2024 Q2 Update

2K24 Q2 Update

Not going to be chit-chatting too much about the blog this time around, as most of the comments are to the YouTube FOH video series, including one major change that will be taking place hopefully by August sometime, but might be into September. Don’t worry about missing it; if you’re watching, you’ll see it when it happens.

Speaking of the series, here’s an update to the list of forthcoming FOH special event postings:

July 4 - Independence Day
July 5 - National Jam Day
July 11 - You'll see
July 27 - Cowboy Day
August 6 - National Mustard Day
Aug 17 - National Honey Bee Day
Sept 2 - Labor Day
Sept 3 - National Rice Month
Sept 18 - National Cheeseburger Day
Sept 23 - National Snack (Meat) Stick Day
Oct 21 - National Worm Day
Oct 28  - National Chocolate Day
Oct 31 - Diablo Trick Or Treat Double Feature
Nov 14 - National Pickle Day
Dec 4 - National Cookie Day
Dec 17 - National Maple Syrup Day

When I got COVID-19 in January of this year, I figured it might spike my blog posting a bit, but at the end of Q1, I was at 25 posts, which would put me on pace for 100 posts for the year, which would be the highest ever for the blog. I talk a lot of about dialing back, but I suppose that bears raising the question of do I actually know what that means. By the end of this quarter, Q2, I was at a slightly more reasonable 45 posts overall, including this one, which is pacing for 90, which would be the 2nd highest year, so I guess we will see...

That aside, this is one of my few remaining sources of great joy and I have a lot of fun doing both the blog and the FOH content and have a pretty good rhythm going between those two behind the scenes. Also, tying it in with food and delicious sauces allows me to explore the culinary world in a way I didn’t expect, but am overall quite enjoying, by which I mean more specifically me attempting various dishes I might otherwise not (and some of these wind up appearing in the FOH video series, so do check it out, if you’re interested). I suppose you could say that the enshittificaiton of fast food and restaurants and gouging of various corporations is forcing the issue and I wouldn’t argue a bit. In that case, it’s maybe more lemons into lemonada.

Turning from the state of “hot” commercial offerings, for this update, I thought it might be interesting to take a look, since I haven’t done this for a bit, at which sauce companies show up most on the blog. The last time I did this was in September of 2022, when I did my TSAAF At 10 Years post. At current posting, there are 476 full reviews on the blog, so the quantities below are out of that total number. I’m going to expand on the commentary in that September 2022 post and make a proper top 10 of the most represented sauce companies on the blog, which will probably fairly closely mirror, in terms of count, the breakdown of videos posted on the FOH YT series. All of these are linked together and you can go to the super-handy TOC, where the sauces are sorted alphabetically (mostly) by sauce maker/brand name. For this list, this is for full reviews only (if I included Mini-Reviews, this would change the count somewhat - maybe I will make a list including those someday), wherein I rate them. I’m not going to get into the whims and whys of these, at least not this time, so this is more a reflection of data compilation. The structure will go as follows: Rank #, Sauce Maker, [# of written full reviews] (FOH YT videos posted currently)

1. CaJohn’s* [21] (19 videos posted)
2. Angry Goat [19] (all videos posted)
3. Hellfire [15] (12 videos posted)
4. Silk City [14] (all videos posted)
5. Pex [8] (7 videos posted)
6 - 10 (tie) Bravado [7] (4 videos posted)
Karma* [7] (all videos posted)
Puckerbutt* [7] (all videos posted)
Torchbearer [7] (5 videos posted)

* = number is not reflective of any sub-lines, such as vanity sauces, co-packed sauces, etc.

As far as this list goes, I’ll probably return to it once I “finish,” as in review all of the sauces I have interest in from the various companies, but I currently only have 1 more sauce each from CaJohn’s, Angry Goat, and Karma that I have in mind to get to. Hellfire, Silk City (for now), Bravado, Pex, and Torchbearer are all caught up entirely, while Puckerbutt has a few more forthcoming, so there will be shuffling of this list somewhat. I can’t think of any sauce companies on the list wherein I’ve reviewed the totality of their lineup, but with sauces coming and going a lot, even if there was, it would likely only be temporary.

Turning now to The Hot Ones project, the juggernaut rolls on. Season 23 was posted last quarter and Season 24 this quarter. I wrapped up a couple seasons in there, narrowing the list somewhat. I’m having trouble finding sauces out in the wild that I’m missing for a couple of the earlier seasons, so if that continues, I will probably  move those sauces to the discontinued setting for the end of year update. As it is now, I mostly just have the later seasons with sauces outstanding...which will always be the case so long as the show stays in production. Once it concludes, I will do a separate post with way too much detail and cross reference into show position ranking everything, but for now, you can check out a cool Top 10 list from a dude by name of Chris Whitehair at Flower City, who has a fuckton of other Top 10 lists on his site. Anyway, here’s the breakdown of the Hot Ones show sauces as it stands now:

The seasons with sauces outstanding are:


Season 5 - 1 remaining
Season 9 - 1 remaining
Season 11 - 1 remaining
Season 12 - 1 remaining
Season 13 - 1 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 18 - 1 remaining
Season 19 - 2 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 20 - 2 remaining
Season 21 - 1 remaining
Season 22 - 3 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 23 - 3 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 24 - 2 remaining

These are the sauces remaining, by slot position on the show:

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

Pex Peppers Atom Splitter Hot Sauce Review

Pex Peppers Atom Splitter

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjiD8eumx00

This may be the last Pex sauce I wind up reviewing. I had initially thought I had already covered all what I meant to in the line-up, sans any new entries, but then the Puckerbutt Chocolate Plague (reviewed elsewhere here) came along and I was confronted rather forcefully by a mostly unfamiliar to me superhot. So, thus started my journey of discovery of the 7-Pot Douglah (I know the aforementioned other sauce is a Bhutlah, but that is a cross between a Ghost and a 7-Pot Douglah that mostly resembles the latter of those two peppers, in my mind), which is also concluding here with this sauce.

In many respects, this sauce falls between the Karma Ashes 2 Ashes (also reviewed elsewhere here) and the Plague. The elements of sweetness here temper the Douglah sourness somewhat, which allows more of that classic superhot bitterness to creep in, and it, while still very sour, is notably less sour than the Plague, but nowhere near as sweet (or as good or as hot) as the Ashes 2 Ashes. It is definitely a blazer, as the 7-Pot Douglah is definitely a superhot and this is very much a chilehead only sauce.

For me, as mentioned, I don't really like sour sauces much, hot or otherwise, including this one. It is, just, palatable enough for me to use as a tolerance builder, so I will definitely finish out the bottle, but I have little to no interest in getting another. The label very nicely suggests things to go with it, such as white meats and vegetarian dishes, but the latter I don't eat much, if any, of and on things like chicken and fish, it is on the okayish side, but it is a flavor I tire of pretty rapidly. The various other notes, cider vinegar and tropical fruit, don't really factor in to the taste mix too much here, as the Douglah, as it has been the other times I've had sauces with it, is a quite forceful flavor. 

Bottom line: If you're a chilehead with a taste for the bitterness of superhots on the sour side, this is worth a go.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 3

San Diego Pepper Co. 805 Heat Hot Sauce Review

San Diego Pepper Co. 805 Heat

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD6LICWk1P0

So, my buddy Roger Damptz over at Burn Your Tongue, has seemingly re-activated his website (http://www.burnyourtongue.com - go check it out and tell him I sent you) and I happened by it the other day. One of the nice things is that he has an Instagram feed on it, which I appreciate as I miss a lot of stuff because I'm not on Facebook or Instagram (and never will be). Anyway, I saw he was having a sale and one of the locations was in the vicinity where I was heading and he likes to pop new stuff on the shelves, so I rolled on by to take a look and pick up a few names from the hit list to tide me over until the next haul. This was not on the list, but it looked interesting.

This particular bottle did something I've never seen, over literally thousands of bottles of hot sauce, in which it seemed like the bottle was sticky. I wasn't sure if it was from a bottle breaking in the case this was with or something, but the placement was a bit off for that (if you've run into this, you'll know what I mean). I got it home and inspected it closer and noticed the shrink was intact. I'd tested to make sure the glass was intact before buying it, which it was. I pulled the shrink and saw the cap seal was also still seeming to be intact. So, somehow, the sauce had seeped past the cap seal, through the bottle threads, and down inside the shrink, which I've never seen before and can only imagine might have happened possibly from the bottle being overfilled in processing. In any case, the sauce didn't seem like it had gone bad or anything, so I put it through testing...

...and testing. Longtime readers will know that apple cider foot vinegar is one of my least favorite ingredients, but it is not generally enough to stop me buying a sauce. Sometimes it will read into the flavor, but as often, it won't, so I tend not to let it deter me, unless there are other ingredients foul to me also in the mix. This one I was very curious about, as I like brown sugar in sauces generally and the addition of mustard sounded intriguing. I will say that the color of the sauce, which is gorgeous, also helped. 

It is a medium thick, nicely blended sauce, quite smooth, though honestly just a tough on the grainy side, which is one of those things using brown sugar will sometimes do. It is a very cohesive whole, rather than individual flavors shining through, but with the disparate strong flavors of apple cider vinegar and mustard in there, it is kind of wacky, particularly with the light sweet element. As with other composite type sauces, I find this works better in composite dishes, like soups or chili. If you don't like a sauce, particularly one like this that is so thick it just sits wherever you put it, it makes it hard to use for things like dipping sauces. While I wouldn't say I dislike this sauce, neither do I particularly like it. It's kind of in that weird okayish area where it's not so bad I want to bin it, but it won't generally be my first choice, now that testing has concluded. Heat-wise, it's Habanero, but this is quite low, despite the thermometer scale thing on the label indicating otherwise. 

Bottom line: This is a sauce that will be more receptive to those who like the flavor of apple cider vinegar more than I do, which is to say, at all. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 3

Maritime Madness Simple Tropical Habanero Hot Sauce

Maritime Madness Simple Tropical Habanero

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DuHoMzZlPM

I like the premise of this line, with more of a focus on less complicated sauces, allowing the pepper to ostensibly shine. The label design, in conjunction with the bottles, if I didn't mention before, is le magnifique...mostly. Not having a white point (or enough contrast) behind the ingredients I didn't love and once it gets towards the bottom of the bottle, upending it and keeping it there may prove a bit of a challenge, but the soft nature of the plastic and the tapered tip on top lend themselves well to squeezability. Now, whether or not you need that aspect in a hot sauce is a discussion I'm leaving for another day, but if you are going to do it, do it well and they do it perhaps better than everyone, yes, including Yellowbird. 

For this sauce, there are Habaneros as the lead and a bevy of other ingredients, including pineapple, mango, and maple syrup, all of which contribute to a nice generalized "tropical" sweetness, without detracting much from the Habaneros. In a way, this is a shame, as I don't love the flavor of Habaneros, still, despite having had many, many sauces with them in it - I suppose you could say I have an uneasy alliance with them, to a degree - but that was the intent of the sauce and they certainly lived up to it. Mostly, this reminds me of the aggressive blast of the El Yucateco Habanero Red (reviewed elsewhere here) by way of an underlying tropical sweetness.

For me, this means that it's flexible enough to use on pizza, but not everywhere I might normally use a less adorned pineapple-Habanero sauce. So, burgers are out, Mexican food I'm still undecided about, on chicken tendies it's ok, but not something I'd generally seek out. In a way, it's kind of a lost sauce, in that there doesn't seem to be a natural place for it to go, but with the bottles being 9 oz., it is flavorful enough that I've had a lot of fun playing around and experimenting.

Bottom line: While it may not be the instant hit I was hoping for, there's enough here that I find it to be overall pretty intriguing, with a heat level low enough to be quite accessible for those chile-curious looking to dip their toes in.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 5
           Flexibility: 4
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 4

HAB Sauce Thai Peach Hot Sauce Review

HAB Thai Peach

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook. 

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LrDGkWbRe8

Sauces like this are invariably some of the more challenging to review, in that ultimately, I'm ambivalent about it. It's fine, which is about as milquetoast as a thing possible to say, but that is, as they say, bottom line up front (BLUF). The label has armored rhinos on it, which I dig and again will note that their label game is second to none, but I'm not really in the habit of picking up sauces for cool labels. I have kept exactly two hot sauce bottles ever, one because it was in the shape of a rooster and it fit in well with some other glass figurines my mother gave me and the second was the Retsuko Rage.

For this sauce, while I'm glad to see Thai chiles used in a hot sauce, I think there's also a reason they're not frequently seen in hot sauces and that has to do with flavor or rather a lack of it to impart. The heat is quite slight, and for me, these peppers are super application-dependent. Pairing them with peaches could have been a move of brilliance, but garlic is also in the mix. Since that is one of the stronger elements of the ingredients, flavor-wise, this is a very garlic-forward sauce. Peaches are still there, but more as an afternote. If you're going to have a peach sauce, for me, I think it has to be the star and build everything around it. This seems like a stab at an Asian sweet chile sauce, just using peaches for the sugar, and they don't have enough sugar for the task, which creates the imbalance. 

I don't dislike garlic or anything and it may just be my own expectation with a fruit-based sweet hot, but I'm really expecting the fruit to be the first and main flavor, regardless of whatever else is in this. Some makers pull this off flawlessly, on a near-magical level. When it doesn't happen, perhaps this is me being spoiled, but when it's not there, I find myself immediately wishing it was. This sauce is not offensive or anything, it just tends to make me wish I had a different sauce. I think it works best in Asian-y dishes and not particularly well elsewhere, which is perhaps what they were going for. Heat-wise, it is quite minimal, with only Thai chiles being the heat component. 

Bottom line: This is one of those sauces that fill me with ambivalence. It could have been really interesting, but what it is now seems to me to need a bit more re-tooling, specifically less garlic and more sugar/peach flavor.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 2