Phoenix Hot Sauce Review

Voodoo Chile Phoenix Super Sauce Hot Sauce

While I do not recall 100% fully, I believe this is the first sauce I've had with Smokin' Ed's Carolina Reaper, the current reigning highest SHU pepper in existence. I do, however, know for sure that this is the first one based on a "super food" detox drink mix, that being the Voodoo D-Tox. Now, clearly, the drink is not likely to use the Carolina Reaper and truth be told, there's precious little of it here also (they bury it in a "secret" mix of a few other peppers, so no idea the actual amount, but it's not hot enough to really have much...just enough to keep things interesting, I'd say). The bottle itself rates the sauce as "medium hot", which is probably fair. It's definitely enough to take notice, but not enough to run for the double chocolate chunk or whatever your favorite frozen dairy poison is.

The taste is curious as it does evoke thoughts of a smoothie, albeit a much spicier one than normal. That might be a bad description, actually, as it is nowhere near super sweet or anything, yet there is a very definite and pronounced fruit aspect to this. What we have here is stuff like cranberry, apple, blueberry, black cherry, pomegranate, all of which blend nicely. Flavor falls about in the middle as far as fruit-based sauces. This is a well-blended sauce, so you're not spiked with any one dominator and everything seems to play nicely together, but I've had considerably tastier fruit-sauces and, of course, much worse as well.

As with most sweeter sauces, this works well on lighter-colored meats. Truth be told, though, there's a lot I'd rather eat and this is more an intriguing sauce than an especially flavorful one. Once the novelty wears off, it will be curious to see how well it stands up, long-term.

Bottom line: This is a sauce that wouldn't be bad to have around, one that is interesting on a few levels. It's not necessary and there's no particular pointed need, but it would do well as the sauce you kind of keep around just to have a change of pace or when you want a flavor far from the norm.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 6