2K23 Q1 Update

2023 Q1 Update

This year started off, as Januarys usually do, with me opening a bunch of sauces to make up for all the space I had left in the fridge door after whacking through as many open bottles as possible in December. Unusually, there were quite a few 2s, with one Sauce Of The Year candidate. I also wound up going over the 400 sauces overall mark.

Also January, Season 20 of The Hot Ones show was announced, so I did that update. Four sauces carried over from the previous season, two of which I’d already done videos on. It was one of the better seasons, with seven of the ten sauces not containing onions. It only adds another three sauces to the list for me to get to, though. There is both a blog TOC (and YouTube FOH playlist) for those sauces from that show that I’ve covered.

Also also, in January, I set a new high total for posts in a month, breaking the previous level of August 2022. I’m just not super great at throttling back, apparently. I think I was partially successful in 2022, given how hard I tried to dial things back, but part of that had to also do with breaking a tooth in the spring (I broke another in late fall also, but that one is proving less bothersome).

Still more for January, on the FOH side of things...given that Popeye’s came out with a release of a food item that would fit into the chilehead motif AND my road to the Superbowl promotional tie-in videos, I did an impromptu video playing around a bit with the posting times. Usually, I post everything at 9 am MST, which I’ve been reconsidering for a while. 9 am is a time when folks are at work during the weekdays and my guess is that my audience probably tends to be a bit older, so while it’s nice to have it waiting for them, I don’t know how wise that is to keep it in that time slot, at least during weekdays.

For February, to follow behind that a bit, I changed the weekday stuff (excepting the launch of the new quarterly series) to 3 pm MST, which should cover the entire US fairly well. Again, not sure how much of a difference this will make, if any, but I’m going to run with it for a few months and see. Hot sauce videos, which are normally on weekends, I’ve decided to leave at 9 am, as that fits my schedule for updating this blog with support videos going live, etc. better.

Back again to January (I post up the FOH content for the next month at the start of the current one usually), I had enough sauce videos on deck to cover 4+ months at the usual posting schedule, with another 2 months of archive sauces. So,  for March, I decided to scrap my plans to post archive (meaning from prior to launching the FOH video series) sauces on random Saturdays and roll all the videos together.

From there, the move was to postings all weekend, both Saturdays (except on Mustard Saturday for that month, which will start in April and run through grill season - speaking of which, I have a single mustard to film and grill season 2023 will be fully covered) and Sundays, until I was a lot more caught up, as the inescapable conclusion was that it was just taking too long for support videos to make it up after the written reviews were posted. The only ones that were in a reasonable time frame was the ones I was doing for The Hot Ones list or, to a lesser extent, behind sauces Roger [Damptz, Burn Your Tongue] had provided. I was tinkering with a target time frame for posting support vidoes, but since the blog review posting is so erratic, I’ve decided, for now, on a soft goal of having the support videos up no later than 2 months after the written review, ideally sooner. This change will ONLY be for the sauce videos.

I do have a backlog of finished but not posted non-sauce content, but it should take care of itself by the end of Q3.  Tune back in to see if it does, I guess...It also seems really like that the vast majority, if not all, of the archive sauces I have in mind to do will be done by the end of the year. I was pretty close already in January, but I think there may be one or two stragglers.

Finally, I finished March with the first ever for the blog triple sauce review for the Flashpoint peach hot sauces, as well as a couple of scorching videos, both the Hellfire Fiery Fool, which wrapped Season 6 of The Hot Ones sauces, and one of the hotter, if not the hottest, Wing Things I’ve yet done to end the quarter. Those can both be found on the FOH YouTube page and/or playlists, if you’re interested in checking those out.

Angry Goat Purple Hippo & Primo Rockpotamus Hot Sauce(s) Review

Angry Goat Purple Hippo
Angry Goat Primo ROCKpotamus 

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oenx-EWP-E8

Before I get into this review proper, I will note there are also a couple of variations I found out about after getting these sauces. Purple Hippo seems to be the median, with a milder sauce utilizing Cayenne and Jalapeno called Cool Hippo, as well as a Limited Edition with golden prickly pear fruit and Scotch Bonnets called Golden Hippo. I may try to track one or both of those down in future, but for now, we'll ride with what we have here. 

And what we have is another rather novel sauce combination in the Purple Hippo. The prickly pear is described as a bubblegum/watermelon flavor, which I don't have enough of an argument to counter, followed up with some strawberry, so you know me, I'm thinking maybe a nice desserty sauce. Whatever else this is, it definitely is not that. There's some agave, some Habanero, some citrus, and all of it is punched at the end with Scorpion pepper sauce. Now, I mention this because I think we're dealing with another sauce that is essentially a base, then switch out some peppers, with the 7-Pot Primos being added into the mix for the ROCKpotamus (I keep wanting to say Rocktopotamus). This should yield a couple of sauces with a relatively similar flavor profile...yet it does not.

There are many who feel the Primos could easily give the Reapers a run for the money on the SHU scale on a good day and the ROCKpotamus is a good example of why. While the Purple Hippo definitely has some good solid punch to it, enough that I doubt non-chileheads will enjoy it much, the addition of the 7-Pot Primos makes this more akin to a mouth full of blast furnace. The heat, the bitter superhot notes, all of it is immediate, no build, no foreplay, just a nice healthy blast of heat, which runs roughshod over nearly everything else, aside from a light residual vague sweetness. The Purple Hippo for me was between a 2 - 3, but with the Habanero build, I find it more towards the higher side, which is also the dividing line between whether I think a normie will conceivably enjoy it. The ROCKpotamus I'd put between a 5 and a 6. I leaned down here, as I'd call it roughly double the heat of the Hippo, but it is unquestionably blazing. Angry Goat evidently didn't like hearing that the Purple Hippo was too tame and moved to make it more punishing.

For all that, I think the sauce still works, largely because 7-Pot Primos are a great flavor choice. Yes, they're absolutely superhots and can get to a build quickly, but I find the taste of them to be quite nice. In terms of overall flavor, the Purple Hippo is notably better. It's not just bitter, blazing, with a touch of sweet, but one can get the excellent sense of all the fruits there, which I didn't find played well together with desserts, but which are marvels on any meats, including burgers. I thought it would be heavier on the strawberry side, which can be a mixed bag, but it aims right for a balance between the component and largely nails it. The heat is one that takes a bit to arrive, but as with Habaneros generally, steadily rises to whatever crescendo it's going to have. This is probably aided a bit by the Scorpions, which I almost wish weren't there, as they also lend a bit of bitterness that ruins what could conceivably be a more delicious sauce that would lend itself well to desserts.

I ran these two largely head to head, but they are radically different sauces, despite sharing the majority of ingredients between the two of them. I suspect the Cool Hippo and Purple Hippo will be closer in town, possibly also the Golden Hippo, while the ROCKpotamus is a thing that definitely stands alone. I hesitate to say the sacrifice was made to flavor in favor of heat, but I also don't think that is an incorrect sentiment ultimately.

Bottom line: The Purple Hippo is another unique and rather inspired concoction from the masters of this characteristic.The ROCKpotamus demonstrates a number of things, but definitely moves away from "same sauce, only hotter" and becomes its own blazing entry, albeit one that is not as flavorful. Both are best reserved for chileheads only.

Purple Hippo Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 7

Primo ROCKpotamus Breakdown:

            Heat level: 5
            Flavor: 5
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 6

Godzilla Force Of Nature (FYE Exclusive) Hot Sauce Review

Godzilla Force Of Nature

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFDFTZ2nEtI

Ah, yes, now this is the sort of thing I was more expecting from a novelty sauce. Unlike the Retsuko Rage (reviewed elsewhere here), which was surprisingly excellent, this one, while I will stop short of saying they threw just anything into a bottle and slapped a label on it, is more in line with that idea of selling on the name value of Godzilla rather than the sauce. Indeed, this is a sauce I have a lot of trouble understanding. Much of it has has to do with Godzilla being a very Japanese character and this sauce having a lot of components, such as cumin, that have zero place in Japanese cuisine or culture. One could almost make the case that many ingredients are outright antithetical to that land.

Consider: much, perhaps the majority, of Japanese food is predicated on a heavy reliance of clean flavors, of embracing the subtleties of the various ingredients. Contrast with say Mexican food, which tends to favor more heavy, big bold flavors. The sauces for each, accordingly, needs to match that type of food, which is why the Mexican sauces need to stand up to those flavors and the Japanese sauces more to accent food, in keeping with the theme. 

So, my confusion thereby comes when we have a sauce which has Chipotle and cumin, two spices a strong part of Mexican cuisine, but which have nothing to do with Japan. In many respects, this is more or less a Mexican-style sauce, albeit a rather vinegary one, given that they appear to have started out with a Cayenne-based Louisiana-style sauce, but for a very intrinsically iconic Japanese character. Perhaps they were angling for the big, bold nature of an infamously huge monster itself...or maybe we're full circle back to the idea of throwing just anything in a bottle and slapping a Toho-licensed label on it.

This is not to say it's a bad sauce. Baffling, somewhat, sure, but not outright bad. Let's consider still further what images we may conjure to mind when we hear Godzilla. What comes to mind for me is a picture of a skyscraper-sized bipedal dark green tyrannosaurus rex, heavily modified to reduce the head size and to have atomic breath, along with triple rows of back spikes and scaled skin. The atomic breath is frequently portrayed as fiery in nature, which is perhaps the one thing that is universal when calling to mind Godzilla. So, one might expect that this will be a particularly punishingly punchy sauce, but if so, one, as I was, would be wrong. The hottest pepper here, the vaunted Ghostie, doesn't show up until midway through the ingredient list, after both Cayenne and Chipotle. This is a quite tame sauce, belying the "force of nature" part of this sauce name, which conjures images of, at minimum, rather intense and frequently violent natural weather events. I can't imagine anyone who attempts to consume this sauce, rather than parking it on a shelf somewhere in a Godzilla shrine, being challenged by it.

Peculiarities aside, what do we have here? While I did not call it a bad sauce, neither do I call it a good one. The idea of beginning with a very vinegar forward Cayenne sauce is...a decision, I guess, but using Chipotle, garlic, and cumin, will tend to lead to a very specific culinary direction, that being Mexican, which does not rely heavily on vinegar. This drifts and meanders into an odd no man's land that is perhaps more towards the Mexican side of things in terms of flavors. We also have some smoked salt and the aforementioned Ghosties in there, to lend a touch of smokiness to things, but we have overall competing tones. One is a strong lean towards the Louisiana-style and the other towards a more Mexican-style tone and thus, a conflict. 

Here's the thing with Mexican foods, for me. If you use ingredients typical to that cuisine, if you step over that line, you can't go back and that's what that sauce is. This one does that but does not seem to readily embrace that world, fully. In terms of sauce flavoring perspective, this is a shame, because this could have made a pretty solid Mexican-style sauce. As it is, with the running battle between that and the Louisiana-style nature, we have an overly astringent Mexican-style sauce, which is not great. It also does not really function at all outside of that cuisine style, either, I will note. 

Bottom line: Very definitely a quintessential novelty sauce, with all that entails. This strikes me as more an attempt at selling branded merchandise than trying to make a good sauce. It's more strange than either good or bad, not really fitting into any particular flavor world or style.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 3

Flashpoint Peach Hot Sauces Review

Flashpoint Peachanero
Flashpoint Screaming Banshee
Flashpoint Grim Peacher

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

Here we are, then, the very first triple full review in this history of the blog. I won't be spending a lot of time with the sauces individually, so this may read a bit more as a mini-review, but that brevity is for good reason. These sauces are near-identical, other than the pepper used. The base is peach puree, followed by apple cider vinegar, then Fireball (cinammon) whiskey, then light brown sugar, then whatever pepper, before concluding with granulated garlic, kosher salt and unnamed spices. It's extremely unlikely that any of the non-pepper ingredients change in concentration from sauce to sauce and they are all identical in order on the various labels. 

This is not to say they are the same sauce. To get an idea more truly reflective of the sauce, the Peachanero is a good starting point. There is not a great deal of heat to be had there and one gets the impression of the peach and brown sugar before the hammer blow of the cinnamon. If there is a main complaint I have about these sauces, it's that I'm not a fan of cinammon (I had a buddy who played with the idea of liking cinnamon schnapps once upon a time and I strongly disliked that beverage) and that flavor is way forward in the mix, particularly in the Peachanero. This makes usage a bit of a struggle, as foods I might normally use with a fruit-based sweet hot I don't find any of these work well with. They do reasonably well with desserts, though, I must say, though they are not quite sweet enough to lend that impression initially. The garlic and salt also play a role in dialing down the peach flavor, which is rather a shame, as I prefer my peach hot sauces to be a lot more peach forward. There is thankfully no hard alcohol taste or aspect to any of these.

From there, we have next, heat-wise, the Screaming Banshee. This one utilized the Ghost pepper and is the only one of the three which does not have a play on the pepper name, unfortunately. For this sauce, probably my favorite of the bunch, we have a nice bit of smokiness at play, along with a far more prominent pepper presence. I like the flavor of Ghosties quite a lot, so this was a very welcome direction to things. The peach and brown sugar seemed to be a touch more prominent here, as my guess is there was some cancellation between the superhots and the whiskey, but either way, this is the best-tasting of the lot for me, with a solidly building degree of heat, probably more than non-chileheads will find comfortable.

Not by a great deal, though, as the Grim Peacher, which subs in the mighty Carolina Reaper in the pepper slot, is another solid entry. For this one, there are more of the bitter superhot notes, a bit less of the pepper flavor of the Banshee, none of the smokiness, but overall a pretty solid balance between sweet, salty, and cinnamon flavor notes, though here the flavor of peach is very low key and the peaches more just contribute to sweetness. This is, by far, as one would reasonably expect, the hottest of the trio.

Before I wrap this up, I will conclude by saying that I really like these labels quite a lot and it was those which piqued my interest enough to look into the bottles and pick up what amounts, at least to a degree, of three bottles of same sauce. The artwork is magnificent. I love the naming convention and the ingredients are clearly legible, all of which puts these labels right near the top, as far as I'm concerned. Excellent work there.

Bottom line: How much you like these will be dependent on how much you like cinnamon. I found myself wishing for a lot more peach, but do find these enjoyable on lighter breaded meats, where the flavors play a bit better.

Peachanero Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 5
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 3

Screaming Banshee Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 5

Grim Peacher Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 5

Hellfire Fiery Fool Hot Sauce Review

Hellfire Fiery Fool

Note: This sauce appears on Season 6 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwBNqxsR8SE

I can't really get into this without discussing the label. Strictly graphically speaking, again the character on the label, as is the case with most of the Hellfire labels that have a character on it, is fantastic. I really admire their commitment and dedication to art with the various figures that adorn the labels. However, from there, things skitter sideways pretty rapidly. The text they use, aside from that around the figure, is either too small and shadowed with a horrible color combination or is too tiny to easily be legible, the latter being the case on nearly all of their labels. Back to the copy around the jester on the front, though, this sauce calls itself the "the hottest sauce in the world without extract," though I do notice, before I get too far into this review, that the label on the Hellfire website has been modified to back away from this claim, deleting it from the bottle entirely. This is probably a smart choice. My previous hottest no extract sauce pick was Torchbearer's The Rapture (reviewed elsewhere here), though I don't that I would still consider it such today. Even on Season 6 of The Hot Ones, it was not the hottest sauce (The Last Dab Reduxx was, if memory serves) without extract. Indeed, most, maybe all, of The Last Dab sauces, which similarly do not have extract, are likely hotter than this. I'm speculating here, as I've not tried them all, but the series is predicated on increasing heat scale sauces as the show progresses. I would not say it is as hot as the Hot One Constrictor (also reviewed elsewhere here) that is the current final sauce in my Wing Things lineup.

Ok, so I'm not going to shadow debate too much a claim that is apparently no longer being made (you can see the label of the bottle I have in this review), and I will say this sauce is definitely hot.There is not really a way you can have Reaper mash, followed by Scorpion mash, followed by 7-Pot Primo mash, followed by Ghost mash as the first listings in your ingredient panel and not have a good degree of scorching to this. Given that both the Reapers and 7-Pots both like to get a nice build to inferno crescendo, this is definitely hot enough to be way, way in the chilehead only category. I don't imagine that too many normies will be able to tolerate this.

This is also not a sauce that will be saved for them by flavor. The flavor here, given how high Scorpions are in the mix, has a decidedly floral note, along with that intense bittery superhot flavor, given the preponderance of them in there.This is clearly a stunt sauce in the main, designed to be a combination of 4 of the hottest superhots, not an actual food enhancer. There is the presence of sun-dried tomatoes in there, which makes this rather reminiscent of the First Blood (reviewed elsewhere here), also from Hellfire, but while it's a nice addition for me, it's ultimately not quite enough to overcome the pounding. I will also note that this is oddly salty, notably so. I find that a bit baffling, but all of these aspects lend it to be somewhat of a challenge to find suitable food pairings, which is, of course, my main concern. This is also a very thick, rather sludgy sauce, which is fine, as you need very little of it.

Heat-wise, this things starts off punchy and never really relents with the wallop. Being both immediately hot and then continuing to build is clearly what they had in mind and this sauce is well-engineered to meet that goal. It's not a sauce I would say is so wonderfully flavorful that it demands one keep eating it and driving the heat higher, despite oneself, at least not for me, but there is some complexity of flavor in there a bit. 

Bottom line: I think sometimes a lot of the early season sauces get a bit forgotten, but this is another example of the better sauces on the show. Definitely not a flavor star and with heat hot enough to park it firmly in the chilehead only camp, it is still an overall enjoyable sauce.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 7
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 7

Angry Goat Heatonist No. 7 Hot Sauce Review

Angry Goat Heatonist No. 7

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xdaONfzMQY

I have reviewed a lot of stuff, beyond just the 400+ hot sauces (as of this writing) on this blog. It's covered everything from wine to beer to whiskey to restaurants to music to movies to books to cars to bikes to fitness supplements and beyond. One of the tendencies in any given area when one does this a lot is there starts to become a certain commonality, wherein things wind up being more the same than not. So it is a rare treat when something comes along both unexpected and fantastic. That is this sauce.

This will probably be my favorite sauce of the year, possibly the best-tasting sauce I will have in 2023, but it will not be Sauce Of The Year [if you're wondering why, I've mentioned it many times over the year, but it's by design that one specific criteria cannot skew the overall rating - also noting now that the final rating was entirely coincidental to the name of this sauce]. It's a delicious, wild, often surprising ride, pulling in elements of pickled peppers, pickled beets, pistachio, and pomegranate into this wonderful miasma that defies easy encapsulation. It is a near-transcendent experience, unique to not only the hot sauce world, but perhaps to sauces in general. At the risk of overstating things, I've had nothing quite like it before.

Does it work on everything? No. While I found it greatly entertaining and novel on pizza, I also find that one needs to have a food where a pickled pepper (banana or cherry, preferably) would be at home for its best suiting. So, sub sandwiches, salads (with a creamy dressing), the aforementioned pizza, chicken, fish, all are excellent with this sauce. Things that are heavy and rich, such as Alfredos and mac & cheese leave much to be desired when paired with this. You wouldn't want to do that anyway, as this wonderful lightness allows things like the subtlety of the beets to shine through and it will be killed and stomped to death by that heavy of a sauce. I included pizza, which also does this a bit, but which lends itself well to pickled peppers...for me, anyway. I will note that pizza can be a bit of a challenge, though, as this sauce tends to separate fairly readily.

Heat-wise, this is very moderate. We're talking Serrano here, which is another pepper I'd consider more as candy for chileheads. Using it here really allows that pepper to shine, though, another bit of brilliance from whoever came up with this outstanding concoction. This won't be a challenge to anyone on the heat side, but this is a sauce that is meant to give you several difference grace notes. It's a sauce on a mission and it fulfills it wonderfully, all the way down to the very well-designed label. 

Bottom line: Very rarely do I say a sauce is genius, but here, nothing else typifies it so much. You need not necessarily be a fan of beets or pistachios to experience this wonder, which is quite unlike any other. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 7

Retsuko Rage (FYE Exclusive) Hot Sauce Review

Retsuko Rage

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XhqE0VSwnw

There is a Japanese anime called Aggretsuko and it looks as if it would be a very cool show. I like the premise, like the character, generally like anime, but admittedly have not watched any of it, so I could be off-base. FYE is a former media concern that is making the shift away from things like movies and music towards pop culture stuff like figures, apparel, and edible items relative to various characters in the public consciousness. This is a sauce that, all the way down to the Iron Maiden-esque font on the label, seems to be an epitome of the character in her aggressive death metal phase and so naturally, it had my interest once I became aware it existed. From here follows a very long and sordid tale of a struggle to actually obtain it (the website sucks, you will have to go to a physical location, call first, but it is way, way, way worth it because the 8 oz. bottles I got cost me a hefty $3, making this perhaps the best value for any sauce I've done on this blog, ever), but once I did, I was cautiously optimistic.

Sometimes I can find references to who is actually producing the sauce, in this case, I could not, other than it appears to originate (possibly) from Canada somewhere. What we have here is a sauce with several peppers in it, with the hottest being Ghosties, and a definite push to remind people of the awesome power in flavor and in heat that pepper can deliver. Also appearing are a chili sauce (which I won't even begin to guess what that could conceivably mean), Habaneros, Peri-peris, and some Cayenne to boot. 

At times, this reminds me of a fairly neutral and vague "chili" sweet-hot style and at times it reminds me a bit of actual BBQ sauce, but this is its own thing. The flavor is neutral enough to cover a very broad swath of food. In point of fact, I have not come across a food where I don't think it works, including both Asian AND Mexican, which is a rarity among rare stars to see. It is an absolutely delicious sauce though enough of the superhot bitterness will start to creep up a bit, so some judiciousness must be used if you're after flavor. It is a medium-thick sauce, so controlling the pour shouldn't be too much of an issue. If there is one minor caveat I have, it's in the vinegar. I do enjoy a good red wine vinegar lightly sprinkled on a sub sandwich, but I have yet to have a hot sauce where I found it was a welcome ingredien

Heat-wise, this one packs a pretty solid wallop. I was surprised by the charge here and the impish chilehead in me grins fiendishly thinking of all the unsuspecting fans who might buy this and actually use the sauce and get a mouth full of flames. I am absolutely delighted that this sauce works well for those who are just going to buy it and add it to their anime shrine display or whatever, as well as being a tasty enough sauce for those who are daring enough to actually get into it. I would say the heat is enough to be chilehead only. Also, this will be the first bottle I keep once the sauce is done. I really like what they did with it and I will also be adding it to one of my office displays. In a shocking twist, it is also in contention for Sauce Of The Year, which, I readily admit, kind of amazes me for what is marketed as a novelty sauce.

Bottom line: This is an absolute must, if you can get your hands on a bottle. Not only is it a delightful sauce, but it is a stunning value and absolutely great package. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 10
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 8

Whitehouse Station Conclave Skullflower White Peach Hot Sauce Review

Whitehouse Station Conclave Skullflower White Peach 

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VClTfEqsm6o

Decidedly long name for this one, which features an ingredient I don't often see in hot sauces, namely the white peach. Calling this another take on the peach-Habanero sauces might not be super far off on a superficial basis, but this sauce is far more about the interplay between the IPA (Conclave Skullflower) and the peach. I find a lot of these collabs with hot sauces and breweries kind of fascinating, but I don't know that I find it also results in a sauce I particularly like. In this case, I'm way more interested in trying the beer than in continuing on with the hot sauce.

This is probably suggestive of the idea that I think the sauce is bad, which is not the case. I find it to be an intriguing, often subtle, but frequently elusive blend of the various flavors into a rather unique profile. It is still discernibly peach-heavy, which one would definitely want in any sauce with the word "peach" in its title, of course, but the vinegar, sugar, salt, and Habaneros do not show up strictly in terms of the flavor. When I said I was really interested in the beer earlier, it is more to get a baseline on what that flavor is doing here, what it's adding, which parts it's responsible for, etc. I can't find a lot of information on the beer, but evidently it is somewhat of a citra IPA, with various fruit notes as part of it, which goes some way to explaining the dynamic. Skullflower implies the idea of a honey in the mix, but can't find any information on this, including on their website, which doesn't list it at all.

Because this is a somewhat low key sauce, it doesn't lend itself well to a lot of applications. It's best with lighter meats, but put it on something like pizza and it tends towards a very lightly peach sweetness, with the rather flowery notes of the typically hoppy IPA behind it.  White peach is not a flavor I've ever found to be particularly strong, comparatively, and so too is it not here. While I don't dislike the flavor, it is one I find myself experiencing flavor fatigue rather rapidly with, so it essentially winds up being more of a palate refresher or change of pace, rather than a sauce I find myself really wanting to lean into. It's not quite sweet enough to be a solid grill sauce, though I am going to test this theory if this sauce hangs in long enough.

As far as the heat, it's pretty non-existent. There can be a slight build, over time, but the Habanero is definitely here more as an afterthought, and possibly for the sake of being able to call this a hot sauce rather than a peach-IPA sauce. I will also note that this label is among the worst I've seen, largely due to the odd color scheme and some confusion as to the actual sauce name.

Bottom line: If you're a fan of beer in hot sauce, or of white peach generally, this is well worth taking a look at. Ultimately, for me, it winds up being another case of a sauce more interesting than good.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 2

Yeak Chruk Hot Sauce Review

Yeak Chruk

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

I saw this one crop up in a few places when I was poking around during Black Friday stuff last year and a couple things grabbed my eye. I had no idea what it was, exactly, but Cambodian anything, particularly food, is fairly rare for  me to come across and I've certainly never had a hot sauce. Also, without looking too far into the ingredients, the idea of Habanero and palm, me thinking it was more like a hearts of palm thing (it is actually palm sugar, which I find a bit deceptive), could be a very intriguing blend. Anyway, I took a chance on it, as it was on special, if nothing else to check those boxes.

What this turned out to be is yet another offering that pushes hard at the boundaries of what is a hot sauce. In this case, it pushes hard at the idea that it's even a sauce, as this is one of the more watery things I've yet had that called itself a sauce at all, let alone a hot sauce. Looking at the verbiage on the label, I got as far as them "starting with a brine" and got it immediately. They started with a brine and just never quite got past that. Although I dislike the practice, I understand entirely why so many things that I don't consider hot sauces call themselves that, though. The hot sauce industry is a billion dollar one, so calling yourself a hot sauce, rather than more correctly a brine, is almost certainly likely to result in higher interest as well as sales.

Anyway, for this, we have the fairly basic flavors of vinegar, Habanero, salt, sweet (from the sugar), and some very light traces of garlic, all of it heavily muted or "watered-down," if you will, though I say it with quotations facetiously as this is quite literally what happened.  I'm not a fan of pouring water on my food, truth be told. I don't like things that approximate it, such as French dip sandwiches. If I get those, I never dunk them, as soggy food strikes several wrong texture notes with me. With soup and sandwiches, I *may* consider it with tomato soup, as that has a typically much higher consistency (much moreso than this, certainly), but even then it's unlikely. This aspect, as one might expect, interferes considerably with flexibility of use.

I don't dislike the flavor of this at all; indeed, I found what was there to be pretty solid, but it takes a lot of chasing to get anywhere near the concentration I want. This also applies to the heat. Though water does not change capsaicin, dispersing it over a greater amount of liquid is necessarily going to change how hot it reads. Again, this is rather a shame. Had they reduced this down somewhat, and made it closer in thickness to an actual sauce, the nifty squeeze bottle + cap packaging be damned, this would have been considerably improved. As it is, I find this a brine that is packaged with a labeling error (I will say their label overall is quite good, though, very legible and giving food suggestions) calling it a hot sauce. While I will be using it up, I will be treating it as a brine once the support video is filmed.

Bottom line:  This is a brine, not a hot sauce. A certainly very tasty brine, but a brine no less.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 4

Smart Way Hot Sauce Review

Smart Way

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXRX6nx1xiY

Part of the idea that informed this blog could be characterized by the phrase "Habanero or higher," an effort to stick to a certain pepper or higher as the lower ones did not strike me as probably ever hitting enough of the heat notes to constitute something that might fulfill the concept of "chilehead." I relented on that here and there, and also modified it to include Scotch Bonnets by considering them more or less on par with Habanero (also "Scotch Bonnet or higher" doesn't have the same ring), but for the most part, I tried to keep somewhat of a heatseeker motif intact. By now, though, I've got a fairly extensive list of sauces that have passed through these parts, some of them not appearing anywhere other than this blog (and/or FOH YouTube video series). As has happened in the past, I've filtered out a lot of what is on store shelves in the grocery stores and various other outlets, basically any brick-and-mortar that is not one of the larger Burn Your Tongue outlets. This, in addition to trying to open things up a bit more for the FOH side, means I necessarily relax my former kinda sorta guiding principle.

I saw this one some time back and briefly looked at it, but took a pass because I wasn't in need and realistically don't expect a whole ton from 12 oz. of sauce for $1.49. Still, the stars aligned and I'm out of Louisiana-style sauce, so I figured now was as good of a time as any to take it out for a test drive, if I was ever going to. 

I'm almost tempted to review this as a straightforward sauce, but Smart Way is a budget line for the store brand of Kroger. This means everything in that line is a knockoff, an attempt to clone higher priced name brand stuff. Here, that name brand is Frank's. I'm no fan of Frank's and find it to be a rather bland, lowest common denominator type sauce that doesn't do much of anything well and is more or less just ok in a pinch, like if there is nothing else handy. This one has a flavor profile that is kind of like a smoother, more muted version of the Frank's flavor. So, it certainly won't be fooling too many people into thinking it's a good sauce, unless they were predisposed to that anyway. 

What it is is mostly serviceable. All the rough edges of a normal Louisiana-style sauce are sanded off and we have basically just the flavors of Cayenne, a softer vinegar, and a slight back end of garlic. This would make it more of a Cajun style than strictly a Louisiana-style, but it's not forceful in flavor to any particular degree. It more or less does the job, but with the flavor dialed down as much as it is, a lot more needs to be used to achieve the same effect. Fine, it's slightly more than a dime an ounce, use whatever, but it also never quite hits the notes that I want it to. It comes close, gets in the vicinity, but never quite scratches that itch fully. Heat-wise, it does pack a bit more than I was expecting (I was expecting zero), but it's still on the very low side, as most sauces in this category tend to be.

Bottom line: If you need a good fill-in sauce to tide over, such as I'm using it, and don't want to spend a bunch of money, this is a pretty unbeatable value. Not good or great, but more or less adequate.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 5