Pulley's Blazing Peach
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIr06qx3a_0
I find it fascinating how brains work...or don't work at times. For instance, for quite a while, I seemingly did not make a distinction between this company, from Montana, and Culley's, a perhaps more well-known sauce company originating out of New Zealand. This is the first sauce I've had from either of them and I largely picked this up on a whim during an impromptu tide-me-over bottle grab until I do a larger buy in the near future. The rabbit hole gets a bit deep, as this sauce has inspired me to consider some of the hot sauce producing regions of the US at large and while we all expect the deep southern states, naturally, there are other less expected hotbeds, such as Vermont, Colorado, and Montana, of all places. I keep thinking I should coalesce all of the various company locations (I am aware that the sauces are often produced bulk at places outside of the actual company HQ) on a map of the US and perhaps that is a project I will one day get to...assuming some enterprising person much better at Photoshop than I doesn't beat me to it.
Anyway, this sauce jumped out at me partially due to the label. I will say that this sauce is a great example of excellent label design. Flaming peach on the front makes perfect sense for a sauce called Blazing Peach, with all the text both large and clear enough to be easily read. As someone with food intolerances, I do truly appreciate this and I wish all hot sauce companies would follow suit.
As to the sauce itself, it's a nice medium thick and very smooth blend primarily of peaches, pineapple, Scotch Bonnets, and Habanero, along with quite an array of sweeteners and spices. It is far less sweet than I would anticipate for a fruit-based sweet hot and I'm not sure I like the idea of leaning into the sour peach sort of flavoring, not the least of which peach can be a somewhat subtle flavor and it can get lost somewhat readily under the mish-mash of other stuff. This is, I think, what happened here with this one. There is a certain peach dynamic, to be sure. It's not absent entirely, but it is heavily eroded and is more tropical peach with various citrus-y notes, along with a vaguely Scotch Bonnet-Habanero flavor.
The label copy insists this sauce packs a punch, but I find it's considerably less than on the label. They give it a 6; I give it a 2, but it does have a nice enough build that I think it will test many normies. Chileheads won't be challenged by this, but I think it has the potential to be too hot for some of the more just-curious...presuming they are able to get past the sour nature of the sauce. It's not a puckering sort of sour, not bracing or offensive or anything along those lines, just a lot less sweet than a sauce of this type seems to be wanting. I did find it interesting enough to warrant further investigation into Pulley's though and have my eye on some of their other offerings.
Bottom line: Any fruit-based sweet-hot will have my attention, with some favor for those leading with peach, but the things I wanted/expected to be present are dialed a bit too far down for my suiting here.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 4
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