Culinary Pepper Co. Limited Edition Hot Sauce Collection
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Cws9VWmoVk
In what is becoming somewhat of a tradition, I wandered down to my nearest Wal-Mart to slum around and see what kind of chilehead stuff might be on offer for this year's holiday season. Some years I check after Xmas, to get some decent clearance deals, if any abound, but usually at least once before to see what's there. I've done quite a few of these sets, nearly all of them mini-reviews (check TOC at right). A few of them I've done in the past are back this year, but I came across this one, which I had not seen or if I had, didn't remember, so I picked it up. These are from the Dat'l Do It company this time around, with three mini-flasks, labeled Chipotle Pepper, Americana Brands Red Serrano, and Global Selections Habanero.
Chipotle Pepper
We'll start with the worst first and what we have here is a sauce labeled as Chipotle Pepper, but containing no actual Chipotle or even Jalapeno. In what would quickly become part of a trend for this set, this was a very abrasively vinegar forward Cayenne sauce, with the addition of a noxious-flavored fake smoke. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but this has fuck all to do with actual Chipotle and is far from representative of that flavor profile or pepper, like at all. So, we have false labeling and we're off to a roaring start. With this sauce, flavor was a total bust, easily the worst of the bunch, but at least it also had no heat to speak of.
Americana Brands Red Serrano
Very clearly, we're just throwing words on a label and nothing means anything. Serrano does not appear on the label, but instead we have the vague and undefined "red pepper." Flavor is much closer to Jalapeno, however. This one, in addition to the abrasive vinegar, decided it would be best to ruin what would otherwise be an acceptably flavored sauce with an avalanche of salt. Once again, we have no real heat to speak of.
Global Select Habanero
I would almost say so many words, so little meaning, but this one does at least have Habanero in both the ingredients and very much so in the flavoring. It is by no means a great-tasting sauce, which is another trend, and is also overly salty, but it does have some heat, albeit on the very low side (basically pushing a 1 on my heat scale), and the vinegar is not quite as brutal here.
All in all, this was a pretty disappointing set. The packaging is fantastic, with the flasks using a nice heavy glass, slick black packaging, probably intentionally meant to remind one of buying a nice chef knife, decent plastic insets inside the box to protect the precious flasks. If I was rating based solely on packaging, it would be pretty high, but that would be silly, given that the packaging is just basically going to take up space in your trash or recycle bin. None of the sauces tasted particularly good (though the Serrano, as mentioned, would have been acceptable, had it been much less salty) and only one, the Habanero, also the only one I'm going to use up, had any real heat to speak of. This winds up ultimately with me shelling out a fast fiver for 1.7 ounces of a very mediocre substandard sauce.
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