Dan's Prime Widow Maker Hot Sauce
Saw this one while cruising the aisles of a grocery store I don't typically frequent and while I'm reluctant to throw down $3.50 for anything in a commercial grocery store (but will throw $7 at peppers.com for a same size bottle -- go figure), I decided to give this a whirl. For not typically having carrots in my sauce, I have run across it a lot lately. This is either the 4th or 5th in a row after a dry spell lasting literally years.
Widowmaker. The name confers something usually deadly or at least hazardous. While I would not expect that from any orange hab sauce, I thought maybe this one would be a nice surprise, ala the Habanero Hot Sauce From Hell I recently just finished (reviewed elsewhere in this blog). No such luck here. This is not a particularly bad-tasting sauce, but it frankly doesn't rise above marginal. The vinegar is a bit on the heavy side and while that doesn't usually put me off, the habaneros here are very slight and considerably blunted further by the carrots.
I think part of my irritation at this sauce is the disingenuous nature of it. Widowmaker has a large number of connotations, but none of them that I recall referred to a somewhat bland, pedestrian pepper sauce. The heat here is basically nonexistent. I suppose it is slightly hotter than nothing at all, but the astringency of the vinegar easily dominates any piquancy.
Bottom line: I don't see a future where I would ever buy this again. Even at $3.50/bottle, it is vastly overpriced for what it actually is. I suppose it is better than nothing at all, but only very slightly so.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 4
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 2
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