Smokin' Ed's Pepper X Mustard Dill Hot Sauce Review

Smokin’ Ed’s Pepper X Mustard Dill

When I initially saw this, I put it on my list, but on the longer range side...after cussing myself out a bit as I hadn’t noticed it when I was buying during a sale and surely would have just added it for the discount, had I observed it then. It waited quite a while, as I’d gone through, at the time, most of the sauces from both Puckerbutt and Smokin’ Ed’s that were of interest to me or had them coming on the way already. In any event, I figured it was probably another mustard being mislabeled as a hot sauce, and was kind of hoping for that, if I’m being honest, as I like to keep a mustard on hand and newer ones have been kind of in short supply, at least the ones more easily in convenient reach, that is.

As it was, when I opened the bottle, it did not seem at all like this was a mustard masquerading as a hot sauce, but indeed, a mustard-based hot sauce...it was also one of the sourest sauces I’ve had in a while. If you’ve followed me for a while, you know that sour sauces are not at all near my favorites...in fact, generally quite the opposite. However, this was initial opening, at room temperature, etc. and I figured that as there became more space in the bottle and it was chilled, it might swing the needle a bit. Indeed, I do, like actual mustard, much prefer this sauce chilled.

Even chilled, though, it is still quite sour. It smells very pungent, but the flavor is not really that of vinegar or mustard, but of something tending towards unripe. I will state that Smokin’ Ed Currie has forgotten more about peppers than I will ever know, but I am quite familiar with both unripe fruits and vegetables and the attendant sourness is quite distinctive. I found this to be fairly reminiscent of that aspect. 

I was able to buffer some of that out by adding salt, which made it much more towards an actual mustard, and separately, by adding a sweetener, which brought forward the Pepper X flavor and heat quite notably, but that’s me tinkering. As-is, unfortunately, I don’t really find this usable particularly. The flavors, when they can push through that sour wall, are pretty interesting and I find myself intrigued by the sauce this could have been and plan on experimenting with it, as when those flavors do make it through, I do like them...but much of the time, they don’t. This definitely cuts down the flexibility, along with flavor, substantially. Heat-wise, as this is Pepper X, the reigning hottest pod on the planet, it’s definitely a punchy sauce and in that respect, will likely push non-chileheads pretty hard.

Bottom line: If you like sour sauces more than me, this may be up your alley, but for everyone else, I guess be prepared to tinker with it to suit it to your particular palate. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 2

Barnacle Foods Habanero Hot Sauce Review

 Barnacle Foods Habanero

I’ve mentioned before, how my good friend, the wise and sage Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue, not only saved this here blog, but also kickstarted the FOH video series on YouTube. Back some time ago, a few years, probably, I was kicking around the aisles of one of the BYT locations and we were able to catch up. He was showing me some of the various sauces, and he pointed out this brand, as having a very unique ingredient that didn’t often show up in sauces, as well as being out of Alaska, itself a rarity. At the time, Peri-Peri, the pepper in the other sauce (review coming in the future) wasn’t too high on my radar and Habanero definitely wasn’t, as it has taken me a long time to come to terms with the flavor of it, though I can at least somewhat appreciate it more these days. Anyway, point being, I took a pass on it and went with other stuff, but figured, since it did not contain onions, I’d get to it at some point.

Lo and behold, I just kept right on forgetting...and forgetting...and forgetting, until finally picking it up in another different shopping trip to another BYT location (which did not exist at the time he introduced me to the sauce), where I want for something else entirely, but predictably wound up leaving with about twice as much as I was expecting to get going in. *ahem* After looking more closely at the ingredient list, I got real interest real fast and cracked it open, only to find myself faced with yet another entry to a category of foods I’ve dubbed “kick me,” meaning that having it makes me want to kick my own ass for not having it sooner. 

What we have here is a very nicely umami-forward sauce. Habanero is pretty up front as well as a flavor and there is a background of some tartness from the vinegar and here and there some sweetness, which vacillates between the tropical sweetness of the mango and the desert sweetness of the agave. This is a combination I would never have thought of and this is just one aspect of this meticulously well-crafted gem of a sauce. It is a tad on the thin side, which might need to be accounted for in usage, but there is not a single thing I tried it on where it didn’t work, until I eventually just gave up trying to find something where it wouldn’t work. This sauce reinforces something I’ve said here before: if you make a great-tasting enough sauce, it automatically drives the flexibility higher. That is definitely the case here, but furthermore, given how umami rich and with Habanero, it’s a tad light on the heat side, this is the perfect sauce to give someone who says they don’t like hot sauce.

Bottom line: This is very much, if not obvious by now, another Sauce Of The Year candidate for 2025, making this the first year with 5. An absolute stunner of the sauce and one of the few that I strongly recommend everyone try...and will probably enjoy.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 8

Volcanic Peppers SUK Hot Sauce Review

Volcanic Peppers SUK

One of the things I’ve noticed a bit about a lot of the fruit-forward sauces, particularly involving mango, is that the flavor of the mango will get lost. Happily, that is not the case here and they are quite front and center. Indeed, of all the various mango-and sauces I’ve had, this is one that does a better job of capturing that flavor profile. This is balanced somewhat with some citrus, which very nicely brightens things up and keeps it from being overly sweet.

Usually, I would not go as low as Serranos, as the motif has been “Habanero or higher,” but really, who am I kidding there? One of my favorite styles is Louisiana-style, which is nearly always Cayenne and Fresnos are one of my all-time favorite peppers, so I’m feeling a lot less that I don’t need to adhere to that frankly very entertaining, but not exactly true, slogan. 

There are a few mysteries about here, such as what the guy on the label is actually meant to be doing and what “SUK” is intended to reference, answers for neither question I’ve been able to unearth, but what really matters ultimately is what’s within the glass, not on the outside of it. What we have here is a quite tasty and pretty well-balanced, tropical fruit-based sweet hot that is excellently and skillfully done.

Given that it is only Serranos, the heat here is quite moderate, which the label copy also notes, so chileheads won’t likely be satisfied, but this could be an excellent gateway or stepping stone sauce. As with fruit-based sweet hots generally, the applications are a tad on the narrow side, but this is quite lovely on fried foods and pairing it with other dishes involving fruits, such as perhaps a quinoa bowl, also works to great effect.

Bottom line: Another lovely entry from the burning masterminds of Bellevue, if you’re a fan of tropical fruit-based sweet hots, this is well worth a look.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 9
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 6

Sendy Original Hot Sauce Review

Sendy Original

It’s always a little thrill when I happen to stumble across a sauce when I least expect it. Usually this will be on a grocery store shelf, like it was here, of a store I had not visited at all in this year and just happened to be near and looking for something else entirely. But, as is my wont, I always like to wander the store, see what’s new, what else is there and so on, and always, but always, check the condiment section, generally to see what might be on offer for hot sauce. Most of the time is it the usual mass market stuff that we’re all well familiar with, but lately, one of the local chains has made a push, as they do every few years or so, to getting more regional products on the shelf. Given that Colorado seems to have a significant number of hot sauce companies, it is not surprise that many of them, like this, wind up originating from there.

This is a good example of what I’ve mentioned before, that many hot sauces can benefit tremendously from the addition of tomatoes. Here, we have 4 different pods (and black pepper), namely Serrano, Jalapeno, Habanero, and Cayenne, though that last one doesn’t really show up in the mix too much as the first two do, which carry most of the flavor. This is a very nice, pepper forward flavor, with the tomatos adding a nice density and richness to the flavor. The first ingredient is vinegar and, depending on what I have this on, it sometimes will strike me that I would find it more favorable were that aspect dialed down a bit. It is quite a wonderfully flavorful sauce, however, more than making up for the abject goofiness of the name.

“Sendy,” much like the sauce name in the prior review, is an appeal to pushing it all the way over or full tilt or maximum effort or giving it your all, etc. etc. Unlike the cool callback to Star Trek TOS, however, this one is...ummm...decidedly not that, but is kind of awkwardly silly. I hope they revise the label copy, as this sauce deserves better. 

Given the sort of ubiquitous nature of the flavoring, this is a highly flexible sauce. It is not, however, particularly hot. That would be my second complaint, in addition to the slight over-astringency here and there. There is precious little heat there, for all those 4 pods. There is a hotter version, called Full Send, that I will be absolutely on the hunt for, as it would fix at least one of my issues with the sauce, but perhaps they were going more for general accessibility here.

Bottom line: Kind of a silly name, but don’t be deterred from what is a quite tasty robust and pepper forward sauce, albeit one with little to no heat. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 6

Bohica Ghost Juice Hot Sauce Review Addendum

Bohica Ghost Juice

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USy0kSNZ5HQ 

I can’t say I was especially blown away by the previous entry into these annals from Bohica, that being the Hawaiian Lava (check TOC, if interested), but when I looked at this and saw both Ghosties and cantaloupe, my imagination was immediately engaged. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, given that strawberries, citrus juices, and pineapple were also in the mix, but I was unquestionably intrigued and...sometimes you just know. Like, you crack a bottle and as soon as you open the cap and catch a whiff, you immediately know, either for good or ill, how you will react with the sauce. In this case, it was good, most definitely good.

What we have here is a very nicely balance fruit-based sweet hot, though it is perhaps on the lighter side of sweetness as far as sweet hots go. There is a good mix of the pineapple, citrus, and strawberries, with the cantaloupe providing a nice round foundation. Ghosties are towards the back here, so while there is heat, it is very much to the back. This is unquestionably a quite approachable sauce and I imagine that was what they were going for. For my part, I would have liked heat to be a lot more to the fore, particularly given how much I like Ghosties, but perhaps they can have an alternate version some day.

I like to have, at my disposal, a sort of internal list, where I can point people if they want to try a given style, as both an excellent example of that style, as well as a wonderfully tasting sauce. Given that condiments are food, I find there is nothing so fast as to lead people to the chilehead gateway, as a sauce that provides a sort of smooth and low smolder, combined with a phenomenal flavor, which is perhaps the most apt description of this sauce I can come up with. 

Given the variety of fruits and that it is a tad low on the sweetness scale, this doesn’t work super well on pizza, which I had hopes for, but it does retain a good flexibility for fried foods generally, and lighter meats in particular, though I wouldn’t be afraid to cast it out towards stuff like burgers or other foods. I think it could be particularly wonderful on a salad or perhaps the right kind of sub sandwich. One of the aspects about a great-tasting sauce is that even if it isn’t magnificent in that application, it will generally never be outright bad. 

Bottom line: Hugely impressive flavor profile with this not hugely sweet hot sauce, though a touch light on heat.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 6

Puckerbutt Peach Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Puckerbutt Peach Habanero

For the review of the Puckerbutt Peach Super Hot Blend (reviewed elsewhere here), the idea struck me that Smokin’ Ed Currie, architect of the sauce, had “forgotten” to add salt to it, essentially making the end result a pepper-flavored vinegar. Perhaps by the time it was discovered, the batch was just bottled, shipped, and sent out anyway, as it was done. I have now observed this phenomenon once again with this sauce, strongly suggesting to me that it weren’t a forgetful error of omission on Ed’s part, but an inaction with direct intention.

I can’t say that I have the time (or interest) to comb through a bunch of Ed Currie interviews, of which there are many, to see if this disdain for salt is real or imagined on my part, nor did a cursory online search reveal much more information than rampant speculation, along with observations from a few other parties matching mine, that this is, in fact, a tendency of Ed’s, at least in regards to Puckerbutt sauces, and is possibly (likely?) related to purported health benefits by the lack of this ingredient. If that rationale is true, this is another point of departure of agreement between himself and I.

In that other review, I went over the basic components, the elements, that I think a condiment needs to be considered a hot sauce. Because that, and now this, are lacking one of those elements, they do not really constitute a hot sauce in my mind, despite the label insisting otherwise. These two are, in fact, more accurately pepper-flavored vinegars. However, as I will approach whatever sauce based on how a maker portrays it, this one, like the other, will be rated as a hot sauce and, also like that other, will suffer slightly for it. 

So, heat-wise, we have a fairly low charge. There are 16 different Habanero varieties, according to the label, and you get a good sense of the flavor there, both the slightly bitter aspect, but also some of the inherent pepper fruitiness. There is obviously a high vinegar charge to it, as well, not to mention a very thin and watery nature, that benefits from repeated agitation. The back end has a subtle fruity sweetness, which brushes towards peach here and there. Once I discovered the lack of salt, I decided to try and “fix” the sauce, with the simple addition of some kosher salt, which not only made the experience better, on the whole, but also brought forth the peach flavor considerably. This is not rating the sauce as-is, however, and the ratings will reflect what is actually in the bottle.

Bottom line: While I think this comes off a bit better than the other “sauce” I mentioned in this review, the lack of salt is a bit detrimental to this overall. It does make a very interestingly sweet-ish pepper-flavored vinegar, but fails as an actual hot sauce.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 3

 

Brooklyn Delhi Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce Review

Brooklyn Delhi Ghost Pepper

Note: This sauce appears on Season 20 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbfH6cWKyzQ 

The last remaining sauce for Season 20 and it was one of those that could go either way. I didn’t expect it to be hot, as it was in the 5 slot and generally anything below 7 isn’t too challenging, but it seemed to be pointed a bit towards Indian flavors. As noted repeatedly in this blog and elsewhere, I am not so much a fan of those generally, but this did feature my favorite superhot, the mighty Ghostie, and was further bolstered by what appeared to be heavy usage of tomatoes, an ingredient that I think is pretty underrated in hot sauces generally.

So, not knowing what to expect, I pulled the shrink, found that I had a lot less than 5 fluid ounces in the bottle, and that a healthy amount was stuck in the neck. Indeed, this is a very thick sauce and that is something you may wind up frequently contending with. After clearing that, I got to the sauce proper and was nearly instantly blown away. The Indian spices, while definitely present, are fairly mild in the flavor and this is much more a comprehensive sauce, with the tomato base there for everything else to play on top of.

The flavor is both deep and rich and does a spectacular job utilizing the wonderful flavor of the Ghosties. The hand-blend of Indian spices, whatever they are, seem to be the way to go here and I found myself quite enjoying this wonderful concoction. They are very much going for flavor first here and while there is heat, it is a bit on the lower key side of things. That allows the sauce to add an Indian spin to whatever you put it on – I didn’t try it, but suspect it would be very interesting on burgers - and works to great effect subtly sliding you into the flavors of that cuisine style without ever once being overbearing...which is pretty much the perfect way to do it for me.

I would call this more of a gateway to Indian cuisine generally, as tomatoes are used in a number of dishes there and this sauce is a hearty welcome, but approaches it with a smoothness and grace that is an absolute pleasure. I can’t say it would go with everything, but if you’re looking for an introduction, this sauce is the way to go. As mentioned, despite the Ghost being the namesake of the sauce, this is fairly mild and shouldn’t be particularly challenging for anyone.

Bottom line: This is unexpectedly definitely one of the better sauces from the show and a good reminder that rich rewards like this are why we keep an open mind when it comes to food.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 6

Q3 2025 Update

2025 Q3 Update

07.01.25: More FOH conversation...I’ve been kicking around the idea for a while, of posting an entire month of exclusively hot sauce reviews, however, the only month I have left in 2025 is December, which I started scheduling today, and there is other holiday-ish stuff I also want to post up, so that won’t happen this year. I should have a pretty good idea of how far into 2026 I will have non-sauce content once December is finished, but I will say that most of that month will be hot sauce content, in an effort for me to try to get closer to caught up. I’m so far behind currently, that I have also backburnered the Hot Ones project for the most part, going from usually at least 1 show sauce per month to 1 per quarter. I could go to posting an FOH video every single day for an entire month, I suppose, but often views don’t seem to start hitting until days after a video goes live, so that idea seems counter-productive. Last update, I talked about the concept of tracking how much sauce I’ve had in a given year and this particular year, there has been a lot of it, with much of it coming in bottles larger than 5 fl. oz. 

The rough plan for 2026 is to only post up non-sauce content on Wednesdays, so long as I have some to post, which will probably be at least the first quarter, maybe the first two quarters, with hot sauces on both Fridays and Sundays. Once I run out of the non-sauce content, hot sauces will go to Wednesdays also, until I’m closer to being out of backlog, in which case, hot sauces will become Wednesdays and Sundays, with Fridays free for other stuff. By the end of this quarter, I will be very close to 1000 videos in the FOH series posted up and by the end of the year, may catch up and pass the channel I mentioned last update that I do with my son that has been running 3 years longer and has already passed 1000 videos.
 

07.03.25: I decided on another playlist, in yet another attempt to balance them out a bit, and created that today. By the time you read this, it will have been around for basically the entire quarter. This time, the focus is on nuts and nut-related products. I’ve very thoroughly covered a pretty wide gamut of both different nut types, as well as flavor configurations, different pods, etc. When I started FOH content in 2019, I devised a Head To Head series, which was a sort of contest pitting two similar things against each other. For nuts, this morphed into a more  tournament setting with 3 - 6 different kinds of nuts and then would have a holdover winner for the next round. After 9 rounds of that, thanks to some broken ass teeth, I had to call it quits. Eventually I got those fixed, but didn’t return to the Head To Head series to any great extent. While I was doing it, it was a lot of fun and I always wish they would have drawn better. Possibly with a new playlist, they will get some new life. I have done other Head To Head Battles, which can all be seen in their own playlist and continue to do those sporadically, but it is far from a main focus. I try not to create a new list until there are at least 10 videos for it, and for nut-related videos, I have 18 of them to start. I may add another playlist at some point for cooking videos, maybe, and there’s still a lot of stuff in Everything Else, but I don’t see value currently in trying to break it out further. 

07.15.25: Another SOTY candidate today, which makes 4 for the year, and the blog finally ran past 100K views, two months ahead, give or take, of the 13 year anniversary I’ve been doing this, coming in September. Very pleased to see this milestone, as blogs haven’t been a thing for a while and it seems a more global audience. It was never really meant to be much more than a reference point to me that I put up in case other people might be interested or similarly inclined and it’s kind of wild the changes that happened over time with it. This is not really translating over to the FOH series on YouTube, which I find kind of interesting, but I don’t really understand the whims and whys of any of that, so I suppose that will be its own clawing upward. In any case, here’s on to 250K, which is the next milestone...

07.23.25: After repeatedly flirting with the idea of running daily FOH videos, something I’ve never done and don’t really want to do, for February 2026, I did some looking around and found a host of different holidays I hadn’t scheduled anything for to close out the year. The post listing those will go up first of August, though that won’t mean anything to you reading this at the end of the quarter, other than perhaps a reminder that if you are interested in the stuff I do for the FOH series, to also check the Community tab on my YouTube page. I’ve also decided to again cover the 12 Days Of Christmas for this year. I’m not particularly religious, as in not at all, but I like the idea, the concept, of days of extended celebration. Of course, we all know the song and I sometimes wonder if anyone ever did that - I’ve never met anyone who has - and if so, what that might have been like...probably not by posting chilehead-oriented video reviews. I almost, but not quite, have December fully scheduled, but do have at least one video scheduled right now for every month through the rest of 2025. If October wasn’t a theme month, that would be done, as November is, but I’m two sauce videos away from October being done. One of those is just waiting for me to write the review and film the content, once I decide what to use for the application, but the other is not even open yet and probably won’t be filmed at all until after Labor Day. 
 

08.02.25: I have 1 day left of content to film for September, one for October, and have 4 days left in December, which I’m trying to leave open for now, in case I need to bump any of the currently scheduled videos for something more pressing or timely, as in if I do a product that I’d want up while grill season is still ongoing, etc. After doing some quick napkin math, at some point in November, the FOH series will run past 1000 videos and by the end of the year, will be very close to overtaking the other channel I mentioned I do with my son, that is already over 1000. If it doesn’t in December, it will be for sure come January. Meanwhile, the gaming channel I also do content for doesn’t have enough runway to hit 1000 this year, but at the current rate, will do so by the end of quarter 2, if not running past both of the other channels well before the end of 2026. Obviously, this is dependent on a lot of things and right now, we’re seeing another huge censorship space in the entirety of the online space, so with that kind of turbulence, it’s pretty hard to predict for sure what will happen. It is probably too much to hope that people come to their collective senses, as the historical track record of humanity generally is to the contrary.
 

08.09.25: Still have the same amount left to film for September and October, but down to 2 in December now. I will be filming one or both of the earlier months probably around Labor Day weekend, with at least one of those in December being filmed probably before that and the final one for December tentatively planned for filming around Thanksgiving time. I have decided to hold off on scheduling anything for January currently, but probably will start that in October. I will definitely run past 1000 FOH series videos in November. 

I’ve noted this here and there, but we’re definitely off-cycle for the food world offering chilehead stuff, with little to no action at all on the superhot front. We may see something for October, like possibly the return of either Arby’s Diablo Dare or Burger King’s Ghost Whopper - Wendy’s still has the Ghost Chicken and I believe Popeye’s has theirs as well - but it’s been pretty slim pickings this year, with the main bevy of new products utilizing Habanero. If anything, 2025 has been the year of the Habanero, an idea which is reinforced by the last 4 videos I’ve filmed, all of which were over the last 2 days and all stuff new, as far as I can tell, for 2025, featuring that pepper, but even before that, I started to get that impression. It makes a lot of sense. Habanero is nowhere near the ferocity of the superhots, is fairly ubiquitous, and generally tends to be one of the less expensive pods out there with appreciable heat. 

The big question, for me, comes into whether or not the public appetite for chile-related stuff is down naturally and the industry is following suit, or whether the order is reversed and they are actually driving it...or possibly both. I am not alone in this, but views on the FOH series are definitely down. They have always been tied into the product, but for the sake of comparison, my gaming channel, which took a 2+ year hiatus of no new content at all, save for YT Community posts, is outdrawing the FOH series in a 28 day cycle. Now, it is not by a lot (yet) and the circumstances are dissimilar, as the gaming channel is a lot of streaming, as well as being live on Twitch here and there, but I find it kind of interesting. There have been no shortage of other chile-related channels that have expressed their viewership is also down...but then and again, this blog is outdrawing both of my two channels that I just mentioned combined, which makes all of this information much more of a struggle to digest. I probably am missing a lot of contextual data, which would provide some rationale, but on its face, there does seem to be something afoot. 
 

08.13.25: For years, literally over a decade, I held off on the idea of scheduling posts to the blog, preferring to retain some of the more spontaneous nature of posting the commentary on the fly. This didn’t work well for the quarterly updates, such as this one, so I started keeping a running document, where I could just add stuff and then go back and edit and re-work and so on before posting. All well and good, but I held off on pre-writing the reviews all the way up until this year and did that for most of the year, but in August, decided to start using the blog scheduling feature, like I do with the FOH series videos.

Ever come across one of those things where you’re kind of blase’ about giving it a try, but then you do and as it turns out, you find yourself wondering exactly what kind of dumbass you were not to give it a chance and glom onto it earlier? Yeah, that is definitely one of those things for me. Now, to be fair, for most of the blog’s life, I wasn’t doing particularly huge volumes of posts and even more relevant, not very consistent posting, so it may not be necessary long term, but now that I am and as long as I am, definitely going to stick with that format going forward. 
 

08.26.25: It’s pretty wild to me that a couple of things I mentioned earlier in the year, both the idea of consuming a 5 gallon bucket of sauce, as in 640 fluid ounces, or 128 of the regular 5 fluid ounce bottles we normally see, as well as the most represented sauce companies list, have already changed dynamically from when I posted those thoughts earlier. 

To the first point, as it is this year, I have finished a number of both 8 fluid ounce and 10 fluid ounce bottles, as well as several 3 fluid ounce and 4 fluid ounce bottles, in addition to quite a number of the 5 fluid ounce bottles. There have also been a lot of repeats and just in the sauces posted to the blog as I write this, I’m already well, well beyond the halfway point...so, to the interest of probably no one beyond me, I will almost certainly wind up hitting that particular benchmark for 2025.

To the second part, I didn’t really expect a lot of movement to the most represented companies in the blog list, but I should know better by now...that list, posted last quarter, is already out of date and if not, it will assuredly be by the end of the year. 
 

09.01.25: I changed around a lot of stuff with the internet service and uploaded October before the first of the month this time, but spent the weekend sort of pre-planning 2026. As it stands right now, about 2/3 of January is already scheduled out for the FOH series, while the blog is running behind, with about 1/3 of October being scheduled out. What this means, with the FOH series running so far ahead, is that nearly all of the written blog reviews from October and after in 2025 will not have accompanying video content posted until 2026, which seems to me a pretty excessive gap. Reducing that gap will be a focus for 2026...as it has been in previous years also...sigh.  

I have exactly one video left to create for 2025, which will probably be done around Thanksgiving time. I intend on keeping the current posting schedule of Sun-W-F until I am a lot more caught up, which means that schedule will run probably at least the first quarter of 2026. While I still have a fair number of hot sauces on the shelf left to review and film, as far as non-sauce stuff, I have exactly 3 products total left. I’m not really actively looking for stuff, but approaching it far more opportunistically. I will get into that more in the end of the year post. 
 

09.12.25: YouTube is crashing pretty hard right now, almost as much as my editing software (Magix Vegas 22), which seems to be ruined just in time for the newest version to come out for them to sell me. Fuckers. I am strongly considering dropping them entirely, after using that software since 2007, as it is becoming borderline unusable and if I have to get new software anyway, after less than a year and building an entire computer around it, getting pretty close to the point of saying so be it and having done entirely. 

Updated Season 28 of The Hot Ones. Kind of an odd season. It only adds about 4 new sauces to the to-do list, though, which is good, given how hard that project is currently dragging. For the most part, I’m almost through the first 20 seasons entirely. The problem kind of comes in where a lot of the sauces I only like on wings or like just enough to keep around for that and I’m trying really hard to limit how many sauces I have for the Wing Things on hand, so I don’t have like 30 open bottles just for that...I mean that and the backlog things I may have mentioned earlier.
 

09.19.25: In actual blog news, for a change in this lengthy commentary about updates to subjects other than the blog, at the current pace, like the last two years, 2025 is tracking to be around the same post count as the last two years. I don’t know if it will be exactly 84, like the preceding two years were, but at the current rate, will be in that general vicinity. I had thought that it might have been closer to 100, but there were a lot of repeats this year, some archive stuff, in which I film videos for older blog reviews, which are also repeats, I guess, and a number of sauces in larger bottles than normal. Also, this summer, my appetite got clanged pretty hard and without food to accompany it, it’s hard to eat a bunch of sauce. Sauce is probably my main avenue of driving tolerance, so it has ebbed to a lower point than in recent memory. I don’t really have a bunch of challenges in mind to do for winter projects, as I did the last couple of years, so I will probably start ramping it up to the more medium range, where it more typically rests.

Also, to end this off for this quarter, the experimental test kitchen has been running hot again, with some various testing of different items and some expansion into previously (for me) uncharted waters in the kitchen. If you’re interested in that kind of thing, be sure to check the Community page on the YouTube channel, where pics and attendant commentary is posted. 

09.26.25: A little of the old napkin calculation magic and we're completely scheduled through October on the blog side, all the way through January 2026, except for one date I'm holding open in reserve and one video for December that I won't be filming until later, and am now scheduling into February 2026. This means a couple of things, the first being that the FOH series is running an entire quarter (sometimes more) ahead of the blog on the hot sauce side. Second, I also found a few new things I've been meaning to film at some point and ran across them randomly, so figured I may as well pick them up, including an archive sauce, which brings the on-deck total to 5, after being as low as 2 prior to my recent discovery. So, it seems pretty likely the content deluge will continue through Q2 of next year...we'll see before then, I imagine, if something comes up to extend it further. 

Sauce Leopard The Assgasher Hot Sauce Review

Sauce Leopard The Assgasher

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt5LJQb1yfg 

Ah yes, the famed assgasher, rather than someone savaging rectums like a demented Freddy Krueger, is instead an arm emerging from a bumhole and holding firmly aloft what one must assume is a pretty messy axe. This is in direct reference to the inspiration or, as the label copy calls it, the unholy union betwixt Sauce Leopard and Axeslasher, made in Hell, or perhaps more specifically Denver, CO. Axeslasher is a thrash band who takes heavy influence from the 80s and horror movies of the time. The vocals sound reminiscent of thrash from then, but the downturned instruments sound a lot more like a much faster version of the dearly departed Lair Of The Minotaur. 

Anyway, Sauce Leopard is probably my favorite name for any sauce company and Assgasher is a sauce name that tickled me the second I heard it, so naturally, I put it on the hit list, once I discovered it didn't have onions, and there it sat. It sat and it sat for a really long time, because it was described on the label as a Sriracha hot sauce. I am still quite fatigued of the flavor of srirachas, as I've had so very many of them, so while I very much wanted to try this sauce, the same was decidedly not true of another sriracha. It is my happy duty to then report that this is not at all what I would describe as a sriracha. 

Srirachas tend to have a couple of fairly distinctive characteristics, such as being fairly thick, to the point they need to come in a soft plastic bottle so they can be squirted out to apply to food. The other is density of a fairly specific flavor.  Neither of those things is true for this sauce. What this more reminds me of than anything else is a sort of slightly thicker than normal Cajun style sauce. I was beyond pleased to discover this, of course, even though I did want to use it at least partially as an actual sriracha, ironically enough. One of those was an Asian dish I was cooking and the lack of flavor density kind of worked against things a bit. In using it in an already prepared Asian dish, I found the vinegar a bit too forward, so this works much better in settings where you might reach for a Louisiana-style or Cajun.

What we have here is most of the components of an actual sriracha, but the arrangement and end result is pretty distant. This is a very wonderfully flavored and quite lively sauce, with the fresh garlic, unless I miss my guess, bouncing around and creating a fantastic harmony. I would put this within the top 2 of Cajun style sauces I've ever had, in fact, and I quite what they came up with here. Heat-wise, this is the excellent flavor of Fresno paired with Habanero, so it isn't particularly high. 

Bottom line: If you're a fan of any of the sauce types I mentioned, this should be on your radar, as it is, above all else, a great tasting sauce. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 7

Smokin' Ed's Pineapple Teriyaki (Mild) Hot Sauce Review

Smokin’ Ed’s Pineapple Teriyaki (Mild) 

Another addition to the Smokin’ Ed’s line and this time, we see another take on an Asian flavor style, namely that of teriyaki. I don’t know if there is a difference per se between Teriyaki and Pineapple Teriyaki, though the latter suggests more of a Japanese by way of Hawaii vibe, but this does not seem to be trying to be an actual teriyaki sauce, but more of perhaps a teriyaki-inspired hot sauce. Whereas most teriyaki sauces tend to be heavily soy sauce based and frequently much thicker and dense brown concoctions, this one is a pretty swift turning away from that aesthetic.

This is, instead, a rather lively and vibrant red, with perhaps some slight lean towards brown. The color matches the flavor profile here and the entire result strikes me more as playful, in a very good way. The first few times I had this, until I got enough room in the bottle to properly agitate, this came across as hyper-sweet, almost cloyingly so. I did not find that enjoyable, though my immediate thought was that this was much more towards a sweet ‘n’ sour sauce than teriyaki. 

Once it settled in, I was able to get a lot more of the balance, from the subtle soy sauce flavoring, which here is more of an accent, to the pineapple dancing around with what I believe are red Jalapenos, as is my understanding all of the Smokin’ Ed’s mild sauces use as their pod. I quite like overall where this is going, flavor-wise, but it definitely isn’t really a hot sauce. Heat is low enough that I didn’t find it registering most of the time. While teriyaki itself is good on meats generally, I don’t know that this would transition as well to red meats like steaks. Though the sweetness did taper down as I got further into it, there isn’t quite the umami hit that actual teriyaki sauce has to work with the red meats and the lightness and sweetness of the pineapple doesn’t strike me as a happy union there. 

It is excellent on chicken, of course, but also on Asian foods generally, such as ramen. In many ways, it reminds me almost as much of an Asian-style sweet hot, with perhaps an nod to teriyaki, than to the actual flavoring of teriyaki itself. It’s a pretty neat trick to pull off and while I don’t know what exactly what Ed was going for with this sauce, the end result is pretty wonderful. 

Bottom line: Think of this more as perhaps a sweet & sour sauce by way of teriyaki, just on the really high end of things, and you’ll about have it.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 6