Best Hot Sauce 2022 + Recap

Best Hot Sauce 2022  + Recap

Before we get into the year in review proper, a little light housekeeping. My favorite sauce maker list has been revised (see Sauce Of The Year List link at right). I also added another YouTube FOH video playlist strictly for fast food and other restaurant spicy offerings I’ve done content on (link to that also on the right). YouTube has opened up the community tab, so I can (and do) make posts there. I’m on no other social media, so it makes it nice to be able to have another avenue to communicate. Please feel free to check those out, as I will be using it more in the future, but have already posted to promote the various upcoming themes and “events” for the FOH video series, as well as random commenting and even some pics here and there.

Sticking with YouTube for a moment, for the first theme in 2023, I will be kicking off some FOH YouTube videos more or less with the idea of “road to the Superbowl.” The videos for this will be posted on Saturdays in January and February leading up to the big game day, taking a look at some things (mostly hot wing-oriented) that might be of interest for chileheads or otherwise, and culminating with a very special cooking video the day before the event.

Additionally, starting January 2023, I will be posting a monthly archive sauce on one of the monthly Saturdays until I run out of archive sauces I want to cover. The more recent sauces from the blog will continue to be on Sundays.

I will also be releasing a new type of video, exclusive to the FOH series, that will be launching on Valentine’s Day 2023. Plans, right now, are for that series to be quarterly, but if there’s enough interest, I may expand that to higher frequency. The first video was very intensive in terms of planning and time, but I’m very excited about the series and think it will be a lot of fun.

Once the “road to the Super Bowl” related videos conclude, starting March 1, 2023, I will be making a significant change to the posting of content in the FOH series. I will comment on that more in the Q1 2023 update, but if you’re not subscribed to my YouTube channel (linkys on right) or watching my Community tab there, I invite you to do so, as I will be posting commentary on that update there as well.

Returning to the blog, for this year, by the end of Q2, 2022 was already in the top 3 years as far as posting, by the end of August, it was past everything else, with more sauce reviews alone than any other year had posts total and more than some of the years combined. In fact, August 2022 itself was the highest ever month in terms of post count. In November, it went skating past 400 posts total, to finish with, as of this post, 410 total. I also wound up hitting 300 sauces with full reviews in Q2. There was some internal thought by me that I might wind up closing in on 100 posts for the year, which I never dreamed would happen, as that’s 90+ sauces minimum, which means cycling through an entire bottle of sauce every 3 - 4 days. I don’t use hot sauce every single meal, so that would be flying through it at a pretty crazy level. As nutty as that is to me, it pales a bit when I consider that the FOH video series, in slightly over 3 years, has nearly as many postings as the blog does in slightly over 10 years. 2023, in fact, if it hasn’t already, will see the FOH series overtake TSAAF in terms of postings.

I also finally managed to finally achieved my stated goal from years past of having a FOH support video for every single sauce that got a full review in the blog for this calendar year. My new soft goal is to have no more than a calendar quarter in terms of backlog in the can for the FOH series, in both sauce and non-sauce content...it sounds odd to have a goal being to make less content, but I’ve been trying to dial back for all of this year, with moderate success. As fun as it is for me to make video content, with both an impetus for posting twice weekly, as well as the crazy big backlog, it cuts down on the spontaneity and being able to nimbly react to things like cross promotions in the chilehead food sphere, at least with also keeping consistency intact. I’ll get into this more later, but 2023 is definitely going to be seeing some changes to posting on the FOH side. The blog will continue more or less as it has all along.

I like to take a look back at the year, in terms of my ideas vs. actuality. As it turned out, by the end of Q1 2022 (and this is with me also deliberately trying to slow the pace), I was already producing non-sauce FOH video content well into 2023. I was running at least 2 months ahead for the start of the year, which wound up being closer to 6+ months ahead by the end of Q2. I was producing content way faster than the (self-imposed) demands of posting, which kind of ruins the immediacy a bit, but is kind of sort of a good problem to have, since I could just sprinkle in newer stuff as needed, and do holiday-oriented special postings. So, some of the plans I made in 2021 for 2022 are still there, largely untouched for 2023. Hopefully that will go more smoothly then.

I did, happily, get in a lot more cooking for 2022, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but the running ahead on the non-sauce side was such that I did not post all of the 2021 content in 2022, let alone the 2022 content. The rest of the non-sauce 2021 content will be posted through January 2023, which is a bit too far out. Right now, I still have enough content, at the current rate of posting, to cover roughly half of 2023, both sauce and non-sauce varities.

On the sauce side, I wiped out my entire current backload in September for the tenth anniversary double-Sunday postings I did, took it all the way to zero, and now...am still running way ahead...again. As mentioned, stay tuned to the YouTube Community posts I do, as any announcement to that point will show up there first, probably, and one will be coming at the conclusion of the Super Bowl event-related stuff.

With the data I have from the 3 years and change of the YouTube FOH series, everything, views, watch time, interest, etc., seems largely contingent on the subject of the video. This means a few things. Frequency (and/or day) of posting matters less and there is no indication that I have a lot of viewers tuned in to see what I post next. Further, there does not seem to be a great deal of corresponding pull-through to other videos. I’m still considering what to do with that info, but there will almost certainly be changes in store.

My agonizing over when I would not be able to continue the non-sauce content I’ve been doing  for most of the FOH series has been alleviated. I keep banging on about the non-sauce content, but of the top 10 FOH videos, only two(!) are for hot sauces. So, there is a lot of incentive to keep producing non-sauce content as long as I can. The wave of spicy-oriented food in both 2021 and 2022 struck pretty hard and products are a lot more prodigious than previously. I do expect to be caught up with that in 2023, though, one way or the other, as there are still way more hot sauces than other types of non-sauce stuff that I find interesting enough to film.

I will also be doing mustards again next year (I  have 4 of the entire 6 month grill season already covered, and have 1 of the remaining 2 months ready and waiting), but right now, don’t plan to continue timing the posts around the season for 2024. I may pick up on BBQ sauces then, but we’re still a ways out, obviously. I also have tentative plans for a limited run FOH series that may also launch next year. This is in addition to the quarterly one I mentioned earlier. It is not particularly close to launch, however, and may not happen.

There is also another big, major change for the FOH videos I have currently as a soft goal, but want to move towards as soon as practicable, and about which I will say no more until I get a lot closer...let’s just leave it at keep your eyes on both the quarterly updates here and the YouTube community posts for the channel, as it will definitely need (and get) a lead-in, well before it happens.

I really turned the dial over on sauces from The Hot Ones in 2022 as well, covering a lot more ground than I had anticipated. I also modified the page a bit to make it easier to track my progress through the seasons. I’m definitely in good shape to get much closer to caught up in 2023.

Once again, here is the priority order for the remaining sauces, updated to reflect what’s left:

1) Sauces I’m interested in, that I have not done a written full review on, that I can get locally, via one of the Burn Your Tongue locations or Pirate O’s or Grove.
2) Sauces I’m interested in, that I have not done a written full review on, that I can get reasonably easily online.
3) Sauces I’m interested in, that I have not done a written full review on, that I can only get via The Heatonist.
4) Torchbearer Zombie Apocalypse
5) Sauces I have done a written mini-review on.

Category 4 has been changed to reflect what is left, which is a single sauce. Categories 1 is very low. I think I’ve nearly exhausted those various sources, though sauces on shelves rotate a lot, so I don’t have a fix on the exact number. 2 is also fairly low, given how Heatonist likes to keep things close to the vest, unless I feel like overpaying on Amazon. Heatonist also does a really nice job of not having everything in stock all the time, so I may run them out before sources elsewhere online. That leaves Category 5, which is a low enough priority that I’m still not sure I will be doing it at all. Part of this has to do with the changeover of those sauces from a Mini-Review into a full review, a prospect of which I’m not sure I have interest.   

I did a more intensive breakdown for the 2022 Q2 Update, and then re-updated the availability section when I went back through and added Season 19, so let’s take a look at some refreshed numbers there, to account for the new season, as well as which sauces are available:

There were 18 seasons the last time I took a look at remaining hot ones sauces. Season 19 was added in the interim and Heatonist also brought back a sauce, which unfinished Season 5. From this point, I think I’m just going to refer to what’s left as far as individual sauces and you can check out the Hot Ones Sauces TOC (link at right) for what’s already been done. I have fully covered 8 seasons of 19.

The seasons with sauces outstanding are as follows:

Season 5 - 1 remaining
Season 6 - 1 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 9 - 3 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 10 - 2 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 11 - 3 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 12 - 4 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 13 - 4 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 14 - 2 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 16 - 1 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 18 - 3 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 19 - 5 remaining (2 at hand)

I should talk about the slots a bit. These are the sauces remaining, by slot position on the show:

#1 - 2 remaining (1 at hand)
#2 - 4 remaining (3 at hand)
#3 - fully covered
#4 - fully covered
#5 - fully covered
#6 - 3 remaining (2 at hand)
#7 - 6 remaining (2 at hand)
#8 - 1 remaining (1 at hand)
#9 - 6 remaining (3 at hand)
#10 - 2 remaining

Rather interesting how that broke out, but to be also expected, as the earlier sauces tend to also be the less expensive and some of the others are frankly wildly out of hand as far as pricing. #8 and #10 being so low is due mainly to repetition on the show with the same sauce filling those respective slots over several seasons.

We will get into the SOTY discussion more, but first, as we usually do, some numbers for the blog stats:

Total posts (including this post): 410
Total views (as of this writing): ~35,150
Total sauces full reviewed: 354
Average rating, all full review sauces: 4.55
Total mini-sauce reviews: 44
Total sauces reviewed, combined: 398
Total full review sauces with FOH video content: 211
Highest viewed review: 1,763 - Private Selection Mango Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce
Highest viewed article, any type: 1,763 - Private Selection Mango Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce

This brings us to the SOTY deliberations for this year. Since an overall score of 10 is, by design, virtually impossible for any sauce to achieve, a 9 is usually as high as these go. For a span in there, it wound up being 8s, due to me doing fewer sauces overall, hence the absence of 9s. This year, right out of the gate, it started strong with a couple of 8s, but their hold proved to be short-lived as the eventual winner of this year emerged in April with a strong 9 and became the immediate front runner, a position it never relinquished.

The list of 8s in 2023 was pretty considerable. We had the Tonguespank Rye Whisky Reaper, the Hank’s Heat, the Hank Linger, Burns & McCoy’s Exhorresco, Silk City’s Erotic Fever and their Pull Over, and the Hatari Acid Rain Ghost, all of which would have been duking it out in an otherwise highly competitive year, but its combination of heat and deliciousness, which was both great and unexpected, proved too much to overcome as this year’s winner, the Hellboy Legendary AF sauce from Hellfire cruised to Sauce Of The Year 2022.

Previous TSAAF Sauce Of The Year winners (links to reviews in SOTY Table Of Contents link to the right):

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
2019: Torchbearer Ultimate Annihilation
2020: Mikey V’s Sweet Ghost Pepper
2021: Gindo’s Original

If you want to read more from me, check out my wine about blog, the Happy Sippin’ Companion (HSC). It has been put on inactive status as of 2019, with no plans to resurrect it, but still remains up for viewing (link also on right).

I also slug away on Yelp, which you can click to from my widget. I’m, as might be expected, still off the pace for 2022, though I do not realistically expect it to change anytime soon. My distribution of ratings and further metrics are available on my Yelp profile page.

As always, I appreciate you dropping by. If there are any spicy products 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 videos.

Dat'l Do It Volcanic Eruption Limited Edition Hot Sauce Collection Set Mini-Review

It's that time of year again, yes, a major holiday, but also the time that Dat'l Do It and Wal-Mart get together to whip up some hot sauce collection packs...and when those later go on heavy discount clearance.

Before we get too far into this, the naming convention of this is kind of silly. Volcanic Eruption implies explosive heat and there is precious little heat to be had at all, across this entire set. As last time for one of these, there is a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni3sf8UKNUU). Also, like last time, three of the six sauces I tossed after filming, as they were bad sauces and as we like to say here, life is too short for bad sauces. Specifically, those were the Island Fire (Krakatoa/Indonesia) Jalapeno sauce, the Smolder & Smoke (Mt. Vesuvius/Italy) Smoky Bourbon, and the Green Wasabi (Mt. Fuji/Japan). 

I should speak to the naming convention. We had a regular name, such as Island Fire Jalapeno, then a reference to a volcano, in this case, Krakatoa, then a region, Indonesia. Those appear to just be references for the label as they bear little to no relation to the sauces. The bottles are all of the 3 oz. variety, with a restrictor cap built in and I will say that all of the labels look really nice. Packaging overall is pretty good and I know it's cheesy, but I kind of dig the red foil wrapping paper thing behind the cutout over the volcano to simulate heat.

The other three worth keeping were the Hawaiian Heat (Kilauea/Hawaii) Garlic Herb, the Red Chili (Mt. Raupehu/New Zealand), and the Icelandic Ash (Katla/Iceland), that last one being the only outright good sauce and not only the best overall, but also the hottest. The sauces again were all very vinegar-forward and we had basically variations on two styles - the red Louisiana-style Cayenne-based and a green highly astringent Jalapeno-based. 

Sauce by sauce breakdown looks like this (in order of appearance, as pictured):

Red Chili (Mt. Raupehu/New Zealand) - this was your basic stab at a Louisiana-style sauce, but it was fairly cheap-tasting. It is good enough for me to use entirely, but just barely and mostly because Louisiana-style and Cayenne are among my favorites.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 5
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 4

Island Fire Jalapeno (Kratatoa/Indonesia - Probably my least favorite of all the sauces, this one was nearly inedible, given how incredibly sour and astringent it was. Coloration is like split pea soup, which I'm not a fan of, but would drink gallons of instead of using this sauce. Binned directly after filming.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 0

Smolder & Smoke Smoky Bourbon (Mt. Vesuvius/Italy) - this is the sort of trend-jumper hot sauce, trying to capitalize on a trend that I see a lot of people attempting, but which I don't think has really caught on to the extent that people keep trying to make it happen, that being liquor in stuff, hot sauces in this case. Here, this is essentially the first sauce in this list, but we're not using actual liquor but a bourbon flavoring or extract. Like most of that type of thing, there is a flavor artificiality that carries through. This creates an off-flavor that ruins the otherwise ok sauce it's built on and which isn't awful, but I find kind of jarring and unpleasant enough not to warrant further experience.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 0

Hawaiian Heat Garlic Herb (Kilauea/Hawaii) - Another spin on the first sauce, here we have the addition of Habanero, garlic and some additional spice add-ins. None of those really contribute much in the way of flavor, though I suppose this is slightly closer to a Cajun than a Louisiana-style. Despite the Habanero, this is not notably hotter than the first sauce, either. Another solid enough to use.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 4

Green Wasabi (Mt. Fuji/Japan) - built on the back of the overly astringent Island Fire, this one adds in some artificial wasabi flavoring, which comes through rather mildly, but tames the abrasiveness of the former somewhat, making it much less offensive. It does not make it particularly good, however, as that fakeness of flavor is also translated here. Better than the other, but that's not saying much and ultimately not worth the bother.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 0

Icelandic Ash (Katla/Iceland) - easily the hottest of them all and a sauce that is outright good. It also is making me question the label, as this sauce has some actual heat to it, but there is nothing on the label to really indicate why that might be the case. It reads more as a vinegary Mexican-style sauce, somewhat reminiscent of Valentina or others along that line. Heat is still pretty minimal overall, but notably hotter. This is the only one I actually outright liked. As I mentioned in the initial posting, I did wind up trying this on Mexican food. It works abysmally as a tamale sauce, but hot sauces can be kind of hit and miss there. I also had it on a couple of soft tacos and while it was ok, I found it to be slightly more vinegary than my preference.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 6

Bottom line: This set is way better than the Brewer's Six Pack overall, but there is quite a bit less variety than in that other set. Again, here we have two basic sauces and everything is a variation on those, but for a fun little novelty buy, if you get it on clearance, it can be well worth the trip.

Cumulative Breakdown (Entire Set):

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 3

Puckerbutt Honey Bonnet & Honey Half-Note Hot Sauce(s) Review

Puckerbutt Honey Bonnet & Honey Half-Note

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wffZAVFvH4U

I've written quite a bit about how much I love the combination of honey and Habanero, when done right, as well as how find I am for Scotch Bonnets, so a sauce with honey and Scotch Bonnet together was certainly not one that I'd have much resistance to. It also had cinnamon, which I'm not overly fond of, but far back in the ingredients list, so I figured it probably wouldn't show up too prominently. Then I came across this Honey Half-Note, and initially, I was more interested in the knowledge that Smokin' Ed Currie was (is?) a drummer and that half of the proceeds from this sauce were being donated to a musician's cause for kids. As a hack who has one and off tried to make a stab at doing the "make pretty notes" thing myself, I definitely support this. It is a good thing and I back good things when and where I can, especially when someone goes out of their way to make it as easy (and potentially tasty) as this.

Ok, so the idea here is essentially the Honey Bonnet is as the name would lead you to think, essentially Scotch Bonnet mash (I'm guessing) and honey, with little traces here and there of cinnamon. One can get a really solid feel for the flavor of the Bonnets, with the honey not being as noticeable and perhaps more just there to blunt the edges a bit. Cinnamon, as mentioned, is more along the lines of grace notes only. This one does have a pretty nice heat build and probably will be best enjoyed by a chilehead audience.

Honey Half-Note, meanwhile, is supposed to be a tamer version of the Honey Bonnet, with the heat more or less cut in half. I personally found it to be much less than that. In fact, this is almost a different sauce entirely. Indeed, if you put them side by side, the color difference would paint a fairly stark contrast (look for this in the forthcoming video - linked posted at the top of this review when live). The honey, which was moderate to begin with, vanishes almost entirely, along with a lot of the Scotch Bonnet flavor. Cinnamon touches are nearly entirely absent also. It's almost as if the entire sauce were toned down, sort of the effect of putting a muffler (mute) in the end of a trumpet. Vinegar is a lot more forward in this sauce and it tends a bit towards the sour side. While the flavor is dissimilar to the Honey Bonnet and more uniquely its own, it is still quite nice. 

In terms of flexibility, I've found that the more I enjoy a sauce, the more it lends itself to different food types. Even when a sauce doesn't work with a food outright, such as Blair's Pure Death (reviewed elsewhere here), one of my all-time favorites, the sauce will still please my palate enough that I mind less the lack of integration with the flavors of the food. In that respect, it's kind of what we have going on here. With the more astringent nature of the Honey Half-Note, I find that it works better in a setting where I might normally want a Louisiana-style sauce. With the Honey Bonnet, it strikes me as more of a sweet-hot, a style which I find goes with a slightly higher variety of foods. 

Although I think this was meant as two sides of the same coin, these two, despite being related, read more as two distinct sauces. Depending on whether your pleasure is more towards sweet heat or astringency, either one of these will naturally be more resonant. 

Bottom line: The Honey Bonnet does a very nice job of showcasing the venerable Scotch Bonnet's flavor and heat and might be best reserved for chileheads. The Honey Half-Note is a much tamer-flavored and heat-wise version, albeit with a lot more astringency, supporting a very worthy cause. Both are well worth a shot.

Breakdown:

Honey Bonnet

       Heat level: 3
       Flavor: 8
       Flexibility: 7
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 6

Honey Half-Note

       Heat level: 1
       Flavor: 5
       Flexibility: 5
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 4

Flaming Homer's Carolina Reaper Strawberry Atomic Balsamic Hot Sauce Review

Flaming Homer's Carolina Reaper Strawberry Atomic Balsamic

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=v45HprgtDWM

This is an interesting sauce, in that it comes in a 10 oz bottle that more speaks to me like a jelly. Certainly, wide-mouth bottles are not unknown - the outstanding Tears Of The Sun Private Reserve (reviewed elsewhere here) from High River comes with a similar opening, but this one is also squat. It definitely is pretty far from a jelly, though, as its runniness hearkens back more towards a syrup. Indeed, that is exactly how I took it when I first saw it, yet I was able to find nothing contradicting the idea that it was intended as a hot sauce. It's sort of hanging out there in no man's land, but without it explicitly saying what it is, we'll just roll with it as a hot sauce.

Flaming Homer's seems to be a rather small-scale operation, somewhat active on social media, but I couldn't find an actual website, per se. It appears to be primarily a farmer's market type company, or rather, was until it found its way onto the hallowed BYT shelves. The sauce continues its somewhat unorthodox approach by having literally all of the ingredients (though not the correct order) as the title of the sauce, which is kind of an interesting approach, if a bit of a mouthful.

For most of the life of this blog, dessert hot sauces have been few and far between, but it seems for this year (and a little bit last year as well), I've been doing a lot of them, so perhaps this is another segment of growth. Definitely hot honeys have been making a huge surge of late, so perhaps the idea of sweet hot is latching on with a lot of folks and resonating stronger than some of the more traditional settings. 

That is exactly how I would place this sauce, as less a hot sauce and more a dessert sauce. Certainly, with the Reapers coming to play, there is definitely a little bit of a heat charge to this, but it is overall fairly minimal and I wouldn't expect this to be found challenging by too many. The idea of the current record holder for world's hottest pepper being as ubiquitous as they are was not something I would have predicted, but I'm glad to see it, both as a chilehead and as a foodie. 

Flavor-wise, this, while absolutely delicious, is really not honestly too useful as a hot sauce. This reads to me so much more as strawberry preserves, with light balsamic touches. I'm not a huge fan of balsamic, but here, it is used both wonderfully and effectively. There is not a lot of Reaper flavor and the strawberry is a touch on the lighter side, rather than the concentrated form in preserves, but all three ingredients are definitely and readily noticeable. This is, in and of itself, something of a marvel to pull off as well as this does. Usage is best where one would use strawberry preserves or a strawberry syrup. It would probably also make a nifty salad dressing, if you're into that sort of flavoring in that setting.

Bottom line: Definitely more a spicy dessert sauce than anything else, this could definitely open a lot of people's minds to the wonders of hot peppers.

Breakdown:

       Heat level: 1
       Flavor: 10
       Flexibility: 4
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 5

Alice Cooper Poison Hot Sauce Review

Alice Cooper Poison

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3JMfHC5jA

I would be remiss if I didn't note the connection between naming this sauce after a song that "borrowed" an intensely popular guitar introduction section from another song and the ingredients themselves. What this seems an awful lot like is another relabeling, this time with CaJohn's Small Batch Reaper. Admittedly, I have not tried that particular sauce, but the sauce color is very close, if not identical, and the ingredient listing is exactly identical, all the way down to the ordering of elements.

That aside, this is a sauce that I opened over a month ago and is one of those few that it, for whatever reason or other, it takes me a bit to get to. Sometimes it takes me a bit to get a feel for a sauce, but in this case, it was heavily reminiscent of another sauce I did called Uncle Keith's Code Red (reviewed elsewhere here). That one had molasses and this one just lists sugar, but the tone of Reapers and a sweetener, which go quite well together, was immediately familiar. This one definitely is a bit more astringent, with both vinegar and the citrus being more forward.

In that one, I likened it a bit to a bit thicker, hotter, and sweeter Cajun style sauce and that's about where I'd put this also. That sauce took me quite a while to finish and this one is definitely on track to do the same, partially because where it fits best, which is generally the same places you'd use a Louisiana-style sauce, I'd almost rather have something else. It's not to say there's anything wrong with this sauce. Reapers with sweetener is an excellent combination and further emphasizes what a remarkable pepper the Reaper is. I'm inclined to like sweet-hot sauces using superhots, to be clear, but not all peppers lend themselves quite this well. One definitely gets quite a bit of the Reaper taste aspect with this sauce.

Because is so prominent in this sauce, though, it's probably one that chileheads will find more enjoyment with. I suspect fans of the Coop, or just people who recognize the name and are curious, may give this a shot, but they may quickly find this exceeds whatever tolerance their curiousity may have supplied. For me, it's not a sauce I find interesting or hitting the flavor notes I want enough to be a regular user. I generally will remember I have this, bust it out for a bit, use it, enjoy it somewhat, then put it back in the door and forget about it again.

Bottom line: Definitely the better of the two Alice Cooper branded vanity sauces, also the hotter of the two, and it aptly demonstrates both the flavor notes of the Reaper, as well as how nicely it goes with a sweetener.

Breakdown:

       Heat level: 3
       Flavor: 6
       Flexibility: 5
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 5

Torchbearer Honey Badger Honey Mustard Hot Sauce Review

Torchbearer Honey Badger Honey Mustard

Note: This sauce appeared on Season 14 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK4O-LofG4Q

Despite my best efforts, sometimes sauces will sit on my shelf and be neglected for longer than I have in mind (though I'm much better at that now and that number is pretty low). This is one of those, but it's largely because I thought this was more a honey mustard than a hot sauce and during the grilling season campaigns, I usually have several mustards open, taking up precious space in my fridge door. In fact, had this not been on the show, like the Double Take Mustard (reviewed elsewhere here), I would not have done a written review for it at all and just been content with an FOH video.

So, indeed, what we have here is a rather spicy honey mustard. I believe it was in the 7 slot for the season it appeared on the show. The Torchbearer website calls it the hottest mustard you'll ever try, which is probably not far off. I would also add that it's easily my favorite honey mustard, ever. This is a sauce that is definitely a bit on the blazing side, but the flavor is such that it really carries the day and genuinely makes me want to keep going with it. They have definitely found the formula here, apparently one that was long in coming, but well worth the wait. We have the usual honey mustard suspects in here, but additionally, we have Scorpions, the mighty Reaper, and Cayenne, just for color and to round things out a bit. The neat trick here is that this is primarily a lovely honey mustard, hitting all the exact right flavor notes, but one can also get a good feel for the flavor of the peppers. There is certainly a heat component as well, but this is very much a flavor-first type sauce. I'd say this is probably best reserved for chileheads, but with smaller amounts, given that tremendous flavor, it could be a good stepping stone for the curious.

I generally greatly like the Torchbearer stuff (they have a SOTY winner (check list at right) and the company name I think is truly brilliant), but I do have a few minor complaints here, mostly to do with the packaging. I'm not clear precisely on where the 5 oz. comes from with those ubiquitous 5 oz. glass bottles (is it the base only? up to the cap? is there an invisible fill line somewhere in there heretofore previously unknown?), but Torchbearer has a habit of leaving a lot of neck room in the bottles. This may be because they are doing it by weight rather than volume. It may be because their sauces, this included, tend to run on the much thicker and sludgier side and need the space to agitate the sauce, given the lack of preservatives. I don't know, but this sauce is one of the more expensive in their lineup and generally on the show, which makes the loss a bit more acute. This also is a bit prohibitive of keeping it at hand, unless you just wait for sales and stock up...not a bad prospect, all in all. Also, given how thick this sauce is, and this kind of applies to all of their sauces as well, is a glass bottle really the right choice? Iinglehoffer seems to have perfected the squeezable mustard bottle. I don't know if it's a cost thing or something else, but I really wish this came in that packaging.

For this one, while the website suggests things like pretzels and veggie trays, amidst others, I have found that I'm not a fan of those with honey mustard. I think it's best application is with meat, particularly warm meat, so hot dogs, roast beef sandwiches (like Arby's), grilled pork, chicken strips, etc., is the best move here.

Bottom line: Rather punchy, but incredibly delicious honey mustard and practically defies one to restrain from eating a lot of it, perhaps the ultimate chilehead honey mustard. Certainly has my vote.

Breakdown:

       Heat level: 4
       Flavor: 10
       Flexibility: 5
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 7

Louisiana Hotter Hot Sauce Review

Louisiana Hotter

Note: Support video available here: https://studio.youtube.com/video/-QZE0oKbzvo/edit?o=U

I have to hand it to the Louisiana brand. They're taking essentially one sauce, a Cayenne-based Louisiana-style, and coming up with quite a few variations on the theme, all of which are solid on the level of the original, but also are different enough in their own right to stand apart. No real surprise that they also came out with a hotter version, along the lines of Texas Pete and Frank's, though in this case, they get major credit from me for eschewing extract and instead just using a hotter pepper. Here, it is the Habanero.

Louisiana-style sauces typically dwell in a fairly low heat range, so using Habanero is a pretty smart move. There is a slight flavor shift, from the normally somewhat salty sauce, to one that has notes of Habanero in there. I don't think Habanero is always a suitable pepper for this kind of sauce, but here it works pretty well, with enough of a shift to let you know it's there, but not so much as to be unpalatable. The heat is also appreciably higher, but still not greatly so overall...think of it more as a 1.5, but not quite enough to get the push all the way to a 2. 

I quite like what they've done here and were it not for the typical excessive saltiness,though I will note that it is somewhat less prominent in this sauce than some of the others from this company, I would probably mark this a big higher. As it is, it's definitely one of my favorite Louisiana-styles, easily in the top 5. I find the heat to be about perfectly where I'd want it for a sauce of this type, though I should also note that one has to have a bit of a care not to add it to things that are already on the salty side, as the tendency will be for that aspect to become a bit prominent to the point to being overly present, if not overpowering.

Bottom line: Another nice variation on the theme of Cayenne-based Louisiana-style hot sauce from one of the older names in the game. If higher heat is your angle with that style, this is well worth a go.

Breakdown:

       Heat level: 1
       Flavor: 8
       Flexibility: 7
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6