Braswell's Good And Evil Hot Sauce Review

Braswell's Good And Evil

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j6OWahwSuw

This is one of he most inexpensive sauces on the entire blog. A number of times, I get commentary from people who are interested in sauces, but find them to be overly expensive to try on the off-chance that they may like it. If they find it overly hot, for instance, it will probably go to waste whereas something like a less than preferable mac & cheese or ketchup they may just resolve never to buy again and gut through what they have. I've tried to include mass market commercial sauces for this reason, even though they're not strictly either targeting nor satisfying for the chilehead crowd. This particular sauce was on sale for slightly over a dollar.

I've not heard of Braswell's before, but evidently they've been around for quite a number of years and even if I had to pitch the sauce, it's worth a shot for a dollar and change. I very nearly did pitch the sauce and indeed, this is another perpetually on the edge of me tossing it. The neck sauce had discolored notably by the time I opened it (I can't find a expiration date on it, but I've had sauces sometimes for multiple years hanging on a shelf sealed, so not super concerned about that, at least with hot sauces), so I pitched that. The smell of this sauce is ghastly, though. It may be one of the worst smelling sauces I've come across.

When it came to taste, things got a bit confused, though. This has heavy shades of orange and reminds me a bit of fruit cake, but it is rather quickly overtaken by the massive amounts of onion and garlic powder that seem to also be here.That would explain the odor, I suppose, but the flavor itself is not particularly wonderful. It's not quite bad, either, though, it's usage is probably not going to go beyond chicken strips. I find it generally so unappetizing that I've done limited testing on it, but aside from the aforementioned strips, it has notably lowered the flavors of everything else. It both kind of needs to be by itself and have something that can meld with the savory tastes here.

I don't know what to make of this label, either. It has pirates on it and the word "Jalapeno" over the "Good" side and "Habanero" over the "Evil" side. Both the peppers are in caps, as are those two adjectives, but the peppers are using an unevenly aligned font, which looks kind of cartoonish. That is on my bottle (see pictured). On the website, it is just "GOOD and EVIL." Habanero powder and Cayenne powder, the two elements supposedly "bringing the heat" are the two very last ingredients in this, so heat is rather minimal. 

Bottom line: Somewhat of a mess of a sauce that seems firmly intent on testing my slogan about life being too short for bad sauces. It's not quite enough bad to trigger it, but it's not particularly good either.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 3
            Flexibility: 1
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 2