Murder Hornet Honey Bourbon
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=PrlF0ChGL3w
I must admit to a certain excitement when I heard about this sauce, but honestly, I'm now thinking I should know better. Not about Murder Hornet, per se, but when I see hard liquor that far forward, so as to be in the sauce's name, I should really turn that excitement down a bit. What it seems like that's going to mean is that I'm going to be in for a raw booze hit. This is certainly not a trashy mess along the lines of what the Swampdragon (reviewed elsewhere here) was; there clearly is an attempt to make a good sauce, but the bourbon is so high forward in things that as soon as I opened the bottle and got the waft of bourbon, a smell of which I am perhaps innately familiar, I knew instantly it was going to be that hit.
It was not for lack of agitation. I shook this sauce repeatedly, but that whole oil and water thing not mixing and all. The bourbon came to the taste fore every time and I got the bite of liquor. Once that dialed down and I could get a taste of the sauce, there is some substance there, but one has to get through the shot of liquor first. I realize it's getting to be a trendy thing, to dump booze in one's hot sauce and apparently call it a day, but there's a reason that flambe' exists and that is to burn off the raw alcohol part of it, leaving the flavor behind. While not as bad as the aforementioned really bad sauce, it is largely unusable to me as an actual sauce, as I dislike the idea of liquor on my food.
So, I figured I'd take a page from a chef and try to cook off part of it. One of my favorite grilling sauces ever (CaJohn's BICH, also reviewed elsewhere here) has a bourbon component, albeit a well-executed one, and it's grilling season, so I headed out to the grill to bathe some chicken in the sauce. What I found was a much nicer sauce. There was the bourbon tones, with none of that rawness, along with a sweetness from the brown sugar, a nice touch of heat from the Habaneros (this is not a particularly hot sauce), a kiss of garlic, and a vaguely Asian attribute, which is the sesame oil. Everything else, though, was largely lost, in part because subtler flavors like honey and black garlic are going to always really struggle to compete with bourbon. It is strong enough even to override the vinegar and should have been way back in the list of ingredients or reduced down a bit prior to bottling to get some of that aspect out. So, as a grill sauce, it is mostly serviceable. As a hot sauce, not so much.
Bottom line: Another in a line of sauces with liquor as a component, but way too far forward in the flavor profile and rather raw at that. There could be a good sauce here, definitely potential, but execution here leaves a lot to be desired.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 3
Flexibility: 2
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 2
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