Double Comfort Blues City Hot Sauce Review

Double Comfort Blues City

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

When you think of Blues City, I suppose the first thing that might come to mind is Memphis, Tennessee, and indeed, I suspect that is what they're going for here. The ingredient list, like Memphis Heat (reviewed elsewhere here) before it, is sort of a spin off of on the Cajun style, itself a spin on the Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce. I believe this was meant to be a less hot version of that other sauce and indeed, the heat level here is very low, as is usually the case with both of the other styles mentioned.

This reminds me, in many ways, of a more liquified and much more garlic and vinegar forward version of the first iteration of the KFC Nashville Hot flavoring system, which was my introduction, years and years ago, to that style of flavoring. Here we have a bit of sweetness to complement those other flavors and a very nice rounding to the sauce as a whole. For me personally, I tend to find Cajun style sauces a bit busy and that would also apply to this, which does cut down a bit on flexibility for me, but that is very much my own distinctive tastes and this is another fine-flavored entry from a hot sauce company I continue to be impressed by. 

Like those other styles, it is a fairly loose sauce, so it would need something in which to either soak into, like the breading on a fried food, though, again, this is outside of my preference a bit there, or better yet, with strong flavors to gel with, such as some barbequed ribs or perhaps a nice cream based sauce, like an Aflredo or mac & cheese, basically the usual suspects for those other types as well.

Bottom line: A variation on a theme that takes on its own unique and strong identity, this is definitely a good representative of that style and if vinegar-foward sauces are your jam, this is well worth picking up.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 8
           Flexibility: 5
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 5

HAB Sauce Machismo Reaper Hot Sauce Review

HAB Machismo Reaper

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuVmaMGcr3E

Sometimes, the direction of this blog surprises me, even after nearly 12 years, more on that in a bit. 

With this sauce, I'm reminded of a time, back when I was in my teen years and more fully realizing that chilehead itch, the yearn to burn, if you will,  back when heavy metal had a trend with the guitar players to attempt to reach virtuoso heights with a display of guitar pyrotechnics on the fretboard that would surely leave everyone's mouth agape in awe. This mostly meant that they were often trying to play 1/256th notes, which tended to overwhelm most listeners. This also resulted in a backlash from the old guard, who started really pushing the phrase "less is more." If you've seen the ingredient list of this sauce, you probably already know where I'm going here, but if not...

What we have here is sort of what I like to refer to as a kitchen sink sauce, in that it has a grand and great collection of ingredients. To go back to the earlier part of this review, I would not have predicted that I'd have back to back sauces that I think suffered in their attempt to draw on Asian flavor notes and influences and it certainly wasn't planned. Yet, for me, t is that same lasting impression of both this and the Karma Cosmic Disco before it in the prior review. Obviously, the approaches are considerably different and this one takes a strong aim at a number of different fruits, along with various Asian ingredients.

For me, I'm not sure it really works. I don't know what the design of this sauce is meant to be, other than the hottest in the line-up (hence the heat "death" of machismo). It doesn't really fit into an Asian style sauce, given the peaches and pineapple and general fruity nature, but all of those contrasting ingredients, the soy sauce, the lemongrass and basil, lend a sort of confusion, if not oddness, to the palate. The sauce itself is by no means offensively flavored. By itself, it is somewhat interesting and definitely unique, but when pairing it with foods, we get into a lot of flavor cancellation in not necessarily pleasant ways. One of the bigger problems with having a laundry list of ingredients is that the results can suffer a bit from lack of identity and I feel that is the case here. Heat-wise, since the mighty mighty Carolina Reaper is involved, though not the Habanero, for which the company itself is named, we do have a bit of a punch, though I still found it somewhat on the low side. It's not quite to the point where I'd say it's chilehead only, but is perhaps a more progressive step for those chile-curious.

Bottom line: This is another sauce I couldn't really find a place for it to fit in and another that I really wish sauce makers would provide some guidance for what they intended.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 3

Karma Cosmic Disco Hot Sauce Review

Karma Cosmic Disco

Note: This sauce appears on Season 19 of the Hot Ones.

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

This is a sauce that was a pretty big question mark to me going in. Karma is a sauce company that makes stuff I sometimes like, but overall has proven too streaky to move into my list of favorite makers (you can find that list in the SOTY link to the right). I greatly admire that the company is formed by an ex-NASA scientist and I find the many variations on a theme with much of their hot sauce line to be an interesting idea. However, a lot of their sauces just don't resonate with me. 

There are two (I guess you could say three, depending on if you count Scorpion Disco as its own sauce or a revved up version of Funken Hot, both reviewed elsewhere here) main sauces at play here, the aforementioned in parenthetical Scorpion Disco and the Cosmic Dumpling, with me finding to my surprise that I liked the former (and the other former in the parenthesis above) and not really having too much interest in or need for what was essentially a very boutique and perhaps even gourmet pot sticker sauce, as I never eat those. I didn't love the Cosmic Dumpling and it took me quite a while to go through the bottle, so I didn't know what to expect going in. Would it be Scorpion Disco-lite or an actual true homogenization of a hot sauce with strong Asian flavors?

To my dismay, what I found I would describe more as a clash of worlds. The smell and color are definitely more towards the Cosmic end of things and because of that, the initial taste is more in that direction before we get into flavor cancellation and the hammer floral bitter notes of the Scorpion come screaming in. This sauce reads to me a lot more of Scorpion peppers than does the Scorpion Disco, somehow, and that is among my least favorite superhots. The listing is for a "superhot blend" rather than specifically, but while I think this is probably the upper range of heat for normies, this won't give too many chileheads much of a challenge in terms of heat.

The other part of this is flexibility, or more specifically, the lack thereof. Do I use this as a predominantly Asian sauce, for a food type I don't really ever have and even if I did, am not sure I'd want those harsh floral notes there, or do I use it more where I would Scorpion Disco and just potentially have a confusing mouthful of flavors, depending on what gets cancelled out on a given food? I did opt more for the second of those options, a lot more where I used the Scorpion Disco and I can't say I loved any of the results too much. I get a lot of Asian spices there that come through as jarring and honestly have not really found any place, as I write this, where I think the sauce fits well. This may be one that comes down to whether it is good on wings or not, as I keep the Hot Ones show sauces for my quarterly Wing Thing videos on the FOH video series on Youtube and I may play around with it a bit on some Asian stuff, but the union between this sauce and my palate seems a rather unhappy one, ultimately.

Bottom line: This is another Hot Ones and Karma sauce that I struggle with, sad to say. It may have an application where it works wonderfully, but I have yet to discover what that may be.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 2

JimEmi's Creations The Red Sauce Medium Hot Sauce Review

JimEmi's Creations The Red Sauce Medium

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MQkcq89yfU

Interesting sort of stylization in the name, with what I presume is the first name of the sauce creators or company owners, capitalized for both and then run together. On their website, this sauce, the only one available, comes available in a coffin package, should you so desire, with a choice of colors, which itself is kind of curious. Most of the mini-coffin packaged products tend to be on the hotter side of the scale, which this is nowhere near, so no idea what they're going for there. The sauce itself is made by Angry Irishman, out of Ohio, though JimEmi's is from CA, which is kind of nice to see the co-packer get some love on the label. 

I'm not sure entirely what they were going for with this sauce, other than to make a sauce that is visually red, which this one is, quite deep, rich, dark almost to brown red. It is fairly thick, but flows pretty smoothly. When I looked at the ingredients, it seemed to me like it would be oriented towards Mexican/Southwest flavors and that is indeed where I found it to be best, thanks to a fairly strong note of cumin in the flavors. I could see this also working possibly in ramen, though I did not attempt it. There are additionally some nice notes of chili powder, tomato and an underlying sweetness from the honey, with the Habanero playing in there mostly as a back current of very slight heat. 

While I found the sauce very accessible and potentially a good gateway sauce, I also found it a bit frustrating, thanks to a personal quirk of wishing sometimes that a given sauce had this or that note to it. For this one, while I would have loved fire-roasted Habs in there, it seemed like there was something missing, a flavor note, and after some pondering, it is smoke. If this had a nice delicate flavor of chipotle in there or, better yet, make it a smoked Habanero or Ghost, the latter if they wanted to bump the heat a bit, that would have been just exquisite. Unfortunately, I've not been able to get this out of my head (fortunately for me, this does not happen with every sauce or anywhere near that often) and now lament the sauce it could have been and I wish it had been. Still, what is here is undeniably delicious and worked fantastically well on all the things I tried it on, which were admittedly limited to that food type I mentioned in the paragraph above. I am not a huge fan of cumin and a little goes a very long way for me. This sauce had a bit too much of that note for me to go too far off adventuring, but when it stays in pocket, food flavor-wise, it's very nice. I'm excited to see what they do next.

Bottom line: Excellent flavoring of ingredients you would generally find in a taco sauce or taco flavoring, tinged with a touch of sweetness and low heat. 

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 8
           Flexibility: 4
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 5

Lola's Mango Ginger Scotch Bonnet (Hyvee Exclusive) Hot Sauce Review

Lola's Mango Ginger Scotch Bonnet (Hyvee Exclusive)

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WrpKZBBB3o

I try really hard to keep an open mind and give things a chance, even when I've been underwhelmed in the past and this entry serves as good example of that principle. I previously did all of the varieties of the Lola's sauces I came across and the highest any of them rated was a cumulative 4, which is not exactly inspiring. I found them solid on ramen, which was where I used them the most, but not anything overly compelling (reviewed elsewhere here), with one of them so indistinct and uninteresting, I didn't bother to film a video of it (though in hindsight, I now wish I would have, if nothing else, pairing it with one of the others). I then nearly completely forgot about the company until I saw it during my vacation travels this year.

Where I saw it, as you may have already guessed, was at a Hyvee. The Hyvee grocery chain, for those unfamiliar, is a largely Midwestern presence and I found the stores I visited to generally be pretty fantastic, though admittedly, I didn't entirely love the layouts. I believe I may have Yelped some of the locations I visited, if you happen to be interested in my ramblings there. Regardless, I didn't glom onto the fact that it was a Hyvee Exclusive until I was getting ready to shoot the FOH video for it (link up top, when available, as per usual). 

Despite some misgivings, such as the color of this, which is a sickly sort of yellowish-green, and the idea of ginger in the sauce, which often is disappointing, but fruit-based sweet hots I find myself nearly perpetually in need of and figured I may as well give their foray into this a shot. These are not expensive sauces and worst case, I was just out a few bucks. This is not, to be perfectly clear, a fruit-based sweet hot.

It is instead a sauce that more closely resembles a slightly thick turmeric-flavored vinegar. Mangos are the first listed ingredient (and ginger towards the last, which really kind of brings a nice air of confusion to the naming structure of the sauce), but they perhaps contributed a bit more to the body of the sauce than the actual flavor. This is a fairly loose sauce as well, so I'm not entirely sure how much I believe the ordering. The Scotch Bonnet contribute a bit of warmth, but not a lot of flavor, and the ginger is nearly entirely absent. 

Now, I don't dislike turmeric, on the contrary, but I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out where this sauce was supposed to go...and given the nature of the Hyvee customer base, who it was for, either. Pairing this sauce, which requires something that can go with the pungency of vinegar and the very forward nature of turmeric, proved a challenge that I eventually tired of attempting. This is not a good thing for the sauce, neither was my overall impression that it was just odd and peculiar. The suggestion was to use it on anything, but those ingredients paired with, say, a mac & cheese, pizza, or even a ramen, sound more stomach-churning than appetizing, also not a good thing for the sauce. Even on chicken tendies, a lot of what flavor was there vanished and I was left with a light variety of sour notes, again, not a good thing.

Bottom line: This is not exactly a bad sauce, but more one without a place, ill-fitting in nearly every application I tried it in.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 2

Tennessee Honey Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Tennessee Honey Habanero

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DEOPLP7IAc

I think, at this point, I can pretty safely say that this is a hot sauce company whereupon everyone that cares about this kind of thing should go find a bottle that appeals to them and try something. Not all of the sauces I've done so far have hit with me, but of the ones that did, when they did, they did to massive effect and, not to put too fine of a point on it, this is exactly the kind of hot sauce company we should, as chileheads, be supporting, the kind who put flavor first and have a very comprehensive approach, all the way down to their phenomenal website. 

The first of those sauces that blew me away was the Blood Orange Ghost (reviewed elsewhere here) and this is the second. While I think heat could stand to be slightly hotter here (it is quite minimal overall), my sole complaint with this one is that the sauce is a lot looser than I would prefer and not only does it try to run down the threads and the neck of the bottle, but that same looseness also inhibits its flexibility somewhat. This winds up putting it more or less into the Louisiana-style category, as far as application, though the inherent sweetness here might not always quite be what I want in some of those uses.

The flavor is fantastic, both starting and finishing with honey, while the vinegar and Habanero does a very nice balancing job during the in-between. This is another so delicious that I had to purposely reach for other sauces so that I didn't wind up just blasting through the entire bottle before I had a chance to film anything for the FOH accompaniment to this. Prior to that series, I would have probably finished this bottle in 1 - 3 days, as it hits a lot of the sweet spots, so to speak, for me. I hasten to add that though there is honey flavor and a bit of sweetness fore and aft, it is not overall generally what I would call a sweet sauce, as the vinegar is quite present. Pairing the Habaneros with bell pepper also seems to have tempered the flavor of the former somewhat, which works wonderfully.

Bottom line: This is a truly magnificent sauce from a flavor perspective and while the heat probably won't be satisfying for chileheads, it is a near-perfect gateway sauce for the chili-curious, who like the more vinegar forward entries out there.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 7