Ass-Kickin’ Mini Dozen Mini-Review(s)

 Ass-Kickin’ Mini Dozen Hot Sauce(s) - Various Flavors

 UPDATE: Video Support, Part 1 (Sauce Tasting) available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmHrZOA4sps

UPDATE: Video Support, Part 2 (Sauced Wings) available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjxi6wwXOg8

Coming from Southwest Specialty, but not mentioned specifically during the actual content of either of the videos (links coming soon), we cover the entire run of the Hot Sauce Challenge Book of Pleasure & Pain novelty set, plus the Scorpion Pepper, which I suppose you could say substituted for the Original in the actual set. I did not find out about the challenge components until after the video was shot. It would someday be interesting to see if the sauces were designed to actually be good or just meant for the gimmicky challenge spinner or dice games that they do a lot of.

I do like this idea a lot, though, that of the miniature bottles, and wish other companies would follow suit. There is not really enough room in the bottle for a lot of agitation, so it won’t work with all sauces, but the idea of a nice traveler or sample size is a very appealing one, even despite their shrink packaging mostly failing (it worked appropriately on exactly 2 bottles). I started off with 13, but immediately blew out the Original, as it had Fresh Onions as a listed ingredient, which is an auto-rejection.

Since there are a lot of sauces, let’s get to the blow by blow. I will not be doing an actual rating on all of these, just a lot of tasting notes. In the case of the 2 sauces where there are full reviews, I will link to those.

Ass Kickin’ Bacon - this was a lot more fakin’ than actual bacon and was not a very good sauce overall. I wish the fascination with bacon was over, as I’ve yet to have a single sauce where I thought that component worked well. Here, it ruins the presence of the Cayenne pepper in there and was rather dreckish on the wing. It is also a fairly thick and gloppy sauce. Heat was moderate, give it a 1. I would say I never want to consume this again, but don't want to single it out, since that aversion applies to nearly all the sauces here, including this.

Ass Kickin’ Chile Lime - How various companies handle lime is always of interest to me. Used sparingly, it can be of some utility. Here, solo, it was pretty deft and an interesting sauce, the only one, in fact, I may be tempted into buying again. On the wing, it was awful, but I can’t think of any Mexican-style sauces I like in that setting. Heat is again around a 1.

Ass Kickin’ Sriracha - Very, very thick, to the point where this tiny bottle was probably a mistake. Once I got the sauce out, I discovered one of the worst things I’ve ever had in my mouth. It was also pretty far from an actual sriracha sauce. Absolutely no good at all and this one got binned in advance of the wings. Just utterly dreadful. Heat is around a 1.

Ass Kickin’ Cajun - Full review here: http://d-dubtsaaf.blogspot.com/2014/12/ass-kickin-cajun-hot-sauce-review.html

Ass Kickin’ Wasabi - A component I never expected to see in a hot sauce, given the rarity and expensiveness of the ingredient, but I should have expected a fake one, like the green toothpaste wasabi paste frequently served in sushi restaurants, particularly the low grade ones. The presence of wasabi was largely academic, though, as it did not show up in flavor profile. More or less the same as the Cajun sauce, albeit somewhat less hot, maybe a 1.

Ass Kickin’ Roasted Garlic - Very harsh and bitter, quite abrasive. Heat was probably hovering around a 1 again, but this sauce was overall vile, just not the point of excrescence, as the Sriracha was.

Habanero Hot Sauce From Hell - Full review here: http://d-dubtsaaf.blogspot.com/2013/07/habanero-hot-sauce-from-hell-review.html

Habanero Hot Sauce From Hell Devil’s Revenge - Taking a poor-tasting sauce and then spiking it with extract definitely ratchets the heat up notably, think maybe around a 4 here, but does no favors for flavor. Not great, but not nearly as bad as I was expecting, either.

Ass Kickin’ Ghost Pepper - Very pale, oddly colored sauce. I like Ghosts more and more these days, but solo, this was not a good tasting sauce, reading as mostly salty ghost carrots. On the wing, though, this was much better. All around, in that context, probably the best sauce I had. Heat is notable as well, again, probably another 4.

Ass Kickin’ Scorpion - The very flowery nature of these peppers is starting to be less and less palatable and of interest to me, I find, and here, it is quite dominating. This is easily a 5, maybe pushing 6 in the heat department. It was unpleasant solo, but overall ok on the wing.

Ass Blaster - One would not exactly expect subtlety from a sauce so named, but this was actually a lot more mellow than the Devil’s Revenge, though they both share a fairly similar profile. I think this is probably the least stepped on of the extract sauces I tried, though the flavor here left something to be desired. This one I’d also probably call a 4, though just barely.

Spontaneous Combustion - The big baddie of the lot, full of warnings and admonishments and making no secret it was chock full of extract. The flavor is exactly that, a sauce chock full of extract. Indeed, in this sauce, that ingredient component is most notable. It was also the hottest, though I think I’d put it probably around a 6.

I had hopes that this would be more of a fun experience, along the lines of the Hot Ones quarterly homages I do for FOH, but to be honest, this was a bit of an exercise in perseverance to get through. The heat was certainly significant, but it was honestly more the woeful flavors of most of these sauces that made it such a chore, particularly towards the end. That said, I would not hesitate, if I found more sample bottles from another company, but I believe this is mostly going to put the Ass Kickin’ products to bed, this now being over two dozen I’ve done of them, both with this dual FOH/TSAAF review along with all the extraneous stuff on FOH. Overall, they do better with snacks and if you’re interested in which they do somewhat well, please check out those videos (the nuts can be found in the Head to Head Battle Of The Hot Nuts videos).