Angry Goat Pepper Co. Goat Rider
Note: This sauce appeared on Season 13 of The Hot Ones.
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zug2pTOI0-s
This sauce has opened up a whole host of tangents, many of them unrelated to the sauce itself. For instance, once again it brings up exactly how a given sauce is making it onto the show. Obviously, at some point, the Heatonist web store came into the picture (around Season 4 or 5, if I had to guess) and we started to see a lot less of the mass market sauces and a lot more of the sauces they could work into (at minimum) short term selling arrangement, but how were they chosen. Sean Evans has hinted at this from time to time, saying there is some sort of tasting party with himself and the show producers, but how does a company get into that ring in the first place. Are they invited and they just send what they want? Are they building sauces specifically for the show or are they using the show to launch upcoming sauces? Is there a pay to play thing at work here, beyond the Heatonist exclusivity arrangement? It's not the first time I've wondered this and part of it is because I have come across some truly dreadful sauces by pulling from the show sauce list. I've encountered some wonderful ones also, to be fair, and once I'm fully caught up, I will do a breakdown of how the sauces (and Seasons) shook out, respectively, but it sometimes defies belief that certain sauces are either chosen or put forward as wing sauces.
That's not the case specifically with this one, as I write this (check out the 2022 Q3 Wing Thing FOH video (end of September 2022) for the answer to that), but this is a sauce that makes me wonder if I will ever come across a hot sauce company wherein everything they produced I either love or like strongly. While Angry Goat is definitely one of my favorite sauce companies and I do enjoy their experimentation, this is proof-positive that even great companies are not immune from making a bad sauce...or a horrible one, in this case. I'm not as disappointed as I feel I should be, because that is the nature of experimentation, but I am still somewhat surprised this made it to bottling.
I suppose I should start here with the label, which is the most confusingly mess of a miasma to ever assault my eyes. The website says it is for the open road, by which I assume they mean to reference the motorcycle, but am now considering they possibly meant to pour the sauce directly onto the asphalt. The font and shadowing make most of it into a wretched blur and the red/white/blue color scheme with the title is confusing. There is also an American flag on the back and a headband on the goat, so maybe they're going for an Easy Rider vibe, but no, the wheels themselves are actually fire, which would be a reference to Marvel's Ghost Rider, except goat, but also there's Ghost peppers in here, so maybe still Ghost? Eh, whatever.
If there is one vinegar I dislike more than balsamic it is apple cider, the flavor of which I am convinced no one actually likes, but producers made some fiendishly clever advertising to make people think they should drink it like a normal beverage. This sauce has both vinegars in it, which makes a sort of unholy worst of both worlds situation. There are also two sugars in here, in the molasses and maple syrup, but neither is a challenge for the vinegar concoction, which is by far the dominant flavor. This is a pity as Cayenne and Ghost are an outstanding flavor combination, and adding smoked paprika to that should have been the chef's kiss. Instead, it is mostly lost here to the nonsense astringent forces at play. When I can get some of the rare not overpowering vinegary bites, the loveliness of the pepper flavor combination I mentioned is near-magical, but it is so few and far between that it may as well not exist.
Heat-wise, it is very mild. The website gives it a 5, which caused me to burst into laughter when I saw it. It's doubtful the heat level here will be particularly challenging to anyone, chilehead or not. This was in the 4 slot in Season 13, which now makes me wonder if Season 13 was a relatively tame one, aside from the ringer sauces towards the end.
Bottom line: If you like balsamic and/or apple cider vinegars a lot, what is wrong with you, but also you will probably like this sauce more than I did, as that is the majority of it. I'd put the flavor profile somewhere between vile and barely palatable and unless it is surprisingly good on wings, this will be binned after the conclusion of the aforementioned 2022 Q3 Wing Thing FOH video.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 0
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 0
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