Z's Berzerkerz Rage Hot Sauce Review

Z's Berzerkerz Rage Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_jfR4gHE20

I was oh so tempted to make this a literal one sentence review, which would read thusly: "This sauce needs to be sweeter." But then, I thought better of it, because, as every writer out there knows, why use 6 words when you can use 60 or 600. That single sentence, while true, is not sufficient to do justice to this sauce, however. I will also note that I did attempt to sweeten it myself with maple syrup, which ruined the maple syrup, but did make things sweeter, though even with the citrus knocked down a bit, the thyme still wound up somewhat as wrecking ball. 

Berries and Ghost pepper, which we have here, is usually a stunning combination. Those two ingredients go together magnificently. Unfortunately, this sauce is not really content to just leave it there and adds in elements, jarring flavor elements, such as lime, thyme, and citric acid, which tends to detract from the blackberries. It also makes the sauce quite unpleasantly sour, which is not a good combination to pair with the thyme.

For me, if you're making a sauce, particularly a fruit-based sauce, I am automatically going to assume it will be sweet. It doesn't have to be Torani syrup sweet, but I am expecting a strongly sweet element, one which is largely absent here. If a fruit's name is in the name of the sauce, this one has a subtitle of Blackberry Ghost Pepper, I am expecting the fruit element to be largely forward in the flavor profile and things, perhaps not built around it entirely, but at least based in that. Here, we have blackberry as the lead ingredient (and there are plenty of blackberry seeds and pulp to be found here), but the sauce itself is also quite runny. 

I don't find the combination of stuff in this sauce to work particularly well together in a composite (and am not certain I would like them separated, either). Part of my issue here is I don't understand what they were going for. It suggests pork, chicken, Asian dipping, cheesecake, and ice cream. I don't eat a lot of cheesecake these days, but would also not want thyme on it, if I was. The sauce was not enjoyable for me on either of the meats nor on the ice cream. As to Asian, the ginger that is here is not present enough in the flavor profile for that really to make a lot of sense. So, it's a sauce that is somewhat baffling and doesn't have a ready place.

Calling something "rage" should also indicate a fairly prominent heat profile, but the Ghost peppers here are a touch on the muted side. One can tell there is a superhot present, as what heat is there is pretty immediate, but it is a fairly low burn. Adding in the call with "berzerker" also leads one's mind to somewhere that the sauce does not quite deliver to. 

Bottom line: This sauce misses for me and misses hard and is one I find a bit lacking in identity. I appreciate the experimentalism, as always, but I don't find this one successful.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 0
            Flexibility: 0
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 1