Flavor & Fire Black Garlic Mushroom
Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of
Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over
to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection
available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH7V0Xz4IU4
It dawned on me, as I unboxed this bottle, that I had not heard of Flavor & Fire before, but also that they were responsible for the Clamlube and Madstone lines, the former of which I'd heard of for years but never quite gotten around to trying. This was largely because with that name, it struck me as more of a novelty brand. While I will and do partake of those occasionally, as a rule, my interest there is low. Those sauces often turn out to be not the main selling point, with the "cleverly" worded label or often some shot at a political figure or promotion of a state or sports team, to be the main draw. That makes them more in line with collectible memorabilia, which I generally also have exceedingly low interest in. Even after nearly 10 years of this blog and years before that as a chilehead, one can't know everything (although if anyone does, it's probably Roger), but still I kick myself a bit for not being more familiar with this company, who has a veritable cornucopia of products. I'm definitely adding them to the list of companies bearing further future investigation.
As for this sauce, when I first saw the word mushroom on it, the very first thing that came to mind was a brown gravy. Brown gravy, of course, is synonymous with things like poutine, moco loco, accompaniment for roast meats, particularly the darker variants of beef, pot roast, etc. Often garlic will be a part of that, but black garlic, one of the current trendy darling ingredients in the hot sauce world, also shows up, to add a far stronger umami punch to things. Indeed, this is really where this sauce is aimed, more than anything else. This brings us a bit to a discussion of soups, particularly ramen. Normally, this would be where I'd consider something like this best suited, as umami and ramen are a great combination. However, while this sauce is high in umami, it is not high in what I consider one of the main components of a hot sauce, which is actual chile flavor. This is a bit surprising, since the Habanero-Jalapeno puree that makes up the chili component to this is the second ingredient. Additionally, there is tamari and a touch of molasses, to add more richness and depth of flavor, but all of that moves further away from the actual chili flavor
Heat here is not really a consideration, with it listed as mild/medium, a designation I presume intended to try and cover both chileheads and non-chileheads alike. Label is indicating 2 out of 5 for heat, which is definitely far off from what I would consider correct, but the punch is definitely here. It is more of a slower, accumulated burn, as one would expect, but frankly, the read here is more like a spicier steak sauce, if I had to put it in comparison to something, rather than a hot sauce. Shiitake mushrooms are one of my favorites and they're used to great effect here in combination with the Portobello, tempering nicely the flavor of those larger ones that can often be overbearing. This is a very well crafted and frankly delicious sauce, in its somewhat narrow and limited scope, with the darker the meat the better it works. I found it somewhat jarring on chicken and the label itself suggests beef, pork, and veggie dishes as to where it will work best and I quite agree with that.
Bottom line: We don't always see a lot of hot sauces targeted specifically towards beef, so this one stands out in that regard. Thinking of it more as a steak sauce or something that would work well either as or in a brown gravy rather than as what we normally think of as a hot sauce seems more the move here.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5
Overall: 5
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