Ghost Wolf Pepper Co. Elder’s Revenge
On the other hand, to the “revenge” part specifically, this is unquestionably a superhot-forward sauce and it is immediately punchy. It is past a 3, but not quite all the way to a 4, so I guess consider it a very strong 3. This is unquestionably chilehead only territory and if you’re not a chilehead, you may as well plan to skip this party and go to another, as if you do come here, you’re probably going to have a pretty bad time...unless you want a bottle for the art and aren't planning on ever opening it. The artwork does feature, or at least strongly reference, one of my very most favorite forms of expression, that of European graveyard sculpture, so this may be the second bottle ever that I’ve kept after finishing the sauce...
We have here the might and fury of 7-Pot Primo mash and then piling on after that, both smoked Scorpion and Ghost pepper powders. This lends even more of the superhot bitter quality to things, which is also generally the first and most forward flavor. On the back end of that, we do have some smokiness, from the powders, along with the flavor of sage, and, depending on what you pair it with, a very nice, albeit somewhat subtle, berry flavor.
To be frank, this sauce is somewhat difficult to pair, both because of its intensely blazing nature, but also because of those bitter notes and because it doesn’t seem to point itself in any particular direction. This is a sauce I’ve spent a lot of time testing, and will be testing further still, until I either find where it works best or until I run out. It does seem to do very nicely with chicken, particularly roast chicken, but leaning into the sage didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. I would try to lean into the berry, but I kind of wonder if Elderberry wasn’t included because of the namesake connection to the mascot of the sauce. Also, the berry is fairly slight in this one. It is far more just blazing superhot bitter than any single other flavor note.
Bottom line: This is a very punchy sauce, right out of the gate, and is fairly unrelenting, so its use works best perhaps as accent. Given the blazing nature, definitely chilehead only.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 3
Flavor: 3
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3
Overall: 3