Z's Lemon Ghost Hot Sauce Review

Z's Zesty Lemon Ghost Pepper

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub6yOfbOU3M

I've written about it before, numerous times, but the spirit of experimentalism and adventure in food is of high value to me. This is why this sauce company is one that I will generally check out if I happen to be somewhere and see their stuff on a shelf...that and any sauce company that wins a SOTY (they did for Shield Maiden, still one of the all-time great sauces - review elsewhere here or check the SOTY TOC to the right) is well worthy of future attention.I give them major points for originality, both with this sauce, and with most of the lineup as their sauces are generally unlike anything else I've come across.

So, with this sauce, being someone who makes lemon pepper chicken fairly regularly, particularly in summer, I was thinking it might be that with the Ghost pepper taking the place of a black pepper (though for some reason I thought black pepper was an ingredient) or maybe something like a Lemonhead or lemon drop slant to the sauce, where you have that good lemon flavor but also have it tending towards more of a fruit-based sweet hot. This sauce, alas, is neither of things and is instead a sauce I cannot seem to prevent myself from defining by its absence, namely of that aforementioned black pepper. 

The flavor is very, very lemon forward and is overall quite astringent, so much so that it defies melding with things so much as contrasting them, much like when you squeeze that lemon over some seafood. In that setting, and honestly, as far as I'm concerned, only in that setting, does the sauce start to work better. I did try it, given that it's summer as I write this, on the grill and it makes a very ok grill sauce on shrimp. I still miss the black pepper, but it's better with some of that little bit of good carmelization and it starts to pick up more of the yellow bell notes, bell peppers reacting to fire in a very spectacular way, as we all know.

There are a variety of foods suggested for this, including pasta salad, which I find to be highly dubious (and no, I did not whip up a batch of pasta salad to try it, nor will I - I'm kind of particular about pasta salad), but not as dubious as I am about the idea of putting this on pizza. Would you squeeze fresh lemon on a pizza? Not unless you wanted to utterly ruined it, I would submit. Heat-wise, it does have a nice little punch from the Ghosts, though heat is clearly not the foremost consideration here. It does also lend a bit of backend bitterness, along with the garlic, as counterpoint, but I still wound up wishing this was both a lot sweeter and also had cracked black pepper.

Bottom line: The more you like overly sour foods, or lemon, the more you're apt to enjoy this sauce. For me, I can't get past the lack of black pepper and ultimately wish I was eating the sauce in my head rather than what's in the bottle here.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3