a lot of the bitterness of the concentrated form is absent. Indeed, even much of the floral nature of the Scorpions is significantly muted. Heat is definitely a lot more prominent here, given the Scorpions, and the coloration is radically different. This one is a bit more milky and less vibrant, whereas the Danger Berry is highly reminiscent of something like Torani. 

It's hard to say which is sweeter, given how pronounced the bitterness in the Danger Berry becomes the more you use it, whereas this one, regardless of how heavy your pour hand, that never really comes into play, though it will definitely start to pack much more of a heat wallop. Indeed, this one is probably over the dividing line of what non-chileheads will find enjoyable. I'd put it at slightly over a 3, for me, but not quite all the way to a 4...I may experiment further to see how much more it will build, though, and will update as necessary. 

This sauce is by far the better-tasting of the two, even if the coloration is a bit off-putting, and it's one of those sauces that I tried to find more things to use it on. They mention salads and strawberries work well in those. It's a bit too cold for me to really consider salads right now, but if I was inclined or picked one of those up from Wendy's, I could definitely see the appeal. It's ok on chicken strips, but I'm not a fan enough of strawberries really enough for that. On grilled pork, it's fantastic and berry hot sauce, in general, I find an absolute treat on burgers. Where this really shines, though, of course, is desserts, and it's one of the few, for me, anyway, sauces that works exceedingly well on ice cream. 

Bottom line: Another excellent entry from Jersey Barnfire, a company that, aside from one slight misstep, continues to impress.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Rising Smoke Synergy Hot Sauce Review

Rising Smoke Synergy

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJqlq0uOjCU

When I first come across a hot sauce company, one of the things I will do is go to their website and sift around a bit to see what the other offerings might be. Sauces of interest will then get put on my running hit list and I'll try to get to them in one of the next major haul shopping trips I make to Burn Your Tongue. For this company, I had a few on there, as I like the idea of basing sauces around either smoke or fire-roasted items. But to be blunt, their execution on the other sauces left a lot to be desired, to the point where it was down to the wire if I was going to bother getting the other names on the hit list from them. This was, in that respect, a make or break sauce. 

It's kind of funny...there have been years when I've had the Huy Fong chili-garlic sauce in my fridge and that's the only Asian type hot sauce for long stretches. Somehow, in 2022, I have quite a few, including this one. This one, however, is definitely one of the more fascinating sauces I think I've come across. Much of this has to do with mirin, which is a sake. In the winters, I certainly have been known to like my sake and it's an ingredient I almost never see in hot sauces. So, my interest, as they say, was piqued. Tamari, which is somewhat of an exotic ingredient in sauces, compared to its relative soy sauce, is also here and now I'm really curious.

This sauce, for me, rather redeemed the company and the aforementioned hit list. This reminds me a lot of the sauce that's left over after you have a really good sweet & sour chicken. I'm not talking about one of those trashy gloppy frozen ones or the goop you might find in a mall food court, but an actual bona fide quality sweet & sour. [Note: I usually have to make it myself to get it to the right level.] In that sauce, you get a bit of sweet tropical deliciousness (and maybe a faint bit of carmelization) from the pineapple, a good melding with the cooked-down peppers, along with that umami note from the soy sauce, along with the finish note grace of sesame oil (if you use it there). The taste is not identical, but was so strongly reminiscent of a great version of that, that I've now read, closely, the ingredient panel a good dozen times, trying to see if pineapple is listed. 

It is not. For sweets, we have agave, orange juice, and dark brown sugar, yet it comes together in a way that is strongly reminiscent of that aforementioned sauce. Meanwhile, the mirin dances around playfully with it all, after the initial hit, in way that sets it apart and is near magical. Underneath all that, one also picks up the hints of smoke and the nice build of heat from the Habaneros. Now, the mirin is definitely forceful out of the gate, in a way that I find a bit jarring. This sauce is rather alpha-omega in that it is definitely sort of its own thing. The more you can use it in a standalone setting, the better off, particularly if you put it on a lighter meat with a fairly high salt content, that can contrast with the delicate harmony of the other sauce notes. 

Flexibility is a touch on the low side, as this sauce seems to want to be itself, by itself, and tends not to play well with other foods overall. Pizza was a bust. Chicken strips are ok, after the initial mirin hit, but I didn't love this there. It's too sweet for a lot of other foods. On Asian foods...spring rolls were fine, but putting it on actual composed dishes not sweet & sour chicken (or pork) was decidedly not great. The sauce has a strong identity and it is not a neutral one. I will say for it, though, that it is rather fun playing around with other foods to see where it might go. It's a pretty enjoyable experiment, even if the results aren't always great, sometimes not really even good. Heat-wise, it's quite moderate, as one might expect with the Habaneros.

Bottom line: Very novel, very creative sauce, and definitely the best I've had from the company, which is saved, at least for now, from being stricken off the hit list entirely. If you like Asian foods and sauces, this is a must.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 5

Tonguespank Rye Whisky Reaper Hot Sauce Review

Tonguespank Rye Whisky Reaper

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKNWMMPg2Zw

I must admit to a certain amount of anticipation for this one (and then it took me, predictably, a while to actually get to), as all of the sauces I've had from them have been pretty good, with the first being in contention for SOTY. While this one isn't quite going to make it there (although it would in most other years), it definitely lived up to my hopes. We'll get into that shortly, but I do have some curiousity about the label, given that the first 3 ingredients are listed as peppers, yet this is a fairly runny sauce and rather smooth, with little pulp, which would seem to preclude that a bit. Possibly they're using mash instead of peppers, which would make a bit more sense. 

The first of those peppers is the mighty Reaper, but it's more the Scorpion that overshadows it a bit. Despite this having two of the Guinness record holders for heat, this is not a supercharged heat machine. You wind up actually getting more of the flavor from those peppers than the scorching heat. Indeed, the fire comes on somewhat slowly, with the Reapers and Habaneros making a nice smoldering build. As such, this one is probably better reserved for chileheads. Reaper do pair nicely with molasses, as noted in the Uncle Keith's Code Red review (elsewhere here) and this sauce is somewhat reminiscent of that. The Rye shows up mostly as grace notes. This company does an absolute ace job at handling hard liquor in their sauces. I never feel like I'm taking a slug from the bottle of hooch with any of these, yet the flavor notes imparted definitely contribute to the overall flavor profile well. It is an extremely skillful job of making sauces, to be sure.

I'm kicking myself a little (maybe more than a little), as I wish I would have gotten to this prior to running out of propane to end my grill season this year, but I suppose I can just get another bottle next year for further testing. It seems really unlikely this one is going to make it as it is a quite delicious sauce. It's also rather flexible, going from ease to pizzas to chicken strips to breakfast foods, like scrambled eggs. It's a fun sauce in that it can definitely pack a bit of a wallop over time, yet is so flavorful, it's hard not to use a lot of it. 

Bottom line: Another great entry from Tonguespank, with a strong emphasis on flavor, the way sauces should be.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 8

Hot Lady Sting Hot Sauce Review

Hot Lady Sting

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6CyZceIhek

Sauces from Amazon are always a mixed bag. I don't generally shop for those there unless I need a fill-in to get up to free shipping and can't find anything else, but sometimes you'll get sauces that are pretty solid and sometimes you'll wind up with ones like this, which are...a bit wanting. It's a little difficult to get a read on what they're trying to do, but the Hot Lady company has some veteran tie-ins, which we're seeing a lot more of and I suppose is perhaps a natural fit for spicy food. The label is pretty slick, as is the website, on which there's a section on the website called "The Legend," in which some lore (Hot Lady is the symbol of courage for all people, I guess?) and stabs at mystery are attempted, such as the super secret facility growing the peppers used in this sauce. All that stuff is kind of fun, but they're careful to avoid specifying which peppers are used, which is another trend we're seeing, but one I find far more annoying. That trend is trying to walk a fine line between FDA violation and keeping the recipe secret, presumably so no one reverse engineers it and steals it to release as their own sauce or just makes it at home and doesn't buy it. 

The company also has an odd slogan,"Pepper Up My Friends [sic]," which, given the lack of grammar in the wording, could meant to chase after the author's friends with a pepper grinder in the hopes of dusting them with it. There are two variations to the sauce, both with identical ingredients panels. Naturally, I chose the hotter of the two, which was the Sting, though I strongly suspected there would be little heat, as it struck me that the pepper used here is probably Jalapeno. This sauce, incidentally, is the official sauce of Major League Fishing, so there's that also. 

I was half expecting, from the ingredient profile, more or less a sweeter version of a Cajun sauce, thick along those lines, but more what we have here is essentially a sweet sriracha attempt by way of a Louisiana-style. This means it's pretty runny (there is a restrictor cap). It also is highly bitter, which runs all over the cane sugar. For a sauce that continually claims to be the best-tasting sauce in the world, to be frank, it's not even the best sauce in my refrigerator door, let alone anywhere more expansive. My guess here is they were way too heavy with the powdered garlic, as despite that ingredient being listed last, it's rather dominant. No surprise there, a little of the powder goes a long way, though here the flavor is more that concentrated form. This could also be a factory error, as it seems a lot like this sauce is being produced for Hot Lady elsewhere. There are no emulsifiers listed, so the sauce is definitely subject to settling and you can get very different sauces, depending on agitation. Unfortunately, none of those sauces has been very good.

This is not to say they're exactly bad, either, just not particularly compelling on flavor, more a whiff than anything. This sauce works acceptably on pizza and chicken strips, but for the latter, I found myself wanting something else. I do like the concept here, but while we see a lot of marketing and hype, we see little execution, which, after decades of doing this, I can tell you absolutely is a correlation (see also, Frank's). It's possible they're using a Cayenne or possibly different types, this reads to me a lot more like the red Jalapenos used normally in sriracha. There is a bit of a spark here, but heat overall is pretty nominal. 

Bottom line: This is not a sauce made for me or any other chilehead and/or foodie. Conceptually, it has some promise, but does not quite arrive at the station of the lofty heights it claims (repeatedly).

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3

Burns & McCoy Exhorresco Hot Sauce Review

Burns & McCoy Exhorresco

Note: This sauce appeared in Season 7 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhdTSMQe9rQ

This is one I've had on the list for a while and I held off getting it, at first because it was (and still is) a pricey little number, but also it was in the #9 slot on the show and I try to be judicious about how many of the strongly superhot-oriented sauces I have open at once, since they take longer, typically, to work through. This was also out of stock for a time, once I was ready, so kind of a long road to finally get here...

"Exhorresco" is a Latin-derived word meaning to shudder or shake or quiver or tremble or be horrified or be terrified, be filled with dread, etc., so here we have a near perfect analogue in the label, with a one of the better takes on the head of the fabled Medusa I've seen. It is also a perfect way for us to kick off October and Halloween season. It is also well worth noting that Burns & McCoy continues to impress with the offerings I've had from them.

For a while, I thought this was another Reaper sauce, but once I discovered it was actually a 7-Pot Primo, my interest in moving it up rose several degrees. I love the Primos and was straining my memory prior to this review, trying to break my brain remembering if I've ever had a bad Primo sauce or even one I didn't particularly like. I'd have to check the archives to be sure (this is one of those times having the ability to sort these sauces by pepper type would be handy), but I certainly can't recall one.

Adding into this is the black garlic, a sort of trendy "darling" ingredient, but here, used to great effect. It is far more prominent here than in many of the other settings where it has appeared. There is also the fantastic addition of yuzu, which I almost never see in hot sauces and know mainly from Japanese cuisine. Those three ingredients, the Primo, the black garlic, and the yuzu, comprise most of the flavor notes here and frankly, this sauce is borderline genius. The black garlic works well for umami-heavy things, while the addition of the agave and citrus sort of temper things and add some truly wonderful grace notes. This is not a sauce that will work in every application, to be sure, but where it does, it is borderline heaven.

No small part of this is due to the Primos, which are a pepper I always get excited about seeing in sauces. Out of the gate, there is a burn, to be sure, but this, like Habaneros, is a very nicely building pepper. Unlike the Habaneros, this is definitely a superhot, so you can get quite a good degree of scorch going on as you keep eating and it can sneak up on you a bit as you continue indulging. When it is paired in such a delicious sauce as this, you can definitely find yourself with a good blaze, perhaps stronger than expected, which can be a very pleasant development indeed. This is one that is best kept for chileheads, though, unquestionably.

Bottom line: Another of the better sauces from The Hot Ones show, easily top 5, perhaps even top 3, to my sampling at this point, a great representation of both a 7-Pot Primo sauce and outstanding use of black garlic. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 5
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 8