Maui Pepper Co. Mango Meltdown X-Treme Heat Hot Sauce Review

Maui Pepper Co. Mango Meltdown X-Treme Heat

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=-tA11m-kZ0U

My expectations going into this were that I would find basically a similar sauce as the regular Mango Meltdown (reviewed elsewhere here), along with almost certainly a hotter, perhaps much hotter, heat punch. Perhaps it would be more pepper forward, but the idea would be that it would be like that other sauce, only hotter.

I suppose, in a very general sense, you could say that's kinda sorta the case, but there are more differences than I had anticipated. Along with the goofy stylized spelling of the emphatic in the name, we have a heat scale on the label going all the way up to the top and very, very tiny text for the ingredient list. Hmmmm. The sauce itself is a nice light orange shade, with little flecks of what looks like pepper bits in it, so there is a differentiation in color. Consistency is close enough that I would call it identical.

Flavor-wise, this is sort of the same, although this one has both a before and after taste of something chemical. It's like if you have bottled water in one of those plastic bottles and you let it sit in your car during a hot summer day and go for a drink and discover that the plastic has leached out a bit and flavored the water, it's basically along those lines. Once the sauce asserts itself more, it doesn't seem remarkably different from the original sauce, other than that rather distracting taste modifier. 

Ok, but then how much hotter is it, I hear you ask. Not really is my answer. It may be slightly hotter, but on the level of slightly only. The original I think I gave a 2 for heat and I would put this one at between a 2.5 - 3 at its highest point, but it does take some doing to get to that point. It is something one has to build towards and, like the other sauce, it's not particularly challenging out of the gate. Even at its hottest point, I don't see this as really much of a challenge to anyone, other than the aforementioned off-flavor notes.

Bottom line: More like the original Mango Meltdown than not, with a very slight heat increase and a much more noticeable weird artificial note to the flavor. The original is definitely better.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 5
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 4

Angry Goat Pink Elephant Hot Sauce Review

Angry Goat Pink Elephant

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=ETBksru3fq4

As part of my 2023 prep during the later part of 2022, I systematically went through the list of my personal favorites for hot sauce brands (see Sauce Of The Year list, link at right) to canvas a bit and find out what I missed. From there, I made a list, naturally, since I love making lists, apparently, and this (and a few others from Angry Goat) I put near the top. I really like both cranberries and fresh ginger and Ghosties, as I've noted more than a few times before, is definitely my favorite superhot, by a fairly wide margin. The rest, the pomegranate juice, the red bell, Jalapeno, and Habanero additions, all signs pointed to go for this one, given that Thanksgiving was coming up. 

I didn't wind up with this one quite in time for this, but no matter, the grocer near me sells deep-friend turkey breasts and I could always pick one of those up, since the turkey I did (and ate) myself for Thanksgiving was long gone by the time I cracked this baby open. I did, in fact, get one of those breasts to try this out and the results were...ok, so here's the thing. I've had cranberry and turkey many, many, many times and it's a flavor combination I love dearly. However, I intensely dislike anything other than the whole berry cranberry sauce, so when people try to fancy it up and put things like orange and so on in it, it just winds up coming across to me as shit. So, in terms of scratching the turkey-cranberry connection itch I had in mind, it was a total fail, largely because the effervescence of the fresh ginger reads so strongly in the flavor profile. I don't mind this, but my tastes, as noted, are fairly narrow with regard to that specific protein and berry combination.

So, a new dilemma arose. The sauce was fantastic. The flavor was both highly inventive and refreshing, as well as quite yummy, but the only way I can describe how it felt when interacting with the turkey was wrong. Fresh ginger is huge with Asian food, of course, but cranberries not so much (thanks to the quinine) and that didn't seem like it was going to be a worthwhile experiment. Same with burgers and pizza. So, I had to cast about to find something that would work well with both the very distinctive tastes of both fresh ginger and cranberry. Either by themselves makes things a bit narrow, but both at once...it proved quite a challenge. Cue the chicken strips, where this was an absolute marvel (as well as other composite dishes that have cranberries in them and which will tend to downplay the fresh ginger a bit). Pork was also suggested and indeed, on pork chops in particular, this borders on heavenly. It does take a fairly specific food to work well with this sauce, but when it hits, it is quite magical. It can be especially brilliant as a nice change of pace sauce.

As to the peppers, even with both Habanero and Ghosties, this is lower key. The Ghosties impart a bit of bitterness to the proceedings, in that way that only superhots can, while the other peppers were there more to round things out a bit and possible contribute to the reddish hue of the sauce. It definitely is going to push at what might be too hot for most chileheads, but for chileheads, will not prove particularly challenging.

Bottom line: Another very intriguing entry from the fountain of innovation over at Angry Goat. Fans of cranberries and fresh ginger will definitely find this more enjoyable than those who are not.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 6

Sinai Gourmet Tropiquante Hot Sauce Review

Sinai Gourmet Tropiquante 

Note: This sauce appears in Season 19 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJP5op5lM70

This is one of the strangest hot sauces I think I've ever had. While the first 4 ingredients are fruit, and it is at least somewhat fruit-forward, this is not a very typical fruit-based hot sauce. Indeed, there is not any particularly strong flavor generally, rather a more tropical fruit vibe, if anything, but if pressed, I'd probably point to the mangoes and papaya. Despite bananas being first in the list, they show up more in terms of texture and consistency, which is somewhat reminiscent of applesauce. It is very thicky and sludgy, which makes using it somewhat of a chore, as it really likes to cling to the bottle neck.

The wonderful Scotch Bonnet is the pepper of choice here, which brings a fairly moderate heat, but little else. This is almost more of a fruit sauce, like way of applesauce but tropical, with heat as very incidental. I really wish there was a lot more focus on that Scotch Bonnet, as this could have used both the flavor and more heat. The flavor is quite mild and very mutable in terms of what one puts it on. It has enough spices (such as mustard) and no additional sugar that it tends to conflict somewhat with sweeter items, but can get lose nearly entirely in things like pizza. It does fine with meats, which I think is the intent of this, but my overall impression was more that it was just there, rather than good or bad. It's a sauce I would characterize as almost lacking in identity.

Most of the usage I had with this sauce was in trying to figure out where it would be best used. This can be a very fun and invigorating process, particularly when sauces have a wonderful flavor, but this one is a bit too blase', so the process seemed slightly more of a chore. Getting the ratio correct to the foods is not only a challenge with the flavor profile (at times, elements would be canceled and it would wind up in a conflict), but with the consistency of this, which tends a bit towards the gloppy.

Bottom line: While a certainly unique entry into the list of sauces I've had, it was not particularly memorable one way or another beyond that and definitely was pretty far from satisfying on a heat perspective.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 2

Canal Street Louisiana Crude Cayenne Hot Sauce Review

Canal Street Louisiana Crude Cayenne

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pQq-e5rvEk

I love the name of this sauce. It's a delightful reference to one of the state's most well-known regional exports and when I saw it, I was hoping the ingredient panel would allow me to get it. Price was a bit on the high side, which is a given with nearly everything on Amazon, but I needed free shipping and was in need of a Cayenne sauce as well, so two birds, one stone, etc. 

Anyway, I was pretty amped for this thing, with both Cayenne and Ghosties in the mix. Irazu also uses this combination (see review for that sauce elsewhere here) and I find those peppers go together quite nicely. I was so excited, in fact, that I wound up opening it a day after getting it and promptly went through a bunch of it trying to get a feel for it. Even if the Lousiana-style Cayenne sauces seem basic and simple - Cayenne, vinegar, salt - they can differ quite wildly in terms of the final product.

For this one, it was a lot more subtle, more smooth, more, dare I say, gentle. There is no abrasive vinegar hit, which is probably due to them using a combination of water and acetic acid (which is the two components of vinegar) to form the astringency effect, rather than using a finished product. This allows them a stronger measure of control. With this, the flavor of both Cayenne and Ghost reads a lot more strongly, which is a nice touch. It also means that when I reach for this sauce to control richness, I have to use more than I ordinarily do with some of the other far more vinegar-forward options out there. 

As far as flavor, I really like this approach. Do I like it better than what is "normal' out there for this style of sauce? Not necessarily, but I will say it is equal to the very top names who utilize the other style. I think there's something to be said for both approaches and I'd happily eat either one of them. With the Ghosties in the mix, this one is notably hotter than most of those others, but it is a nice warm heat that slowly comes on in a, dare I say again, gentle way? It's a pretty interesting approach to that, where the higher heat is there, the better pepper flavor is there, and the vinegar punch is dialed down considerably. 

Bottom line: This sauce is somewhat of a marvel, taking an intriguing approach to a well-established sauce style and is well worth a go for anyone who's a big fan of Cayenne style sauces or for someone who likes the sauces but not so much the vinegar hit. This is also my first SOTY contender for 2023.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 8

Hell's Kitchen Pepper Pastry Hot Sauce Review

Hell's Kitchen Pepper Pastry

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

If you've been following along with my reviews, you already know I was getting really close to writing this company off entirely. I did a review of one of their sauces in 2020 (see TOC at right), another in 2021 and was suitably unimpressed enough to not re-add any of their lineup back to my list. Cue the Black Friday sales of 2022, and I came across a couple that struck me as interesting (and right-priced) enough to take another shot at. One of those was the Black Forest and the other was this.

Happily, though it took a while (4th time's the charm?), I've found a sauce I like quite a bit from them. This is not to say it's perfect, indeed, the very watery nature of it is something I found to be quite a struggle. This also diminished somewhat the flexibility of the sauce, which would have not been the case had it been thicker and slightly more concentrated in certain flavors. What is there is quite good and handles the neat trick of utilizing its kitchen sink approach to ingredients to give out different aspects, depending on what it's used on. This enhances the utility quite a bit and had it been less watery (this probably needs a restrictor cap, but the bottle does not come with one), this would be elevated quite a lot, as well as pouring and flowing better.

As it is, we kick off with Fatalii, a new-ish superhot I'm still pretty undecided about. The rather bitter and somewhat floral nature of it gives me definite pause, as it is quite reminiscent of the aspects of the Scorpion peppers that I find unfavorable. This followed by Habaneros and then water and I think the idea here was them diluting it down,with water, until they had the desired heat level concentration. There is a plethora of different fruits, blueberries, obviously, but also lemons, orange, and pineapple, though of those, the blueberries are the only ones that really show up as a flavor, albeit with a slight citrusy cast. Spices like garlic, salt, ginger, and cinnamon round things out, but the last two are lost in the rest of the flavors.

This is another that suggests ice cream, where it is quite good, and the runniness less of a bother, but it also indicates steak, pork, and chicken. Chicken strips work well here with the flavor and at least acceptably with the runniness, but steaks and porks...I'd be inclined to try to use this as a grill sauce, but there is no way. All that's going to do is make a mess. Same with pizza. If I see blueberry and maple, I'm going to be thinking breakfast food and while it's ok there, the watery nature works strongly against it, definitely in terms of flavor concentration. As far as desserts (pastry is in the name of the sauce, which, incidentally, makes zero sense), it definitely works well with sweeter fruits, particularly berries, as might be expected, but with more sour fruits, it's a definite miss. I did like it with sweeter breads, though, again, the runniness made a nuisance out of itself.

Heat-wise, if the bitter and slightly floral nature of the Fatalii didn't give it away before, there is no mistaking that there's a superhot at play. While it is toned down somewhat, it's still there and with the Habanero and the back end heat following behind, this can definitely get to a level that I think puts this into more of a chileheads only arena. I think it was toned down in heat for more broad appeal, but with Fatalii as the first ingredient, that's going to be pretty hard to make happen. Still, I think they came up with an end result that's good, but still need major adjustment, though here it's mainly just in the consistency side.

Bottom line: If you can get past the highly watery nature of this, you can find a rather intriguing flavor profile in this sauce, though it is definitely hot enough to be better reserved for chileheads.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 9
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 6

Heat Hot Sauce Shop Limited Edition Roasted Habanero & Garlic Hot Sauce Review

Heat Hot Sauce Shop Limited Edition Roasted Habanero & Garlic

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3tmnqcGsjE

As one might expect, I get a lot of bumps during the holiday season, for Black Friday and so on, from various heat dispensaries. I don't remember if I'd gotten anything from this outlet in the past or not, but when they showed up, I took a peek at what they had to offer. I must say it's heartening to see a couple of younger chileheads pursuing their passion and they're off to what I'd say is a pretty strong start. As mentioned exhaustively prior, I don't do a lot of online shopping of sauces, given my proximity to the brick-and-mortar outlets of one of the all-time greats, Burn Your Tongue, but the more the merrier when it comes to the chilehead community at large.

Anyway, whilst poking around the site, I found a few things that I could not get at BYT, which were less than both Amazon and Heatonist, so I put together a little order and needed a fill-in. That's when this was offered up in the suggestions. It immediately spoke to me of the vaunted Irazu Roasted Habanero & Garlic (reviewed elsewhere here) hot sauce, which was half of my custom Mexican-style blend, but this one had the addition of sugar. That seemed an intriguing twist and so, despite the apple cider vinegar, I went forward. I chose the LE version over the regular one, as the LE used red and orange Habaneros, which led me to suspect the regular version uses green. I'm much less a fan of those, but I could also be wrong in that thought. If so, then depending on how this sauce went, I might be inclined to take the non-LE version for a spin in future.

Vanity sauces for hot sauce outlets I've frequently found to be a mixed bag, ranging from solid to pretty good, all the way down to better left collecting dust on a shelf. I'd put this one more in the solid range and most of this has to do with the apple cider vinegar, which proved itself, again, to be an unwelcome flavor distraction. When I could get the roasted Habanero flavor, it was very nice, deep, and rich, really the best of what that pepper can be, in my estimation. The sweetness was also a nice touch and this is notably hotter than the Irazu as well. Very nice amount of warmth from the Habs and all was good there...but the apple cider vinegar...

This was clearly going to be a Mexican-style sauce, so I went through an array of foods. Depending on how much of an apple cider vinegar hit I wound up getting, the results again ranged pretty widely. I found it to work best on refried beans, which did a nice job of muting out a lot of the apple cider vinegar flavor while also melding quite well with the roasted Habanero. As to the roasted garlic, it winds up being somewhat lost here, drowned in too many other competing flavors. I understand the need to differentiate and set yourself apart somewhat, but here, it wound up working a bit to the detriment of the sauce.

Bottom line: A variation on the theme of roasted Habanero and garlic that winds up getting in its own way a bit too much...if you like apple cider vinegar more than I do and that style, this is definitely worth a go.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 4

Sea Monster Signal Fire Lift Up Hot Sauce Review

Sea Monster Signal Fire Lift Up

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=C1EyhdyN0jA

It's an intriguing coincidence, apropos of nothing other than an odd curiousity and maybe interesting only to me, but the last Sea Monster sauce I had, which was the Danger Berry (reviewed elsewhere here), was followed by another sauce (from Jersey Barnfire, the Strawberry Scorpion, also reviewed elsewhere here) of a very similar type. For this one, we have a sort of crossover, to a degree, between a Dijon mustard and a Louisiana-style hot sauce, this time coming after I had something similar (though that one was definitely aiming towards a different mustard type entirely) from Da Kine (reviewed elsewhere here). It's a weird bit of magnetism, associated with Sea Monster's sauces. I know it's random and all, but it just struck me.

Anyway, Sea Monster left me a comment on the earlier sauce (always like hearing from sauce makers) about their new sauce coming out, which I didn't discover until sitting down to write this review, was a collaboration with a band called Signal Fire. I thought the name kind of odd, as "Signal Fire Lift Up" sounds a bit more like a command than a sauce name, but the sauce itself is named Lift Up and the Signal Fire designation is for the band's participation The idea here is unity through music and the sauce itself representing that by uniting flavor and fire. I dig the label, which has a sort of reggae-inspired feel to it (I believe Signal Fire is a reggae band) and it complements the lovely color of the sauce well. All good there.

The sauce itself is smooth and a touch on the thick side. There is quite a bit going on with it. Rather than essentially trying to make a mustard by way of hot sauce, they have opted for a newer creation, that is unique unto itself. In that light, they have definitely succeeded. The ingredients list does strike me as a bit odd, with the inclusion of Tabasco sauce, which implies they are using an actual finished sauce in here, rather than the elements as part of their own sauce, which is also the case (but a bit more normal in that regard, with the Dijon mustard), but Tabasco doesn't show up particularly, in terms of flavor notes. Here, we have the Dijon mustard and Cayenne making their presence felt, along with a sort of fruity sweetness coming from the orange juice and sugar. Using tomato paste to round it all out was a nice touch as well. Heat-wise, it's pretty low. Out of the 10 ingredients, it goes all the way down to the 7 slot, with the Tabasco sauce, before we see any peppers at all. Cayenne winds up in the 9 slot.

Clearly, this was meant to be a harmonious blend of elements into a composite taste, rather than one distinctive profile. I think it definitely achieves that, but it winds up in a sauce I find more interesting than enjoyable. This is not to say I find it bad, not at all, but rather the case that, as always, using mustard in a hot sauce, even the slightly more flexible Dijon, tends to pigeonhole applications a bit. I've tried this on quite a few different applications and the same problem as the Da Kine, though not to that extent, is still present. For foods that I'd normally put mustard on, the somewhat astringent nature (there are 3 different types of vinegar in this sauce), intrudes and where I'd normally use a more pungent Louisiana-style sauce, the mustard conflicts. So, I find this one works much better with lighter (non-fish) meats, where this sauce doesn't need to meld with other flavors and can shine under its own identity. 

Bottom line: A more successful bridging of mustard and hot sauce, in the right setting, this can be quite nice, but it is one of those sauces that definitely needs the right setting.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 4

Hell's Kitchen Black Forest Hot Sauce Review

Hell's Kitchen Black Forest

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9XdihgJb5U

I had some misgivings prior to jumping into this one. For starters, I'm not generally a fan of cherry, black or otherwise, which seems to be the main fruit featured here. Balsamic is probably my second lest favorite vinegar, which didn't bode super well, especially given that I've found the other Hell's Kitchen sauces I've done to be somewhat of a mixed bag. Still, price on this was nice and it did feature Ghost peppers, still probably my favorite superhot, so, in the name of keeping an open mind, I went forward. Once I got around to opening was when I discovered it also had apple cider vinegar, my least favorite form of that.

To be clear, neither of those vinegars, nor the black cherry, play much of a part in my general dislike of this sauce. Rather, it is the prominence of the sage. Putting herbs in sauces is something that I find to have uneven, at best, results, and largely unfavorable ones. Too little and it may as well not be there at all, but too much and it completely overrides everything else in it, which is kind of what we have here. Sage, which is the herb in question, is very pungent and a little goes a long way. Despite it being the last ingredient here, it is definitely one of the more dominant aspects of this sauce.

Had that been toned down somewhat, this would have been a surprisingly good sauce, I think. The cherry reads less as distinctively that and more as a general berry sweetness, while the Ghosties in there bring a nice heat and flavor to things. The balsamic is definitely stronger in taste profile than the apple cider, but neither is particularly obtrusive, though admittedly, it would be tough for that to be the case with the sage roaring to the fore. The instructions are to shake well and that I can definitely verify. At times, this will be a solid sauce, pleasant enough, if a bit underwhelming, until that sage hit comes in and blows everything else out of the way. Even agitating it fiercely, to spread the sage out a bit, only helps to an extent. This sauce I found rather a challenge to use because of that.

Heat-wise, there are definitely moments when it's clear that a superhot resides in this formula and it gives off a characteristic bit of a bracing heat charge. There are too few of those moments, for my taste, but when they show up, they're pretty nice. The pairings seem to be mostly for unadorned meat (and beer), which I'd tend to agree with, as this sauce does not play nice with other elements, unless you really like sage, I guess. Maybe if you imbibe enough beer, it will improve perception...I may have to just test that.

Bottom line: Another less than stellar entry from Hell's Kitchen and another sauce with herbaceous notes way too forward in the mix. If you really like your cherry and Ghosties with sage, or just like the sage flavor a lot, it's worth a shot. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 2

Adoboloco Fiya Fiya Hot Sauce Review

Adoboloco Fiya! Fiya! 

Note: This sauce appeared on Season 10 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UBvyQWSmes

Much like the Kolohe Kid and Hamajang, both of which have appeared elsewhere in these pages, this one seems to start with a base of Ghost pepper, apple cider vinegar, salt, and garlic. Where this one veers off is the addition of Jalapenos, Habaneros, and Scorpions, the latter of which bring both an increase in heat, as well as a shift in flavor. The base is still somewhat distinguishable, but this one has a large superhot bitter and somewhat floral note to it. This is interestingly a bit low at the beginning, but as one gets further into the sauce, it becomes more pronounced. 

Like the others, this one does not lend itself to any one dish intuitively, at least not to me. So, I hopped myself on over to their website to see if they had any food pairings in mind. I found quite a lot of them, some of which will be in the forthcoming video (watch this space), but the last one, which suggested it as an everyday sauce, I found kind of amusing. If you're a sauce maker and someone wants to know what a given sauce is going to be good on or with and you say everything, I find it a struggle to take that company seriously. There are precious few sauces that are universal enough to be good on every single possible thing you could eat, even if you omit those which will obviously not be good, such as sugary breakfast cereals. 

Anyway, I did quite a lot of testing on this. It's hot enough and more particularly bitter and flowery enough that it could be used sparingly and still get the point quite emphatically across. On chicken strips, I didn't find it hugely enjoyable, nor on pizza. I was quite interesting in mac & cheese, but I found it highly distracting in an Alfredo setting. On rotisserie chicken, I found it kind of a bust. There are a few Korean dishes, as well Hawaiian, suggested. Even nachos, of all things, but I had to draw the line a bit, as I don't generally add anything to the Korean dishes and the previous two sauces I mentioned earlier and found them both a bit wanting. Also, I should add that the recommendations for all 3 sauces seems to be identical, another reason to take those recommends with a grain (or several) of salt.

Even for all of that, I did find this sauce to have more depth than the other two, building on the framework of them nicely. Despite a fairly rough start from the Kolohe Kid, I've liked succeeding sauces progressively better, which is also the case with this as well. Definitely, though, this one packs enough of a wallop that it should be left to chileheads. 

Bottom line: A definite upgrade in heat, and a slightly lesser one in flavor, from the other Adoboloco entries in The Hot Ones pantheon, I find it overall interesting a bit more than compelling, but ultimately solid.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 5

Burns & McCoy Especia Roja Hot Sauce Review

Burns & McCoy Especia Roja

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=X8H-Oz70hlU

I must admit to a bit of frustration with this one. Since the other sauces I've had from this company have been either intriguing or a delight, I looked through their lineup to find more from them. Long-time readers of these pages will know that I have a strong aversion, likely an intolerance, to onions and they tend to make me immediately and violently ill. This condition has made me rather necessarily have to scour ingredient lists to make sure I'm not inadvertently getting into something that will see me sprinting for the nearest toilet or garbage receptacle. When I added this one to the hit list, onions were not an ingredient. Once I got a bottle in, with the new label refresh (I liked the previous labels better, tbh), evidently there was a change in formulation as well as there they are, in granulated form. 

This is not the first time this has happened (Born To Hula and CaJohn's also come to mind as companies that have changed things up from what I could find listed online), and I rather hate when sauce companies do this. Obviously this is more on a personal-to-me-and-my-condition level, but as a foodie as well, I dislike that trend. It almost always results in a flavor downgrade. I get that for economic reasons it may make sense from a purely business perspective, but my palate is unmoved by those particular considerations. Anyway, that form of onions I mentioned is one I don't come across a lot, as it usually is powder, which I can tolerate in fairly small doses, but granulated is essentially the same thing, just a lot coarser grind. I don't know why this was reformulated, but the other sauce was definitely of much higher interest. In any case, since I had it in hand,  I thought I'd give it a shot and see how we fared.

A certain person who shall go unnamed herein, for whatever reason, was really hung up on the idea of not buying taco mix seasoning, just hated the very concept because it was a waste of money, since it is more or less just a collection of spices in various ratios. So, she always insisted on making it herself, which tended toward the cumin-heavy side enough that I found myself greatly tiring of that spice, and still largely am to this day. This reminds me of that flavoring, just in a sauce form. The idea of fire-roasted peppers and fire-roasted tomatoes was a good one, filled with promise, as was having pepitas, which could be leaning towards a mole. Adding the pomegranate juice (gone in this latest incarnation) and it sounded a lot like something that could be unique and wonderful. Add in the Chocolate Habs and we have the makings of something, dare I say, special. Alas, this is not. 

This is a nice smooth medium thickness sauce, with a lovely coloration. We have the chiles you would normally find in chili powder, garlic, salt, cumin, onion powder (which are the main components of taco seasoning mix) and that overall aspect is by far the main flavor, albeit somewhat of a cumin-dominant one. I also found this sauce had a rather bitter aftertaste, which I found unpleasant, possibly because I poured a bit heavy to try to get a better sense of the sauce.  probably still would have tried to use it up in its entirety, except the times I have, it has fouled my gut afterwards. So, it will unfortunately be heading to the bin once I shoot the support video for it. Heat-wise, it's almost non-existent. No one really uses pre-packaged taco mix seasoning for heat, but for flavor, and that appears to be the intent here as well.

Bottom line: If you're more of of a fan of the flavor profiles I mentioned above than I am, this is probably worth a shot. I'm thinking of keeping an eye out for the old formulation, as it sounded interesting enough that I still want to try it, but the sauce in this bottle and my system are in too strong of disagreement to carry on.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 2

Da Kine Hawaiian Hot Mustard Hot Sauce Review

Da Kine Hawaiian Hot Mustard

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_UaAwKeNLU

This is one I picked up last year, same time as the other Da Kine entry (reviewed elsewhere here), thinking it might have been intended as an actual mustard for my grilling season FOH series (playlist on right), but the intent seems to be a hot sauce. Flavor-wise, I totally get what they're trying to do here and it's a pretty smashing idea. To wit, the idea is to basically have a sweet mustard, like a honey mustard, then infused with their Cayenne-based hot sauce. In principle, given that both condiments rely fairly heavily on vinegar, this should come together nicely.

In these reviews, however, I don't base my commentary on intent, but on actuality, what's in those bottles available for sale. My hunch on their intent may be off, but as far as the sauce I've described above, which I seems as catered to me as a sauce could be, this one misses wildly. The problem here is that they just don't take the concept far enough. So, we have the regular sauce, which is fine, and an array of sweeteners, including pineapple juice, brown sugar, and regular sugar, also fine, but there's just not enough of it. The result is not being a good in either category, be it mustard or hot sauce.

So, we get shades of the regular sauce, shades of yellow mustard, notes of black pepper, which is admittedly a nice touch, and a sweetness that comes through in all of that as kind of an oddity. When we think about honey mustards, they tend to be thicker and gloppier, which naturally has something to do with the properties of honey itself. Replacing that as a sweetener with other agents is fine, so long as the appropriate sweetness level is hit. If not, you have what amounts to basically an oddity. What they were going for is that old Reese's commercial, "hey you got your chocolate in my peanut butter, hey you got your peanut butter on my chocolate," and magic is born, but instead the result here is more like sauce puddles that happen to run together on your plate.

That is not to say it tastes bad, per se, or wrong, just more weird. This is a problem because the profile becomes immediately distracting. The expectation here, given all the sweeteners and the name mustard in the name, would be leaning much more heavily towards a honey mustard. This sauce seemingly starts with their original sauce, which was a solid, if unspectacular Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce. With that as the largest component, it naturally is going to skew that way unless there's a heavy hand to right the ship. What we wind up with, then, is a pretty confused sauce, more or less a Cayenne sauce with often conflicting notes of mustard, the aforementioned lovely black pepper, and a sweetness that does not have much depth (another hazard of replacing honey in this style of sauce). Heat-wise, it's quite minimal and goes no further than the original sauce that acts here as what I assume is the base.

Bottom line: I get the impression this conglomeration of flavors is meant to appeal to many, but the danger of that kind of mixing is what we have here...an end result that I don't suspect will appeal much to any.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 2

Hellfire Detroit Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Hellfire Detroit Habanero

Note: This sauce appears on Season 9 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1Ass6Mr0is

I find a lot of intrigue around this, not so much the sauce, which is a fairly straightforward and uncomplicated affair, but rather other non-sauce elements. In a way, I suppose this is perhaps unfair, as it moves the discussion away from the actual sauce, but the overall discussion into the final product that hits the shelves is inherently related. So, I'm going to spend some time with the peripherals and confine it to this paragraph and the next, so you can more readily skip ahead to the actual sauce if you don't care about any of this. I put this one off towards the end and probably would have passed it by entirely, were I not trying to do coverage for as many of the Hot Ones sauces as I can.

I guess I'll put it about as bluntly as I can and just say I truly don't understand what this company is trying to do with their sauces. We have these squat bottles with the narrow openings, which is fine, but they are 4 oz. instead of the normal 5. Again, that's fine as you need some what to differentiate yourself in an incredibly competitive playing arena, however, I have not seen this sauce (or any of their others) for less than $18 (I will note it is $15 on their website, but does not include shipping), which is not only 2X many of the other sauces in the 5 oz. bottles, but comes down to $4.50/oz. I don't usually spend a lot of time on pricing, since certain recipes can be more expensive than others, but of these ingredients, 4 of them (vinegar, water, salt, olive oil) are not remotely expensive. Habaneros generally not not, either, so is fire the big overhead driver here? With those 5 ingredients, what we essentially have here is a very expensive puree. There is also the discussion of why they chose Hellfire for their name, when a much longer running and more well-known hot sauce company was already using it, but that won't be one I have here.

As far as flavor notes, it is as basic as you can get, more or less a fire-roasted Habanero puree. I suspect these are orange Habs, but there may be some green in there as well. I don't know if they're going to a mash or not, but the vinegar, salt, water, and olive oil are unobtrusive.Vinegar does show up, but much more as a grace note. The hole in the bottle is a bit on the smaller side for something this chunky. It doesn't so much as pour as fall out in somewhat gritty chunks, leaving no doubt that you're getting a lot of fire-roasted Habs. 

I have no problem with that part. I'm not the hugest fan of Habaneros and definitely and rather intensely strongly feel that fire-roasting is the best way to have them. My custom-blend Mexican-style sauce, for instance, used the wonderful Irazu Fire-Roasted Habanero & Garlic (reviewed elsewhere here) sauce heavily and I've done a few other sauces utilizing that ingredient. So I'm not unfamiliar in the least, but unless you really like (probably orange) Habaneros, this one-note sauce will be kind of a miss.Those others I mentioned took more of a stab at creating a sauce, whereas this is more or less, as mentioned, just a puree. It's fine for that, but I found that it worked better when there were other, stronger flavors to meld with. On its face, this one lives and dies by how much you like the main ingredient.

I had to cut testing a touch short on this one, as one winds up using a lot of it, trying to find a feel for where it works best. It's relatively inoffensive, minus all the grit, but I didn't enjoy the flavor of this, particularly, when it became the main focus. The testing used up a lot of sauce, but it doesn't really take that long to get the feel for what this is. Habanero as the main flavor note, for me, works best on Mexican-style food and not at all well in other settings. Heat-wise, I'd put this on the lower side of the range on the label. I didn't find it especially hot, but heat can vary pretty widely from batch yield, so others may be slightly hotter.

Bottom line: Even if you love fire-roasted Habanero puree, it's hard to recommend this for that category, given the expense. Indeed, I would put this one more for those who want to cover sauces on the Hot Ones show and leave it at that.

Breakdown:

       Heat level: 2
       Flavor: 4
       Flexibility: 3
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1

Overall: 2