Blazin' Saddles Hot Sauce Review

Dat-'l Do It's Blazin' Saddles Hot Sauce

If you've read through this blog at all, you've probably noticed that I like to mine "familiar" places, such as grocery stores and Big Lots for sauces. To me, even if you get a crap sauce (the range is from ok to substandard most of the time), you're still only gambling with a buck or two at a time and if you find a winner, then you've hit the jackpot sauce goldmine, so to speak.

Take the case of Blazin' Saddles. It announces in large letters on the front that it has Tabasco peppers and those, of course, we all know from the ubiquitous sauce that introduced many of us to the concept of hot sauce, but also Louisiana-style sauces and perhaps, like my case, turned you off of "hot" sauces for a good long while. Frankly, in fact, I still find Tabasco mostly unpalatable and back when I could still tolerate ketchup, I used to mix the two together on a delicate layer of some very crispy fried hashbrowns at IHOP and that was the extent of its usefulness to me.

Back to the Blazin' Saddles, though, we have here a sauce that is Tabasco-oriented combined with Habanero. Scott Roberts once reviewed a sauce called "Tabanero", I believe and while I never had it, I'm guessing that was the ideal that they were going for here. This sauce is at once creamier and not only notably hotter than Tabasco (probably not over maybe 5 - 8K, though), but far tastier, too. The Tabasco pepper is a fairly dominantly tasting one, however and if there is a prominent taste here, it is that slightly sweet taste, of which I'm not particularly a fan.

Bottom line: This is by far the best sauce I've tasted that has used that particular pepper, but even at $1.25 for a 3 oz. bottle, I just don't see any need to have this on hand. It is yet another entry in an increasingly long-ish list of Lousiana-style sauces that utilize different peppers (I can't think of any "major" pepper that I haven't tried in the form of Louisiana-style sauces -- for my money, Cayenne is still far and away the best there) and if I needed a sauce on short notice, it would do in a pinch, but there are far better sauces. It's overall a pretty much middle-of-the-road sauce, not bad, but not great, either.

Breakdown:

      Heat level: 4
      Flavor: 5
      Flexibility: 7
      Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 6

Radical Heat Hot Sauce Review

Danny Cash's Radical Heat Red Habanero Hot Sauce

As I mentioned last week, this section of the hot sauce offerings is one I find very interesting and very tasty. My introduction to it came via Blair's, though it wasn't quite "right". Most of this is details in the Hog's Ass Sauce review (http://d-dubisyourhero.blogspot.com/2013/02/hogs-ass-hot-sauce-review.html), which was the best I had.

As was moving down the sauce line-up, trying to fill spots in my door and in the back of the fridge (that area is still waiting, currently), I was looking for a sauce for some chicken dish and the Hellacious sauce wasn't quite what I had in mind. The other sauces in the door weren't cutting it either, so I hit the shelf in search of something that would give the chicken sort of casserole thing a much needed boost. I found it with the Radical Heat, which was not what I was expecting. It was, however, a very happy surprise.

Not only is this the best ratio of Garlic to Habanero, but Danny Cash has taken it a step further and crossed that whole thing with a Louisiana-style sauce. This now covers multiple categories and extends the usefulness a bit further, as if the fantastic taste alone wasn't enough. My only gripes are low in number. I think that it could be a lot hotter. This is, again, checking in at the lower end of the scale (maybe 5K). The second problem I have is that sometimes the runniness precludes me from being able to use it. It is much more like a Louisiana-style sauce in consistency and some of the stuff I would normally look to the Garlic-Habanero sauce to use would be served a lot better with a thicker sauce, but thin sauce does come with the territory with Louisiana-styles, so the second one is very minor.

Bottom line: When the most you can bitch about is what I just outlined above, you have a sauce that approaches world-beater status. Again, I could use it much hotter and a bit thicker, along the lines of Hellacious, for instance, but the pros outweigh the cons to the point that this is my new standard for Garlic-Habanero sauces. It's not a perfect sauce, but it's the best out there that I've found...so far. It is not a lock, though.

Breakdown:

      Heat level: 4
      Flavor: 9
      Flexibility: 8
      Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9
 
Overall: 8

General Update

I thought I'd take a moment to update my staple sauce list with a couple new additions and throw in some random comments.

After recovering from a bout of food poisoning (my step-son also got it, which leads only to the DiGiorno pizza we both had), I was hit right after with a pretty nasty cold. That took a couple weeks and certain sauces, even ones that one finds typically highly enjoyable, can switch to stomach-turning. About the only things I could hack during that time were Louisiana-style sauces, so my stores of Sancto Scorpio and LAVA are both nearly depleted. I will be sad to see both go, but especially the Sancto, which I've grown quite fond of, but I have a lot of other sauces to get to and they all have (eventual) expiration dates...

The staple list from last time was:

*Everyday sauce: Trappey's Red Devil
Grilling sauce: CaJohn's Bourbon-Infused Chipotle Habanero (BICH)
Mexican-style sauce: El Yucateco Green
*Asian-style sauce: Huy Fong Chili-Garlic Sauce
Louisiana-style sauce: Trappey's Red Devil
Sweet-hot sauce: CaJohn's Happy Beaver

No changes here, although the Happy Beaver is not one I'm going to immediately re-order. After 4 or 5 bottles of it, re-upping would just get in the way of several others I have on tap. The asterisks mean that the entry there is a lock and I will not be without that sauce on hand nor am I seeking to change it. The others are really up for grabs, but I think most of them are at the very top of the field in what the respective entries in those categories have to offer.

The two new categories are:

*Wife's sauce: Danny Cash's Salvation Garlic-Serrano and/or Bottled-Up Anger
Garlic-Habanero: Danny Cash's Radical Heat

I haven't done a review for the Radical Heat yet, but I've had several sauces in that category and while they were quite good, Cash's is untouchable. The Garlic-Serrano is something my wife really likes and wants me to keep on hand. I think it's a quality sauce and while I generally prefer things hotter, it's always surprises me with both the great taste and how well it goes across a variety of foods.

I generally am keeping 8 - 12 bottles open at any one time, 3 or 4 at work and the rest at home. At home, I have "door" sauces, which are generally milder and "back of the fridge" sauces, which are usually on the higher end. The reason for this division is my young son, who's a number of years away from fucking around with Ghosts and Scorpions and some of the more revved up Habanero sauces. I usually only keep 1 or 2 for the "back of the fridge" and everything else in the door, mostly for convenience. Also the "door" sauces are ones that either my step-son or wife could use, if they were daring enough or otherwise so inclined. They also get rotated the fastest and it's where I keep more of the "experiments," such as the Salsa Minas, for instance.

Thai Kitchen Sweet Red Chili Sauce Review

Thai Kitchen Sweet Red Chili Sauce

Followers of this blog will know by now that I'm trying to chase down a red sweet garlic-pepper sauce that I had years ago that I liked quite a lot. It's beginning to take on mythic proportions now, almost and I imagine if I ever do find it, I'm in for a tremendous letdown.

This sauce, however, is also not it. This, like two Seven Moons sauces from last month, are of a consistency best described as "gloppy" and the sauce I'm trying to find is much thinner, around the lines of a Louisiana style sauce. In the case of Thai Kitchen's entry, though, this sauce is not overbearing or cloyingly sweet but instead is nicely balanced with the garlic, vinegar and very mild pepper heat. The heat is mostly non-existent, but notable because it's almost always absent in the other entries I've had similar to this.

One of the advantages of the gloppiness here is that it sticks well and translates equally well as a dip or sauce. It can be overpowering, so some moderation is required, but it does a very nice job of blending with and complimenting the various food items, as long as they will take something on the sweeter end.

Bottom line: It's not a great sauce, by any means or even particularly a very good one, but it's the kind of sauce that is "good for what it is." It has somewhat limited applications and wouldn't really have a regular place in my refrigerator. If I saw it on special, though, I'd probably give some thought to picking it up.

Breakdown:

       Heat level: 1
       Flavor: 5
       Flexibility: 5
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3

Hellacious Hot Sauce Review

High River Sauces Hellacious Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F48FoFA6-pA

In anticipation of the Scott Roberts Sauce Showdown brackets, undoubtedly coming very soon, given the tons and tons of nominations High River got, I went out and bought everything I could find from them that met my qualifications. I was disappointed with the prior two entries somewhat, and didn't hold tons and tons of hope for the Hellacious. I'm not a super-huge fan of Habanero peppers in general or of the sauces greatly and I think that pepper, especially the orange, gained so much traction simple because there was little else, aside from the fantastic and mostly unavailable Scotch Bonnets, for so very long. I do enjoy the Chocolate and Red Savina Habanero strains a great deal, it should be said and if I hit them first instead of the orange, maybe it's a different story.

Anyway, this sauce was tested more severely than any other sauce and it's because one of the worst possible things that could have happened did. As it went, I was rollicking along, enjoying this sauce immensely and thinking that finally El Yucateco Green had some competition, as Habanero sauces go. The flavor was stunning, a brilliant combination that avoided the sometimes obnoxious overtones of other habanero sauces and buffered it with a gentle, but notable, splash of chipotle, which is fast becoming one of my most favorite pepper flavors. Little wonder, I think jalapeno is one of the greatest flavors on the planet. The agave was a -- brilliant is what I'm coming up with, but really doesn't do this incredibly skillful culinary  maneuver justice -- touch. The delicate bit of sweetness is spectacular. This sauce went great on Mexican food, of course, but worked well with a variety of other things, including pizza.

DiGiorno, it should be noted, was formerly a staple and they recently came out with this artisan sort of frozen pie. The first one I had was wonderful, so good I didn't bother with sauce. The second time around, I hit it with the Hellacious sauce I was enjoying so much and then the unthinkable happened: I got food poisoning. Now, if any of you have ever been really sick from something, the last damn thing you want to do is eat (or drink) it again. This also wrecked me, I might also add, for several other sauces temporarily. In this case, I dropped frozen pizzas entirely and it has been somewhat of an uphill climb for the Hellacious, given that the first few times I had to fight a gag reflex when I smelled it. I fought through because it was too good not to.

As it turns out, I'm back in the saddle with the sauce and am enjoying it again greatly. Like you would expect with a Hab sauce, there is a decent back-end heat, though it is very short-lived. I'd say this might be pushing up to 10K, but probably a little less. It is my  favorite Habanero sauce, something I would not hesitate to buy or use again.

Bottom line: I think this is a brilliantly done sauce. One can easily see the skill of Steve Seabury in the other sauces, but this is the one I actually want to eat, the one that makes me nod my head in agreement with all the other accolades the man has rightfully accumulated. Without the food poisoning, this would have been a contender for Sauce Of The Year. As it stands now, it's in the "maybe" column, leaning towards "probably", but it's unquestionably a very good sauce and I back it. Not many sauces can come back from that.

Breakdown:

       Heat level: 2
       Flavor: 10
       Flexibility: 10
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 8