Pepper Palace Heat Hot Sauce

Pepper Palace Heat Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNN3z761t9w

I've been meaning to get to a lot more of the commercial sauces for a while now, hence why you see things like Tabascos, Private Selections, Culinary Tours, Texas Petes, etc., stuff I never really get on a regular basis, showing up in here and it's for the same reason I try to touch on some of the stuff that appears on The Hot Ones show. That reason is that it is important overall for the industry to hit some of these "names" and if someone is doing a search and comes across this blog and is thereby introduced to something better or we have another chilehead emerging, all to the good. 

Pepper Palace is a curious case in that their coverage, particularly in the primarily urban areas, or in proximity to, in the case of the one in Park City, is as close as we have to a national hot sauce storefront chain. Everything (scratch that - most everything - there are some snacks and other stuff that has different branding) in the store is branded with their line, of course, and ranges fairly far from strictly hot sauce and I thought that before the mask mandate gets dropped, it might be a place I should move up from the back burner, if I intended on doing it at all.

While there will be a sprinkling of some other sauces from them along the way, I decided to start off with a Louisiana-style. This one has the unnamed "aged red peppers," which usually means Cayenne, but could possibly be red Jalapeno as well. It could even be a blend, I suppose. I have no idea why it's not specified, but the taste reads more like Cayenne. Now, long-time readers of this blog will recall that Cayenne is one of my favorite peppers and Louisiana one of my favorite styles of sauce and the one I use the most. If I counted up all the sauce I've eaten in my life, that style would be the first by quite a lot. 

Using that as preface, I will say that this is one of the more poorly done of that style I've had. The sauce had separated in the neck somehow, very odd considering the listing of xanthan gum, and not a good portent. Nothing I love to do more than open a bottle and immediately waste sauce in a pour-off, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I poured out the offending liquid and carried on. The taste reminds me a lot of Crystal, in that it is harsh, abrasive, and unrefined, the kind that will do well in a pinch, but will not be the thing you reach for. Flavor here is decidedly not great, maybe somewhat below Crystal, even. Heat-wise, despite having heat in the name, this registers as near non-existent, but, again, somewhat typical for that style, as is the runniness. Restrictor is molded into the bottle mouth.

Bottom line: My first-ever product from this company was a major whiff, in a sauce style that's relatively easy to at least be passable. This one I will probably shoot a video for, but it's unlikely I will finish out the bottle.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 1
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 1