Hoff & Pepper Smoken Ghost Hot Sauce
Hoff is another of the newer sort of boutique hot sauce companies that has come to my attention in recent years and I've had them on the list for a while. Here, we have the company putting forth a sauce specifically into a category, everyday sauce, that has no actual meaning, or rather, a meaning that varies from user to user. Now, before anyone is prompted to write me, I am aware that everyday is meant to mean exactly that, ubiquitous daily usage in an all-purpose sense, but for some people, that will be a fruit-based sweet hot or a Louisiana-style sauce. It's very difficult to find one single sauce that works well for all cuisine styles, with Mexican and Asian distinctively flavored enough that they are nearly always the exceptions, even if a sauce has full coverage of nearly everything else.
For this, I think you probably would be fine using it on Mexican foods (definitely not on Asian), but it is also not a sauce I find enjoyable in high concentrations. Using the red Jalapeno to lend it sort of a tomatoey aspect, then dosing that with the combination of Chipotle & Habanero is both wise and wonderful, but Chipotle can be a vicious sword. Smokiness will add a degree of complexity to things, but too much, and you face down a bitter aspect. Ghosts, while one of my very favorite chiles, is a superhot and bitterness is part and parcel of the equation with those. The higher you go up the heat scale, the more bitterness tends to play into the flavor profile. Thus, using this sauce with things (and somewhat sparingly, so as not to overpower the dish), is the way to go, but leaving it solo, such as a chicken strip dipping sauce, for example, is not an application I find pleasant. While this sauce is certainly flexible, it is that part which moves it away from the "everyday" part for me.
It is a very rich sauce, medium thickness, sort of like a yellow mustard. It is mostly smooth, though there are some chile particulates in it. The Ghost lends a nice touch of heat to things, but it is mostly a pleasant warmth rather than raging fire. I mean, I can see where they were trying to go with this. Most of the "everyday" sauces out there are pretty mild, so taking the best-tasting superhot and using it to spike up a solid flavorful formulation, but for me, it is not pulled off entirely successfully.
Bottom line: Definitely a hot sauce company to watch out for, with one of the more interesting entries into this category. If you wish your everyday sauce had more punch to it, this is worth a go.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 3
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5
Overall: 6
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