Best Hot Sauce 2014 + Recap

After 2 years and change, I'm strongly considering the first major change to this blog. It will not be videos or audio blogs or anything along those lines, though I may wind up adding pictures of the sauce labels/bottles at some point, for recognition. This would include retroactively, if I have enough time and can find the actual bottles. My overall stance on the other elements (expanded more in some of the earlier posts of this blog) has not changed and I frankly don’t have the available time to spend on that, even if it did. Fact is, I have not quite decided exactly what it will be, though I wouldn't be surprised it if does turn out to be pictures of at least the sauce labels. More on that as it develops in 2015...

When we last left off, I was working my way down through several open bottles of sauce in the fridge (aside from pitching the awful Scorned Woman) in order to make room. After having done that and going through almost all my remaining shelf stock, as well as ordering more stuff through a couple Black Friday sales, I now have new stock to play with as well as another shift that is lately enabling me to use more sauce, albeit mostly on fish. Many of these new sauces seem to be of the “blast furnace” variety, so this new wave should be interesting, as most seem destined to be “back of the fridge” sauces.  I do have enough on tap to exceed 100 sauces reviewed, though I’m not sure I’ll be getting to all of them next year. Then again, if I don’t, it won’t be for lack of trying. One of them I had when I made the recap post last year, though that is admittedly rare, although, the trend of posting having fallen way off from years prior will likely continue to hold in 2015 as well.

My current standby sauces have changed little. They are currently:

*Emeritus Everyday sauce: Trappey's Red Devil

*Everyday sauce: Blair’s Pure Death Sauce

*Grilling sauce: CaJohn's Bourbon-Infused Chipotle Habanero(BICH)

 Mexican-style sauce: Arizona Pepper’s Chipotle Habanero Pepper Sauce

*Emeritus Asian-style sauce: Huy Fong Chili-Garlic Sauce

 *Asian-style sauce: Wicked Cactus Wrath Of The Tiger/Zenso Sweet Chili Sauce

 Louisiana-style sauce: Trappey's Red Devil

 Sweet-hot sauce: CaJohn's Happy Beaver

 *Wife's sauce: DannyCash's Salvation Garlic-Serrano and/or Bottled-Up Anger

 *= Not looking for a replacement

Last year, my sauce of the year was given away in the Standby list, where the mighty Blair’s Pure Death did the unthinkable, something I never thought would happen, didn’t even think was possible and certainly never foresaw and usurped Red Devil as my Everyday sauce and basically retired it. This year, things are not so clear-cut. “9” seems to be the magic number overall rating as both the winner of 2012, CaJohn’s Happy Beaver and last year’s winner, Blair’s Pure Death, came in at “9” as well. Those other two sauces had some strong contenders along the way and this year, the winner, Born To Hula’s Ghost Of Ancho, was the only sauce to register that high. There were a few at 7, but nothing seriously challenged or presented much competition to this one, which clocked in right out of the gate in January and held off everything else all year.  Despite having a much smaller pool against it, Born To Hula’s Ghost Of Ancho is every bit as deserving and rightfully takes its place up against those other worthies.

The others are as follows:

2012 Sauce Of The Year: CaJohn’s Happy Beaver

2013 Sauce Of The Year: Blair’s Pure Death

2014 Sauce Of The Year: Born To Hula’s Ghost Of Ancho

Now, I could open up all the years to the running and have the only qualification be that they have not won in years past (otherwise Pure Death is my sauce of the year forever), but as mentioned, by leaving it open to strictly the year in which a particular sauce is reviewed, it keeps things fresher and current. All of these winners were at least available in the year they were rated, in case anyone wants to go get a bottle for themselves and for all of these winners (I think they are all still available), interested readers definitely should. I may recant on this and if I have a year with particularly low-rated sauces, I might go back through all of the other “9”s and do a run-off, but so far, there hasn’t been need.

Let’s get to some metrics. This is post 106, which makes 23 for 2014, compared to 21 for the last quarter of 2012 and 61 for 2013. The total of hot sauces reviewed this year is 17, bringing the grand total of hot sauce reviews to 78. That number is right around 74% of the total posts. I’m not going to do a cumulative average rating or anything like that as I largely don’t think it matters in light of the fact that several of the sauces appear to be off the market, which seems to be somewhat of a trend for hot sauce makers; make and bottle a batch and then go off on to something else. It’s nice for the exclusivity, I guess, but can’t be too wonderful for sales, unless they just intend to bring it back if something takes off.

That aside, more blog numbers:

Total posts (including this post): 106

Total views (as of this writing): 5172

Total single sauce reviews: 76

Total double sauce reviews: 1

Total sauces reviewed: 78

Total unopened sauces waiting on shelf for review: 15

Total opened sauces waiting for review: 0

Total open bottles in fridge: 11

Door sauces: 7

Back of fridge sauces: 4

Highest viewed review (separate from the overall blog generally): 242  - Valentina's Extra Hot

Highest viewed article, any type: 242  -  Valentina's Extra Hot

Most posts, month, 2014: 6 - December

Most sauces reviewed, month, 2014:  4 - December

Most posts, month, overall: 10 - June 2013

Most sauces reviewed, month, overall: 8 - June 2013

Along the way, I’ve also had a number of “hot” food items at restaurants and much less so, but also “hot” snacks in 2014, of varying quality in both heat and taste, mostly nothing I’d care to repeat. That is generally reported to my Yelp account, but occasionally it will make it into these type of posts, if notable. Speaking of Yelp, here are some updated metrics there, current as of this posting:

My review count is now 540 reviews and 72 updates, which is a total of 612 reviews, all in. Further, I was "First To Review" 57 times or slightly over 10.5% of the time.  I also have 309 "Friends" (feel free to add me, if you wish), 9 "Fans", submitted 1 Event, which was one I'm enormously gratified to have been able to take part in (Inland/Outland from Svavar Jónatansson) and created 11 Lists. Rounding this out was 541 "Useful" votes, 147 "Cool" votes, 172 "Funny" votes and 42  Compliments. My distribution of ratings falls in the order of: 29 or ~5.5% at 5 stars, 173 or ~32%  at 4 stars, 241 or ~44.5% at 3 stars, 83 or ~15.5% at 2 stars and 14 or 2.5% for 1 star, which, again, is well in line with expected results as the pool grows larger.

It takes quite a bit for a place to get 5 stars, in that it has to either be the best of its kind, live way up to or beyond my expectations, blow my socks off, be near perfect or be something that I literally cannot think of a way to do better. Most of my 5s are not restaurants, in fact, as of now, there are only 8 of that 29 count for the 5 star reviews that are for restaurants. Likewise, if I give something a 1 rating, it generally means I think the place should be closed. Those are also exceedingly rare and perhaps somewhat harder to get than the 5s.  Most of the places I’m trying to find are either places that will be comfy and reliable “regulars”, places I can take someone to impress them (work-related, for the most part) or useful in some other way. A lot of it, in practice, winds up with me just canvassing geographical areas around places I’m at normally, i.e. where I live, where I work, where I travel on a somewhat frequent basis for work, my PO box, etc. This is useful, though, after a fashion, as information is always good to have in hand. Given that this frequently results in costing me a lot more than I’m reimbursed, sometimes the trade-off is less in my favor, though.

I also keep 5 separate lists of future places to visit (much as I do with hot sauces and wines, actually, though those two are only single lists, respectively), so those Yelp totals will only continue to increase. Of course, I have no idea how well the actual reviews there draw and I’m not sure Yelp will either divulge that information or ever plans on publishing it. For further discussion of Yelp, please refer back to my Q3 2K14 post in September 2014.

As to my wine blog, that sits at 20 posts, with all but 3 of them reviews. That one still continues to draw very slowly, hovering right around 3.5% of this one. This, of course, is a spin-off of my wife’s very quickly started and ended website from spring of 2014, but it also is intended to be one fairly specific thing and I think the inherent audience for that is a much narrower band than even this.

As always, I welcome your companionship in future times…in any or all of these arenas.

Hellfire Blueberry Hell Hot Sauce Review

Hellfire Blueberry Hell Hot Sauce

This is one I've had on my radar for a long, long while and finally took the plunge during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday business going on this year and I'm reasonably glad I did. The sauce is reminiscent of Grapes Of Wrath, though on a much more focused and frankly, tastier, level. This not really a sauce that is an all-over whiz, though. I've seen a lot of commentary, including from the manufacturer, about putting this on ice cream, but it's not an ice cream topping, as a more traditional blueberry sauce would be. To function there, it would need to be much better-tasting. Despite the visual appearance, where it is around the same consistency as maybe a blueberry syrup, this is definitely not a blueberry sauce, nor is it interchangeable like that. Instead, it is clearly a fruit-based hot sauce and as such, like Grapes, does better with lighter meats, such as pork and chicken. I personally also like to use the fruit-based sauces on meats where I would use a Louisiana sauce, so fried foods, shrimp, chicken and so on. In fact, on those foods, it has a certain addictive quality that kept me eating more and more of it.


Despite containing a laundry list of upper-end heat on the pepper side, including Scorpions and 7-Pot, the overall sauce is not particularly scorching. There's enough there to get one to take notice, particularly in the somewhat intrusive nature of the taste, but heat-wise, this builds to a fairly immediate level and then dissipates quickly after. I'd put this maybe in the low 30Ks or so, SHU. Besides the heat, the peppers also contribute a very immediate bitter aspects from the super-hots that sort of follows the sweet nature of the blueberry flavoring reminiscent of a straight blueberry sauce. Once that bitter part kicks in, at about the same time as the heat, it is never really tempered and becomes a noticeable aspect of the flavoring, which can be off-putting, especially if attempting to use this as a straight blueberry sauce.

Bottom line: This is moderate enough in heat for chileheads (probably more than would be comfortable for everyone else) to eat directly, but probably ultimately not tasty enough to do that nor does it do much but wreck ice cream, if you choose to use it there. This, however, would be a great addition to a fruit-based sauce line-up, if you make one and represents the blueberry very well overall. While it can be a bit pricey, it could easily wind up being a staple, as the positives here overwhelmingly outweigh the negatives. If it's not my outright favorite fruit-based sauce, it's definitely in the running.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 7

Online Hot Sauce Shopping: A Slight Digression

I may have mentioned in the past, but as others have noted, being a chilehead who loves hot sauce, particularly a chilehead on a budget and who is not getting comped product, can be a challenge. You have basically brick-and-mortars, sections of grocery or specialty stores or online. In many areas, brick-and-mortars are hard to come by and even when they do exist, such as a few around in the Salt Lake City area, the stock is so badly in need of rotation that you can frequently have a sauce that is spoiled or that has its taste severely modified and compromised by age. Unlike wine, hot sauce does not do particularly well with age, especially those with no preservatives at all, save for what salt and vinegar is in there...which is generally not enough to do the job.

After having mined all of the specialty sections of every place I could find within approximately an hour driving radius of Salt Lake City, as well as the existing brick-and-mortars (most of those appear as posts in these pages), I ran into an empty well...that and the fact that I could not get anywhere near the selection of some of the great sauces I'd seen discussed at some of the various chilehead informational spots online. So, like any good red-blooded American, I turned to Amazon to see what they could offer. Their selection is probably the worst of any online retailer, since food items are still relatively new to them and what is there is grossly overpriced. The shipping threshold admittedly is lower (still $25 when I first started looking, now $35, depending on the source), but with such an obscene markup, it was hardly a value. To date, I have yet to buy anything from this purveyor and it seems less likely I will.

From there, given the somewhat recent Black Friday/Cyber Monday wave that has hit the actual hot sauce vendors themselves, timing happened to coincide with this and I was able to take advantage of specials offered by Blair's, CaJohn's and Torchbearer. All of them, I'm pleased to say, conducted themselves well and I have no complaints...save that you can wind up spending a lot more with one particular manufacturer than you had otherwise intended, in order to get to that vaunted free shipping.

From there, it was on to some of the aggregate providers online. I can say with certainty that none of them that I've found are the one true good source. I have used Peppers.com probably the most, but they're frequently out of stock of a number of bottles and their selection seems at times to be almost whimsical. Their pricing, however, is structured well, free shipping is at $75 and the packaging that it comes in is excellent. It happened they were out of stock of a number of things I wanted this year, in fact, which caused me to look around and try out Hot Sauce.com. Again, packaging was excellent and they had the most of what I wanted, though they also were far from perfect. Pricing was about right in line, though slightly more than Peppers.

I get it; selection is hard here, with vendors adding and deleting sauces seemingly constantly. Add to that a shelf life, a somewhat small (though expanding) market base and perhaps a lack of historical data to draw from by way of predicting where the sales will go and it definitely proves to be challenging, since probably everyone is also price shopping. Speaking for myself, I also took a look at Insane Chicken, iBurn, The Hot Sauce Stop and Mo Hotta. While I know everyone can't carry everything and some of the smaller sauce makers probably don't have deals, none of those I mentioned were enough to convince me to place an order.

Selection, while hard, is really the big deal here, though, as most of us have a lot of sauces we want to try, but don't particularly want to put our entire budget to strictly one manufacturer, particularly if trying a sauce for the first time. I'm hopeful that eventually someone will come out with a one-stop shop that does a better job of having everything in inventory, but I suspect that will take a very concerted effort on the part of the packager, to go out and get those smaller run sauce makers and a solid investment and commitment to create basically the ultimate in specialty shops. I notice that most of them also have subsidiary crap like t-shirts, hats, dry spices, BBQ and/or wing sauce and other food items and I suppose we could take from that the market is not yet enough to support a shop slinging strictly hot sauces. I know from what I've seen of the brick-and-mortars here, it's not enough to support one of those, as the market is not enough to bear that kind of overhead, but an online sauce shop should carry a lot less of that. I think the day is coming and I really hope it gets here soon, as wading through a stable of sites to place a bulk order is not the most enjoyable expenditure of time...the way that hot sauce in general is expanding, it seems likely and I think it would almost be worthwhile to trade some of our chilehead exclusivity for it...on the other hand, if you really look at the explosion, it's all in generally mass-produced crap, with little of it breaking the 10K SHU barrier, let alone upwards, where all the real fun is...could go either way, I guess, but it would still be really nice to have one shop you could count on to not only have everything, but also be competitive price-wise...

Ass Kickin' Cajun Hot Sauce Review

Ass Kickin' Cajun Hot Sauce

The tagline on the bottle claims it is "Kick Yo' Ass Hot!" but what we're dealing with is a fairly successful blend of a Louisiana-style sauce with something more along the lines of one of those Habanero sauces that relies on a blend of carrots to help smooth it out. Like Scorned Woman, this one features both white and black pepper, but where that one turned right to bitter, this one is concocted to be a lot more creamier, sort of like one of those Buffalo sauces that is silky to the palate rather than harsh and abrasive (for wings, I personally prefer the latter, incidentally). All of those are mild, of course and this one racks in some very solid Habanero to boost up the heat build decently. Because it is the slow-burn Habanero, it also carries on for a good lingering bit afterwards, though never really gets anywhere near a level I'd consider challenging to chileheads.

It is a very good-tasting sauce that does a great job of melding the two aforementioned sauce types, that of the Habanero-carrot (I should note there are no actual carrots in this sauce, but it's that kind of vibe) and a more typical Louisiana-style, but the addition of Habaneros does not automatically incline it to Mexican food. In point of fact, it clashes heavily there, so it's best used in places you would use a Louisiana-style sauce, which is more closely resembles ultimately. Habaneros do have an aspect of overpowering and diminishing the overall taste in various sauces, though that is definitely not the case here. Here, they are a welcome accent.

Bottom line: This is a very solid sauce more akin in taste to a Louisiana, though notably hotter than sauces typically in that vein. It also has an appealing smoothness, also atypical for that type.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 6

Zenso Sweet Chili Sauce Review

Zenso Sweet Chili Sauce

Regular readers will know that long and hard, high and low have I been searching for one particular kind of sweet chili sauce that was one of the greatest sauces I'd had. It was sweet, yet had an excellent balance of garlic to offset that and just enough kick from the chili peppers to really set the others off nicely. I never found out the exact brand and so began the search some time ago. In that search, several have come somewhat close, but none have made it exactly...

...including this one, but it is not very far off, either, perhaps in sibling range rather than cousin, by this point. This particular sauce is exceeding well-done and has all those characteristics mentioned. One of the best attributes about that sauce was the ability to eat it solo, which can also be done here. I'm not a huge fan of it that way, as I wasn't the other, either, but slap that with some Asian food and a bit of soy sauce, maybe a touch of chili-garlic and you're in business.

Of course now that I discovered it on the shelves of a Big Lots, I'll never see it again, but at least now I have a name when I run out again. The main difference here is that there's precious little heat, despite the presence of the cayennes, so you'll have to add more yourself...a small price to pay, I'd say. While slightly less hot than the Maggi, this is overall a better-tasting sauce and now the current leader in this category.

Bottom line: I'm so tempted to cheer that I've found it, the vaunted holy grail of sweet chili sauces and maybe I have, as I have no idea if I'll ever come across that other or if they still make it yet, but this is truly an excellent sauce, the right consistency and all the flavor notes...just needs a touch of heat to really bring it up.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor:9

Overall: 6

Scorned Woman Hot Sauce Review

Scorned Woman Original Hot Sauce

McCormick's makes a fine seasoning called Hot Shot, which I've spoken about before. The ingredients here are fairly simple, basically granulated black and red pepper. This adds a very nice dose of heat to things, but must be used in moderation, as it tends towards the bitter. The reason I bring this up is that this basically tastes a lot like a liquefied version of Hot Shot.

So, tasting this solo, in conjunction with the vinegar base, is a nearly immediate effect of a bitter astringency. This is one that is horrible outside of a food context. With the food, again, it must be used sparingly as it tends towards the bitter and very easily overpowers food. As this is not a particularly good-tasting sauce by itself, this can frankly wreck more subtle dishes like cream-based hot dishes, for instance or some of the lighter Greek dishes.

As to the heat, ramping up the dried peppercorns (and there are lots of black flecks in this sauce...in fact, black pepper appears twice in the ingredient list) will definitely put a kick in it, but while it contributes a modicum of heat, it is offset considerably by the unpleasantness of this sauce in high doses. There are also dried Tabasco, Jalapeno and Habanero in there, but those are difficult to pick out, odd considering how strong Tabasco can be. If anything that, should give you an idea of how overpowering the peppercorns are. It does have a decent amount of lingering heat, but it never really builds up especially high. What is there is present nearly immediately, though.

Bottom line: Yes, yes, Hell hath no fury like this, etc. etc. Wherever you use black pepper, you could use this, though probably in much lower quantities. It's hard to see a need for this kind of sauce, though and I don't imagine I'll ever be picking up another bottle.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 2

Louisiana Gold Red Hot Sauce Review

Louisiana Gold Red Pepper Sauce

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45AgMF69EqM

This is an interesting idea, on the surface, taking a Louisiana-style sauce and then un-harshing the bitter bite of vinegar and in this case, the blast of Tabasco. Tabasco makes an appearance here, ostensibly as accent, but it winds up quickly asserting itself, as is the norm with that pepper. Evidently, there is a blend here, of what I'm assuming is Cayenne and possibly red Jalapenos and if so, those are good choice to soothe the sting of the other two main components. What you have here is a sauce that seems to allude to the smoothness, say, of some of the wing sauces out there.

The problem I have with this is the idea. I don't mind them attempting to do that, but one of the reasons I like to use the Louisiana styles sauces is for the punch in the face I can get, especially with more creamy dishes, when you need that to cut through. This one blends far too much and mostly just gets lost. A couple other problems are also that it has no real heat to speak of and further is not especially pleasant-tasting. So, it's hard to use it as either an accent or as lead when putting it on food. I like it better than Tabasco, but I've never been much of a fan of Tabasco to begin with, so not saying much there. It is categorically a candle next to the sun in comparison to Red Devil.

Bottom line: If the choices are scant, this will do in a pinch, but a neutered Louisiana-style sauce is a very sad and useless thing.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 3
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor:1

Overall: 2

Arizona Pepper's Organic Chipotle Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Arizona Pepper's Organic Harvest Foods  Chipotle Habanero Pepper Sauce

UPDATE: Video support now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCeSTHm7HPI

Right out of the gate, this one started with a bold assertion of flavor. With Chipotle, a little goes a very long way and while the label starts by leading with "Chipotle", the actual first ingredient is Habanero. It's a very difficult thing to try to mix those together, much more complicated than it might seem, as Habanero can be a fairly subtle flavor and Chipotle is about as dainty as a wrecking ball. There is also Jalapeno in the mix, apparently, but that one gets lost completely.

While Habanero is definitely not the dominant flavor here, edged out, but not lost entirely to Chipotle, as it is prone to do, it builds a noticeable back heat. It doesn't continue to build and build, however and caps off fairly readily. There is no real lasting heat here, but once it comes up to the level point, it maintains a nice, solid, steady, though low, burn. All in all, quite pleasant, but certainly not above 10K.

The flavor here is fantastic. This is a more complex sauce than expected, with fruity grace notes, probably courtesy of the Habaneros and just the right amount of astringency to it from the dual vinegars as part of the formulas. This is definitely one of the tastier sauces I've had this year and I fully anticipate it working well across a wide variety of foods.

Bottom line: With all the "organic" wordspace in the label, if you guessed this was from Whole Foods, you'd be on the money. This is yet another of their very worthy additions to the stable there and while it does seem more like primarily a Mexican style sauce, I wouldn't hesitate to use it nearly anywhere that could use a dash of smoke flavor with a touch of heat.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 6

Gringo Bandito (Green) Hot Sauce Review

Gringo Bandito (Green) Hot Sauce

I may as well just come out and say it. The comparisons here to El Yucateco are obvious. Like EY, the red sauce is the far more abrasive of the two and the green is somewhat hotter, though only slightly here. It is also on a very definite slow build and takes a considerable time to work up a lather. I suspect they are using very mild Habaneros as the taste there is very smooth and almost only in passing. Unlike EY, the red is probably the better tasting of the two here, though, in that I would consider buying it again whereas the green sauce of Mr. Holland is reminiscent, in several respects, including color, of more of a tomatillo sauce, though there are no tomatillos listed in the ingredients.

This one is much less flexible than the red sauce, perhaps predictably and it's best with one of the white meats, either chicken or pork. I suppose you could also use it on a white fish, but there are much better alternatives there. It's mild enough that it may not get noticed on other foods with stronger tastes unless and until you use quite a lot more of it, almost enough to then interfere with the flavor, if it's not one of those two meats. It also works better if you have a Mexican-based dish, of course.

When you do get enough to get a taste of it, there is a smoothness and a taste that reminds me most of a spiked tomatillo sauce, which isn't necessarily unpleasant, but once again, think of how many things you use tomatillo sauce on. If you wouldn't use it on a given food, basically don't use this as it will either clash or disappear. In point of fact, making tomatillo sauce with a hefty dose of this is probably the best use of it I can think of. I think I got this for a bit over a buck and at that price, certainly is a respectable, if not solid, deal, but I don't imagine I'll be repeating this one.

Bottom line: Again, we have a fairly well-crafted sauce, albeit one that is extremely limited in use. This one is several notches below the competition in this category, falling well short of either El Yucateco Green or the Serrano Salvation sauce, which are both runaway winners.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 4

General Update Q3 2K14; All Blogs & Yelp

Slightly early for the end of Q3, but I wanted this to coincide with my Yelp anniversary, which I'm oddly unable to celebrate on the Yelp site itself...

There's no denying that as I mentioned earlier in the year, posting has fallen way off in this blog. Out of 97 total posts, including this one, 14 of them have been this year. In the first year of this blog, which started in September 2012, I clocked in with 21 posts. That amount will likely not be matched in all of this year. This blog will make it to 100 total posts before the year is out, as clean-up effort of my door sauces has yielded me some empty slots and I've still got a few new sauces on the shelf to work through, as well as the Best Sauce Of The Year year-end wrap-up post. 2015 will be when I look at finally hitting 100 sauces reviewed (I think). Currently, that total stands at 70. If I get really ambitious, I will do a statistical breakdown in the end of the year update with ratings, etc. There is no end in sight to the current pacing of posts here, though.

The wine blog, while drawing far, far less than this one, is much more regularly updated, with 1 less post than this blog has done in 2014 and almost all of it reviews. That one, however, has not had a full year, starting in March of this year. I try to maintain a fortnightly (post every two weeks) posting schedule there. Given that I have a pretty steady backlog, it will be 2016, if I write no more entries for it, before I run out of material and I have a fairly hefty backlog there, so that one will be in good shape for some time to come. As I don't currently spend column space in that blog writing updates as I'm doing here, any statistics, metrics and/or analytics will probably wind up appearing here, if at all. I may do something for the end of the year recap...if it picks up and there is demand, I may add more non-wine list entries as well.

Yesterday was also my one year anniversary of joining Yelp, which was almost a year (to the date) of when I started this blog (this one was oddly enough started on 09/11/12). Since Yelp has no blogging area, this blog will also get some commentary in that regard.

In that time on Yelp, I wrote 448 reviews and 54 updates, which is a total of 502 reviews, all told. Only 448 of those reviews and updates actually influence the given ratings for a business. Of those, I was "First To Review" 46 times (and in some cases, still the only to review) or slightly over 10% of the time.  I also had 234 "Friends" (feel free to add me, if you wish), 3 "Fans", submitted 1 Event, which was one I'm enormously gratified to have been able to take part in (Inland/Outland from Svavar Jónatansson) and created 8 Lists. Rounding this out was 390 "Useful" votes, 104 "Cool" votes, 120 "Funny" votes and 28 Compliments. The review total in that 1 year span will not be duplicated in the next year cycle of my time on Yelp. Of the others, I have no idea, as most of them are not directly influenced by me.

My distribution of ratings falls in the order of: ~5% at 5 stars, ~34%  at 4 stars, ~42% at 3 stars, ~16% at 2 stars and ~3% for 1 star. I'm not going to get into a discussion of the categories or cities represented, as some of that info is listed erroneously on Yelp and it would take me more time than I care to spend to correct it all. I will say that that distribution has statistically fallen more or less where I had anticipated when I started it, with the majority falling dead center or in the "Average" rating, with the next highest variances in the two categories next closest to that. 

Now, I try to choose places I hope to enjoy (I really am hoping for at least a 4 star experience, most of the time), since I'm obviously spending money on this, so the ratings are skewed higher than they would be if I simply reviewed everything I encountered or likely would be if I was paid to review a bunch of random places. For instance, I tend away from reviewing most chains because I don't find it fair to them. Most fast-food places in my experience will only hit Average, comparatively, on a very, very good day for them and most of them do not have very, very good days. Only if something is extraordinary one way or the other will most chains wind up showing up in the review list. There are other reasons. I don't want to pad my totals nor have people have to wade through a bunch of shit to get to reviews for places interesting to them. It sucks when I have to do that; no way do I want to repeat that same bad tendency. There is also the location issue. If I review one Chili's out of say six in a city, but have been to them all (I haven't; this is just an example), it strikes me that if I'm going to get in that pool, it has to be more than just a foot and I simply don't care to write that many reviews, particularly for places I don't think are deserving of both my effort and general attention on that level. Let's face it; the Yelp reviews are definitely advertising of a sort.

My original mission was to utilize that site nearly exactly as I do this blog, which is more or less a running tally of the hot sauces I've tried, aggregated to include nearly all of them and as to which are worth me spending money on for repeat buys. I meant to apply that site more strictly to a database so I could increase my general restaurant knowledge and have it be useful to me when taking clients out to business lunches, but it has evolved somewhat to include additional information, including some categorization by me in the form of the Lists. The goal of having it be useful information of the sort I wanted when I tried to use Yelp on vacation a few times has not wavered at all. The year end post will be include updated information current as to the end of the year.

If there's anything anyone wants to see there, as here, send me a message and I'll try to get to it.

Heirloom Chiltepin Pepper Hot Sauce Review

Heirloom Chiltepin Hot Sauce

The guy on the label reminds me a lot of Billy Mays and this is the first, to my recollection, of any hot sauce featuring the so-called "Bird's Eye" chili. Regrettably, the actual Chiltepin powder is the very last ingredient on a list of 8 or 9 other things, including water and vinegar, so it's difficult to place them in this actual sauce.

What we have here is another random entry from the inconsistent offerings at my local Whole Foods. In this case, what we really have here is a somewhat vinegary and far more watery version of a Mexican table sauce. Vinegar is definitely the dominator here, so imagine a sort of Cholula with a much thinner texture and greater degree of vinegar presence.

As much as this label touts the idea that Chiltepins contain a greater arsenal of heat, the actual sauce does not show this off in the slightest and the heat here is very mild, at best. The taste is not bad, but if I'm buying basically Cholula, I may as well just get that, which is a more controllable sauce as far as spread and save myself the extra money.

Bottom line: There is nothing wrong with this sauce, per se, but there is also little reason to get it. The territory upon which this sauce treads is not only covered, it is well-covered.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 4

Gringo Bandito (Red) Hot Sauce Review

Gringo Bandito (Red) Hot Sauce


Joining the ranks of the celebrity (and possibly vanity) hot sauce lines comes this beauty from Dexter Holland, who you may know as the lead singer (and probable leader) of The Offspring. That aside (and it's a big aside for me), what we have here is an intriguing blend of different peppers, including one, a Japanese red chili, that I don't often come by.

The result is a sauce that looks, pours and even tastes a bit like a highly stepped-on Cholula, which is not a bad thing, in my view. Cholula is definitely not a bad sauce and I've definitely eaten my share, in fact, probably overeaten it, to the point where it's not anything I'll reach for, unless there's nothing else at hand and I'm in dire need. I definitely have long thought it could use a boost in the heat department and that's where this comes in.

While not a clone, in any way, this is most similar to that style of sauce. It's no scorcher, but does pack enough of a charge to be noticed. The taste of Habaneros is also a welcome addition, though it seems to rely more on Jalapeno and the Japanese red chilis, though I also noticed what I'm pretty sure is Arbol in there as well. This is very clearly intended at the Mexican-style table sauce market and given that it's joined a couple national chains (Wal-Mart and Whole Foods, specifically), I have little doubt that it will do very well, as I can't think of any other sauce in that category I'd rather have, with the possible exception of some Born To Hula entries.

Bottom line: This is a very well-done, well-rounded sauce that is very clearly aimed squarely at the Mexican-style category. While it isn't making me do backflips, it has been enjoyable and definitely done a nice job of adding to everything I've tried on. For that kind of flexibility, even with somewhat moderate heat (though again, over nearly everything else in that category) and below $2/bottle, it's hard to go wrong here.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 7

Iguana Cayenne Pepper Hot Sauce Review

Iguana Red Cayenne Pepper Sauce

This is one that I've had to take some time assessing, partially because I wasn't necessarily eating a lot of food that worked with it and partially because it is somewhat outside of what I was expecting and sometimes wanting from a Louisiana-style sauce. It's hard to find where it fits.

To wit, this is a very thick sauce. Why it comes with a dropper cap is entirely beyond me, as there is little reason for it. This stuff is gloppy, in fact, much more like something squirtable, such as mustard or ketchup or even BBQ sauce than an actual hot sauce. The texture and consistency here is somewhat...let's charitably say, unfortunate, for this style of sauce.

Cayenne is one of my favorite peppers all-time and while what they've done with it here is somewhat unique and slightly on the hotter side of other Cayenne sauces I've had before, it drifts too far from a Louisiana-style, which it is probably still overall closest to, into an arena that is hard to call. The taste has a touch of sweetness that really doesn't belong so much with that style of sauce and in addition to the thickness, which then takes a bit for the heat of the food to penetrate, it becomes somewhat jarring. It's not sweet enough to be used as a dipping sauce and doesn't function well enough as a Louisiana-style sauce, yet that is the application that it's profile best fits.

Bottom line: This is a "lost" sauce, that seems to have a substantial identity problem. It's neither a bad nor especially good-tasting sauce, has somewhat moderate heat and there's not really a place that I can find where this functions well. While I'll probably finish off this bottle, I will not be replacing it.

UPDATE 10/25/15:

Having inadvertently picked this up recently, I got another chance to try it out. While I still stand by the review, I find I like this somewhat better this time around than the first time. As such, I have modified the rating accordingly.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 5

Random Hot Sauce Thoughts and General Update

It has been a bit since I've returned to these pages for an update and I haven't had occasion to crack open a new bottle of sauce for some time. Mostly, I'm trying to clear through what's open before I head off to vacation, but also the food I'm largely eating does not lend itself well to the addition of hot sauce. I may be a chilehead, but I'm primarily after taste first and foremost and with a recent change in diet, opportunity for hot sauce has dwindled. Combined with the loss of being able to easily keep any at work, it makes uses for it a lot fewer and further between.

Let's be frank here a moment. Most of the foods that work best with hot sauce are things that are generally less than optimally healthy. I'm speaking here of fried foods and beloved pizzas and chicken wings and wonderful BBQ, though that one is not necessarily strictly a bad option. Since I eat out a lot at work and even sometimes on weekends, I try to temper this by having a lot healthier food at home. This works out to varying extents, but salads and hot sauce twixt the two never the twain shall meet. I also can't bring myself to take it out to restaurants or other peoples houses, as I think that practice is highly tacky.

So, while opportunity, as mentioned earlier, is light now and probably will continue to be so for the year, it's not as though I dislike it and have dispensed with it entirely or anything. It just continues to be a much slower pace, unless I decide to discard several of the opened bottles. As it is difficult for me to be wasteful in that fashion, probably I'll just continue to sludge along, though there are a few on the horizon I have some excitement about and I still troll nearly every one of the aisles at stores that I think might carry something new and interesting. I'm still looking, still have my eyes open, but let's continue to be honest here. If your wife embarks on a new diet, you're largely going along with her and given some moderate health issues she's having, it looks to be a lot later, if ever, that she gets off of this direction. I may start resuming taking some to work and building my lunches again, once things settle down, which will enable me to have a lot more opportunity (and I seriously miss it a great deal at work), but again, down the road.

In the meantime, if you're interested in my scribblings and also interested in wine, I invite you over to my other blog about wine and I'm also still doing the Yelp thing, too, both of which are linked to the right of this column.

Maui Pepper Chipotle Raspberry Mango Hot Sauce Review

Maui Pepper Co. Chipotle Raspberry Mango Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SZc37eXQjg

Like the Smokin' Mangoes hot sauce (reviewed earlier), this one is built on the platform of the Mango Meltdown. While that one rather diluted down any mango taste that may have been laying around under a heavy layer of smoky Chipotle, this one goes one (or two) better and knocks down both the flavor and the heat with heavy doses of raspberry.

Now, a good raspberry Chipotle jelly/jam/sauce is one of my favorite things with a roasted meat like turkey or chicken or pork or even with some nice cheese and crackers. This is a fairly fruity concoction along those lines, but we have here a battle for supremacy between the Chipotle and the raspberry and though the raspberry is a close dominator, they both sort of lose. I suspect this is just too many things in one sauce and the mango and Habanero seem to be utterly drowned here.

Things get more confused as the vinegar and salt also try to get some traction on the taste buds, which goes a long way towards limiting the usefulness of this sauce. It would still be good on a plain roasted meat, one of the milder ones such as I mentioned and maybe for a nice change of pace on chicken strips or something, but it's too sweet and salty and does not have a particularly wonderful taste enough to be used as daily anything. Heat level is fairly minimal.

Bottom line: In my view, the problem with this is they just kitchen-sinked it too much and there are too many flavors that combine antagonistically to have much of a pleasant sauce.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 5
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3

Happy Sippin' Companion is live

Just a short note for anyone out there that may be following and cares about this, but due to the demise of the site for which I was doing my wine blog, the Happy Sippin' Companion, I've elected to take it a temporary home here: d-dubhsc.blogspot.com. I'd invite you to go and check it out if you're at all interested in a building a wine list with entries that are available, for the most part, at under $20 a bottle.

Maui Pepper Smokin' Mango Hot Sauce Review

Maui Pepper Co. Smokin' Mango Hot Sauce

This is ostensibly supposed to be a smoked version of the Mango Meltdown (review elsewhere in this blog) from this same company and this is accomplished by adding Chipotle peppers. Now, the problem with doing such a thing is you start with a fairly mild tasting fruit, in this case those aforementioned mangoes and then add in a much stronger tasting substance, that being the Chipotle peppers and you pretty much drown out a lot of the subtleties and nuances of the prior sauce, which is what happens here.

That being said, this is not a bad sauce. Enough remains of both the nice bit of sweetness, a touch of the fruitiness and the lovely back heat of the Habaneros, along with the smokiness and front heat of the Chipotles to create something more than a full-on smoked pepper blast. The Chipotle is unquestionably the dominant flavor, however. Heat level is around the same as the Mango Meltdown and uses are about the same.

Bottom line: Given that I really enjoyed the subtleties and complexities of the earlier sauce, it was kind of a shame to see the Chipotle wrecking ball come in to the extent it does here. With Chipotle, a little goes a long way. This is perhaps over a little...

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 6

Bell River Caribbean Hot Sauce Review

Bell River Brand Caribbean Hot Sauce 

Bell River appears to be a division of Heartbreaking Dawn. That particular company is probably on the radar of most discriminating chileheads and has been on mine for a while, not least because of its intriguing naming system of using years for the sauce, as well as the descriptive nature of adding descriptors in the form of nicknames, i.e. "Cauterizer", for the different variations. They've made a great name for themselves and they're on my radar, but due to either an unfortunate lust of theirs for using onions in everything or an unfortunate reaction with my own chemistry that reacts negatively and forcefully to onions, I have not seen a product of theirs I've been able to pull the trigger on. With them creating the product line for this entry from Bell River, that has now been rectified.

Using the word "Caribbean" with things lends the mind to a certain direction, which is perhaps best culminated and most renowned in the Jamaican "jerk" seasoning profile, though when I picked this up, I didn't really expect that. It looked in the bottle more like a Louisiana-style sauce to me, just with a lot of other additions. In several respects, that is true. There are at least over 20 listed ingredients to this, including orange and red Habaneros and Datil peppers, though there are probably 10 ingredients that come before the peppers. One might think this would be a not particularly piquant sauce, but one would only be half-right there.

This is certainly no full-throttled SHU rager or anything, but there is plenty there to add a decent amount of punch to things. I also rarely say this, but given the thinness of this sauce, I would have preferred a dropper cap here, as this stuff is definitely right along the lines of Louisiana-style sauce in flavor as well. There are no Cayennes or Tabascos to be found and it doesn't have that nice bit of zing, that tangy harshness that most Louisiana-styles sauces have. Instead, it is a fuller, rounder, smoother, much more complex and slightly sweeter version, which goes a long way towards fulfilling the promise of using the word "Caribbean" as a descriptor. Usage, however, is primarily the same as a Louisiana-style sauce and this works best as a substitute for an existing sauce type, not necessarily a new style all its own.

Bottom line: This is a very tasty sauce and at $5 a bottle, dollar for dollar, one of the best values out there. I don't know that I would use it to replace any of my existing Louisiana-style sauces, particularly if I happen to want a punch in the mouth with my food, but I would definitely not shy away from it, either, inconvenience of no dropper cap aside. I could see myself getting another bottle of this, depending on what else was available.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 9
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 7

Maui Pepper Mango Meltdown Hot Sauce Review

Maui Pepper Co. Mango Meltdown Hot Sauce

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

After a prolonged layoff from the fruit-based sauces, I finally came around back to them on the last shopping trip, picking up a 3 pack from the Maui Pepper Company, all of which largely featured Habanero peppers. Habanero and Mango has sounded conceptually like a very winning combination, but the reality repeatedly has been a letdown, to the point where I just gave up. I wasn't really looking at getting back to any of the fruit sauces and considered all of them a wash...until now.

In this, we finally have someone who has figured out what degree of ripeness in which to use the mangos, so we have a solid base that is neither too sweet nor too sour, but right in the hot zone, where it is a perfect combination of them both, maybe even erring a bit on the sweeter side so that when the vinegar is added, it will cut it down nicely to that perfect level. Now, I may be embellishing a bit, as there are additional sweeteners, but whatever the formula, the effect is excellent. This is one of the more well-made sauces out there.

All of that would be nice, but you'd still have a sort of runny jelly were it not for the heat. Now, this isn't packing a ton of heat, by any means, but there is enough back end head to let you know it's there, maybe even a little past that. It is truly a delight, in many ways and though it won't go with everything, it does go with quite a lot. You could almost arguably use this interchangeably with a Louisiana-style sauce, especially on fried foods, for a very nice change of pace.

Bottom line: This is a very well-crafted sauce and probably the first fruit-based sauce I have really liked and enjoyed enough to want to buy again. Definitely if you're a fan of mangoes and Habaneros, this sauce is right up your alley, but for a first foray into fruit-based hot sauces, this is a fantastic starting point as well.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 6