Two Heads Music City Heat Hot Sauce Review

Two Heads Music City Heat

Note: This sauce was provided by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue, hot sauce emporium of legend. Check him out on Facebook & Instagram. 

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

It’s kind of interesting to me how different years shake out. I’ll get into it a bit more in the end of the year 2024 blog post, when I announce the winner of Sauce Of The Year for this year, but some years, it seems like I have a few right at the beginning of the year and then a long drought before I get more contenders, then one or two will come in right at the end, which is what happened this year. Other years will be sprinkled a bit more spread out through the months and I never really know which it will be.

So, as you may have surmised, this is another that is being added to my SOTY contenders for 2024 and this one hits a lot of sweet spots for me. I do love me a good bit of smoke into things, but it is a delicate balance, as that flavor note can easily be overused. Here, it comes across as perfection. The sauce itself is definitely more along the lines of a Cajun, with a very vinegar-forward base, with some garlic and other spice elements, and no less than 3 different types of peppers. We have the smoked Serranos, which impart a truly fantastic, near-joyous flavor, the Habaneros for the heat that comes on pretty quickly at the onset and kind of hovers at a good, solid 1, and Anaheim, to really round out and balance the works, and it all comes together to perfection.

This is probably my favorite Cajun-esque style sauce, which is one I consider an offshoot of Louisiana-style, and this is really saying something, considering there is not Cayenne pepper in this sauce. It is one I find so delicious, I want to try it on as much stuff as I think a vinegar forward sauce would work on and even a few things, like pizza, where I wouldn’t normally, but was curious. Given that this is as loose as it is, that also kind of speaks volumes, in its own way, and this is yet another that I easily cleared half the bottle, even with the restrictor cap still on it, within days of opening the bottle. Everything I’ve paired it with has been quite good, from the usual stuff of fried foods and creamy dishes, all the way to the aforementioned pizza and even some vegetable dishes, and I may need to get another bottle, just so I can further test it on more stuff. In fact, I daresay this will most probably happen.

Bottom line: If you’re a fan at all of the vinegar-forward sauces, and also like a bit of smokiness, do yourself a favor and chase down a bottle of this deliciousness. It is a sauce that makes me very happy every time I use it, which is what a good SOTY contender should do. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 8

Double Take B-Sides Hot Sauce Review

Double Take B-Sides

Anytime I have a sauce from The Hot Ones show that I find impressive and that introduces me to a new company, I generally will use it as a launch point and look more into the sauce company. In this case, Double Take is another maker that likes to heavily use onions, so this will be the end of my little foray into their lineup, unless other sauces come out that don’t include them, but this was one I picked up from somewhere during a Black Friday 2023 buy (yes, it sat on my shelf for that long, staring longingly at me – I wound up with a deluge of Lousiana-style/Cajun style sauces this year, unusually) and kept meaning to get to.

The verbiage on the label, which itself is kind of a throwback both to the earlier times of vinyl and to the psychedelic era, claims this as the best Louisiana style sauce, which is not a position to which I’d agree and perhaps didn’t ultimately pan out, as I don’t see this sauce any longer in their lineup. This is kind of a shame, as flavor-wise, this is definitely near the top for this style of sauce. I found it, with the excellent combination of Habanero and red bell, to be quite delicious and sort of representative of the style, with one major caveat. It is unfortunately that same caveat that sinks the rating overall on this a bit.

This is one of the loosest sauces I’ve ever had, basically the consistency of water. This is a huge problem as it tends to separate and pool rather easily, even with a restrictor cap. The tendency will be to use a lot of it because that same looseness leads to a lack of concentration of flavor, so to get the desired density, the thought would be to use more, but because it is so runny, you will readily get puddles, unless it is something that can absorb the liquid. Obviously food stickiness is a problem and the label copy suggestion, of putting it on pizza (does anyone actually use a Louisiana-style for that food?), sounds like a recipe for instant tragedy to me. It would have strongly benefitted from either being reduced and/or some xanthan gum.

Heat-wise, it’s only Habanero, which is towards the end of the ingredient list, so it wouldn’t have been challenging to begin with, but particularly not with the sort of watered-down effect of the sauce.

Bottom line: This sauce is a good example that was one finishing step away from being a top tier contender and had it been more concentrated and/or less loose, I believe it would have been in SOTY contender territory.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 8
           Flexibility: 3
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 5

Lisa’s Piece O’ Habanero Heaven & Extra Hot Habanero Hot Sauce(s) Review

Lisa’s Piece O’ Habanero Heaven & Extra Hot Habanero

Note: These sauces were provided by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue, hot sauce emporium of legend. Check him out on Facebook & Instagram.

Here we have a couple of sauces that are sort of playing on the heaven (referenced directly) and hell (referenced less overtly) themes, with essentially the same base. I really like this idea, as you can very dynamically see, for example, the concept of moving to a hotter pepper experience, the flavor notes change and tend towards bitter, as the sauce (or pepper) gets hotter. By using the same base, aside from switching out the bell pepper variety used as accompaniment, this illustrated quite effectively and if you’re interested in that, buying this as a part will do well to amplify that.

However, doing so is perhaps slightly unfair to the “devilish” version, that being the Extra Hot, as it suffers in comparison. While it is a fine sauce in its own right, with a solid bit of heat for a Habanero sauce, along with a very nice sweet accompaniment to a Habanero flavor, with grace notes of carrots underlying, the “angelic” version is just really one of those more unique special sauces that come along so very rarely, that the appreciation when they do is instant.

Here we have a sauce where the sugar and carrots create a very nice harmony, with an excellent rounding by the orange bells, all with a very slight undercurrent of heat from the Habanero. I’m not sure if I should call it exquisite or not, but this is just an outstanding creation, easily one of the more flavorful sauces I’ve had this year and among the best ever utilizing carrots. Carrots are one of those odd sauce additions for me, where I get it conceptually, but even as a foodie, I find them much less sweet than I keep hearing portrayed. Here, the emphasis is a bit more on the carrot flavor, but instead of forcing them to also carry the sweetness equation, sugar is added and it winds up being just a delight, particularly with the aforementioned bells. While I will stop short of calling it outright great, I do like this sauce quite a lot.

The Extra Hot moves to yellow bells, which are fine, but as peppers go, the closer one gets to red and red variants (including brown), the more flavorful and sweeter they tend to be. This is clearly meant to be what it is, a much more Habanero forward sauce, and it is definitely that. I’m not a huge fan of the flavor of Habanero, which is well documented in these annals, so while I like what they’ve done here, it definitely pales in comparison to the “heavenly” version. I will say that this one did work better on Mexican food, thanks to that more Habanero forward flavor.

Both of them are sweet enough, though, to qualify essentially as sweet hots generally. The Mexican food experiment was not something I really wanted to repeat, as I found them a touch too sweet, but anywhere you might use a sweet hot, from fried foods to pizza and, given the prominence of carrots, on roasted vegetable or vegetable dishes in general, these will be well at home in. Yes, they’re sweet enough for desserts (but not angled in a way they would be good on ice cream), particularly a nice slice of carrot cake for at least the “heavenly” version.

Bottom line: We have a sauce here that approaches stellar (Piece O’ Habanero Heaven) and one that shows the trade of flavor for heat (Extra Hot Habanero), albeit is still a good sauce in its own right. Think more general sweet hot, as a category, albeit with a very tasty sweet carrot lean, for the former, and with a more pronounced lean for the latter.

Piece O' Habanero Heaven Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 9
           Flexibility: 7
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Extra Hot Habanero Breakdown:

           Heat level: 2
           Flavor: 5
           Flexibility: 5
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 5

 

Hot Ones The Last Dab Reaper Edition

Hot Ones The Last Dab Reaper Edition

Note: This sauce appears on Season 5 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReZfElnzf8o

The final version that I hadn't gotten to of the original formulation (there is a mini-review of that) and interestingly, it more invites comparison to the other two than standing on its own. While not as hot as the Last Dab XXX (reviewed elsewhere here), it clearly is riding on a base that was keyed around a different pepper entirely and it sort of shows. The Carolina Reapers, appearing here in place of the various Pepper X variations of the other two sauces, contribute a very nice reddish hue to to think, making this the prettiest of the three, but the flavor works considerably best of all in the original Last Dab sauce.

Like the others, flexibility is somewhat of an issue as this doesn't appear to have a ready place. I am of the mind that the sauces are really meant to be stunt sauces and not really intended to go anywhere and just kind of be hot, but if that's the case, why the additional spices? Why bother at all with those? Like the others, this one works okay on chicken and might be kind of interesting with schwarma and if I liked Indian food at all, maybe there also, but realistically, this is not something I will be using other than on the wings in the quarterly FOH wing thing videos I do...and there, it's...fine. The fat of the wings seems to help things a bit, but there are also a multitude of other sauces I prefer more for wings.

Obviously, since it is in the 10 slot on the Hot Ones show, this is intended to cook and it gets into chilehead-only territory right out of the gate and only goes up from there, providing ample demonstration of why the mighty Reaper was the former record holder for hottest chile. 

Bottom line: As far as Last Dabs with the spice formulation go, this one falls firmly in the middle between the Original and the XXX, both in flavor and in heat, though it is the most visually attractive of the three. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 4

Firewalker Mango Blaze Hot Sauce Review

Firewalker Mango Blaze

Hailing from Asheville, NC, which has, as of this writing, taking a beating at the hands of Hurricane Helene, we have here a very intriguing proposition. Not so content to go with a standard mango Habanero or even mango-pineapple Habanero, instead here we have a very potent dosage of citrus coming to the party, along with some garlic and "secret" spices. There are also carrots to round this out and smooth out the base and all in all, this is a pretty wild ride, with lots of interesting flavor notes along the way. This sauce also exemplifies what to me is a pretty profound difference between tart and sour, with this being the former of those two.

The one issue I have with sauces that utilize citrus is the tendency to have some difficulty placing them and I think so too is the case with this one. The recipe here looks very close to the Original Firewalker sauce, with the mangoes seeming to be the main difference, so this is by design and some of the suggestions I see on the website I honestly find a touch baffling. Eggs? With citrus? Popcorn? Ketchup? Ranch? Chex Mix? Burgers? What? Not for me, I shouldn't think...most of the flavor notes here are the citrus, along with a bit of the tropical fruits and the garlic. Neither the carrots not Habaneros contribute much to the flavor with those stronger-tasting ingredients.

I did find it very nice on some nice fried foods and I think it would do pretty well with all of those. There is a jicama citrus slaw that one can (and should) make to go along with fish tacos and I think it would be fantastic in that slaw or just slathered on the fish taco itself. For me, though, citrus goes on a fairly narrow array of foods, so flexibility here is a touch on the low side. Heat-wise, we're only dealing with Habanero, so nothing too challenging here.

Bottom line: This is a very well-crafted sauce that does a good job of presenting a composite of flavors, albeit a more citrusy-forward one. 

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 8
           Flexibility: 3
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 5

Knee Deep Blends Tropical Storm Hot Sauce Review

Knee Deep Blends Tropical Storm Pineapple Habanero

Yet another sauce from the hallowed shelves of BYT of another sauce company I didn’t know existed until I saw it there...which also describes a great many sauces here in these annals. This one, with some nifty, though kind of pushing the bounds of legibility for these old eyes, graphics on the labels, is a product I think is ultimately labeled incorrectly. As has been stated repeatedly, I like a little sweet with my hot and sweet-hots, particularly fruit-based sweet hots, will always have my interest. In the trip whereupon I picked this up, I also picked up at least a half dozen more of just that type.

I think this one sort of pushes the line of where does a hot sauce end and where does a different category begin. It is a very, very watery sauce, heavily sweet and looking at the ingredients, with the first two being cane sugar and canned pineapple in light syrup, it’s not difficult to understand why. Habanero is the very last ingredient and only appears here in powder form, so it does not play heavily into the flavor and is there mainly for what scant heat there is. There is also some soy sauce and vinegar in there, presumably to cut the sweetness a touch, along with some citric acid, but even with heavy agitation, that is a hard task to bear.

This one reads more as either a mixer component, as in making mixed drinks, a sort of elixir, perhaps or, better yet, as a marinade. It is so very loose and watery that it requires quite regular agitation and tends to spill off of everything it is put on, as well as running down the threads at the top of the bottle, as this does not come with restrictor cap. In many ways, it’s almost like this is still in development rather than a refined and tested product, but perhaps this is what they want and are just marketing it as something other than what it is. It will, of course, eventually soak into the breading on fried foods, but not quickly, and as hopeful as I was for this on pizza, that was pretty much a nonstarter. Finding the good niche pointed me in the two directions I mentioned where I think it works best and not especially too much else. Heat-wise, as it is Habanero powder and dead last on the ingredient list, as mentioned, this is a pretty tame sauce overall.

Bottom line: While the consistency is the main issue for me here, in terms of actually using it, I did find this a bit sweeter than I liked, with overall pretty minimal heat. 

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 6
           Flexibility: 3
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 4

Maritime Madness Mustard Pickle Hot Sauce Review

Maritime Madness Mustard Pickle Secret Weapon

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

This is not a hot sauce, at least in my estimation. This is basically something I made a few times, albeit in a much smoother form, when I mixed a yellow mustard with the Dillanero (FOH video available, if interested). I don’t know that they used a relish, but this is essentially what it’s named after, mustard pickle or pickle mustard. This is not to say it’s a bad product. On the contrary, I am absolutely enjoying this and it’s easily my favorite product so far that I’ve gotten from Maritime Madness. I just don’t consider it a hot sauce, but a mustard or mustard-adjacent product.

Still, if the manufacturer wants to market it as a hot sauce, I’m not going to argue (much). Instead, we will just view this as a hot sauce. One of the reasons I have not included mustards in these pages is because I don’t think it’s fair. I like mustards if fairly narrow applications, mostly on phallic-shaped meats or burgers or certain deli sandwiches or on in specific salads. Sometimes on oven-baked pork chops as well, but as I rarely make those, I’m not really counting that. I don’t find that mustard is particularly flexible outside of that, discounting perhaps sweet mustards, which can be ok on fried chicken type foods. The other side is that mustards tend to have their heat from allyl isothiocyanate rather than capsaicin and it’s just another category entirely. There can be some bridging, sure, but at heart, it is truly a mustard and thus, does not really fit into a hot sauce blog.

That aside, heat here is rather low. The bottle calls it a 6, I call it a 1. I believe the peppers used here are Habanero, but they don’t really interact with the flavor much. Instead, we have the yellow mustard, heavily sweetened by sugar, and with a healthy dose of (probably) sweet pickles, the end result being heavenly...at least where you’d normally use yellow mustard and/or pickles.

Bottom line: This is a failure as a hot sauce (which is reflected in the individual rating numbers), but as a pickle mustard, it is absolutely fantastic, particularly if you like sweeter mustards or relishes.  

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 8
           Flexibility: 0
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 5

Cry Baby Craig's Habanero & Garlic Hot Sauce Review

Cry Baby Craig’s Habanero & Garlic

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

Hailing out of Faribault, MN, which is...somewhere, perhaps even relatively close to the place where I found it, we have here a sauce which is very clearly meant to be an everyday table sauce. Those are great and there is always a place in any rotation for an excellent-flavored sauce, which this surely is. For those to be successful, they have to be good in near ubiquitous usage, which means that a lot of sauces would really like to be that, but few pull it off well. This one is close to doing just that very thing, but doesn’t quite make it all the way.

To be sure, this is because it is fairly thin and bordering on watery. For me, it seems to be trying to delicately skirt a cross between a Mexican style sauce, which this one has strong flavor references toward, and a Cajun style sauce, with more the looseness and somewhat vinegar forward nature of the latter. Trying to do those two styles at once is kind of an interesting proposition, as I don’t find Mexican food with heavy shots of vinegar to be particularly pleasant, and conversely, do not want primarily Mexican flavors like cumin anywhere near where I might use a Cajun style, but this one manages the balancing act deftly, with a foot planted firmly in each style, but not so much that it is exclusive to the other. That this is also done with fresh ingredients is an especially neat trick.

The flavor here is quite embracing, easily accessible, and with some pretty nice flavor dynamics that develops as you get further into it on whatever you’re eating that will also take some vinegar. For instance, where this falls a bit short, for me, is on something like pizza, because watery sauces and pizza do not go well together. Watery sauces in general need to have a place where they can be somewhat absorbed or you run the risk of creating a saucy mess and that is definitely the case here as well. I did find it quite nice not only on all the Mexican foods I tried with it, but additionally where I might use a Louisiana-style or Cajun, so fried foods, creamy dishes, and the like. Heat-wise, it is a bit reminiscent of the El Yucatecos, where the punch is generally up front and whatever that initial hit is as hot as the sauce ever winds up getting.

Bottom line: While not quite meeting what I would consider a great or great table sauce overall, this one is fairly solid in terms of flexibility and is right there in terms of flavor. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 6