TRUFF (Red) Hotter Hot Sauce Review

 Truff Hotter Blend Hot Sauce

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgkSRVyai6M

I should start with the obvious, I suppose, and that is that TRUFF is marketing genius. It is never in question what you might be getting. The website is slick, with lots of eye-catching visuals, including very well-done video content. It looks more like that of a diamond importer than sauce purveyor. Indeed, that is probably intention, given the heaviness of the glass, the different shape of the bottle, and the actual diamond cut of the plastic cap. This is all very well coordinated and nicely done. They are clearly trying to leave no doubt as to the impression of something high end, which naturally extends to the price. This is one of the more expensive hot sauces you can find anywhere. There are other sauces in the line-up, including a white truffle, an Arrabbiata pasta sauce (which makes more sense to me), and a regular hot sauce

It contains black truffle, which is an expensive food item, at least partially expensive because of the rarity. Indeed, I often suspect that rich people like certain foods because of that attribute more than anything else, that exclusivity, rather than because they actually like something or because it takes better than something else. In the hot sauce world, we have a sort of pause, while people try to figure out what is going to replace the Reaper as Guinness holder for SHU, so that's some leaning into alternate ingredients, which is why stuff like black garlic is also making its way into the mix. In the case of black truffle, I think this is an exceedingly odd thing to put into a hot sauce conceptually. I've had black truffle numerous times and it really seems like one of those ingredients that's its own thing. I never had something with that in it and wished it also had heat, so this is a really curious choice. It has always, in fact, been one of those things that I can take or leave. I enjoy it when I have it, but have not and will not go out of my way for it. 

In this case, I find that overusing the sauce leads to unpleasant results. With black truffle, a little goes a very long way and they're using black truffle, olive oil infused with black truffle, and black truffle powder, so you can easily have a much stronger concentration than might be suitable. There are emulsifiers in this, so it does stay pretty uniform and consistent, with the consistency more like a commercial maple syrup, maybe slightly faster. I'm not exactly sure how you'd agitate this easily, though...it tends to stick to the sides readily and it's somewhat difficult to tell what's going on within the bottle, due to how the label is positioned. My guess is that this packaging makes it easy to waste sauce, which seems like a really weird thing for the company to do, other than it, like the oversaucing, make one need to acquire it sooner, if one was so inclined.

One of the reasons that black truffle is not something especially sought after by me is that I find it easily overpowers things. If you like the flavor, that's great, but if you're like me and somewhat ambivalent, this can lead to some regret. It won't be that way on the heat regard, as this is very moderate in the piquancy department, and the heat is sort of a general chili, without regard to any specific pepper. The heavy earthiness of this (cumin also shows up) is not always what I'm wanting. The flexibility of this is somewhat wanting, as well, kind of like that of the black garlic, which really kind of needs some sort of umami element. Here, this sauce needs a richness of flavor to complement or it will tend to be overpowering, particularly with how hard it can be to control the flow.

Bottom line: If you're a black truffle fan or just black truffle curious, this is worth a spin. I understand they have smaller bottles, so that may make more sense. Just remember that a little bit goes a long way...

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 5
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 4