Best Hot Sauce 2023 + Recap

Best Hot Sauce 2023  + Recap

I guess the biggest news here in our little chilehead space was on October 16, 2023, when Smokin’ Ed Currie became once again responsible for a World Record in hottest pepper, this time with Pepper X dethroning the mighty Reaper and by a pretty solid margin to boot. I’ve said for quite some time I thought we were about due for another World’s Hottest title holder and this news wasn’t overly surprising. I have found the various products where I’ve run into Pepper X to be overall pretty positive and I’m looking forward to it being used in more future sauces for sure. Also, this makes Smokin’ Ed Currie a back to back winner of the hottest pepper crown, which is, in itself, no small achievement. Once again (I also posted to the YT Community section on the day this was announced), a hearty congratulations to Smokin’ Ed!

I don’t really get into personalities too much on this blog or in the FOH video series, but I’ve seen a few videos commenting on Ed himself and how he’s apparently some kind of “polarizing” figure. While I’ve watched a number of his videos and found much to agree with, as well as some things to strongly disagree with, my direct interactions with him have been brief, mainly running into him at one of the Fiery Fests, wherein he was quite cordial and graceful. It has long been a sort of back-burner pipe dream of mine to make a pilgrimage to Fort Mill, specifically because of his headquarters there, but I am far from an important enough figure for that to just happen. To be frank, even if I was, circumstances currently are not exactly what I’d call permitting, but a boy can dream and maybe one day... For what it’s worth, my impression of Ed is that he’s a genuinely good person, generous, the kind anyone would be inordinately fortunate to call friend.

As to the bagging of Guinness because it’s now a marketing company...I don’t know that it ever changed. They always wanted to sell sensationalist type books and would sometimes appear on tv shows (I think they had their own for a while), back when what they were doing was fairly rare and more or less specific to them. They devised the system tracking and testing, which, in the case of the more “prestigious,” for lack of a better term, awards, involves a quite extended paper trail, which takes a certain amount of infrastructure, and promoted what is often largely meaningless data, an endless stream of points of curiousity. That, of course, was all pre-internet and now the world has largely moved beyond.

Like most other business forced to adapt to changing times, they are pivoting to keep the brand intact as long as they can, as, truth be told, their days are probably numbered. They are not an official governmental entity or anything, just what they always were...a private company collecting and warehousing points of human interest. If their branding is still to remain meaningful, it has to have some accompanying price tag to it or there is no value. My son, for instance, who would have loved the books as I did when I was younger, largely has no idea what Guinness is (aside from a beer his father sometimes drinks and yes, the two companies have ties) or any respective worth attached to the name, as he has never lived in a time when access to information, even information about goofy subjects, maybe even especially information about goofy subjects, wasn’t immediately available at his fingertips. That Guinness Records has been able to sustain themselves at any level, particularly one where the records they keep still have value to people, is nothing short of a marvel.

There is nothing preventing any other grower who feels their pod is hotter than Pepper X to pony up for the lab tests and go through the same steps and methodology Ed did in order for Pepper X to dethrone the mighty Carolina Reaper. Sure, it’s thousands of dollars to do that, but there’s nothing stopping them from doing it. I think there may be a larger discussion (which I won’t be attempting here) about perceived “heat” vs. HLPC readings, with the Scoville scale itself being a more famous version of the highly subjective former of those two “tests” and the HLPC being the actual analytical one. With tolerance being highly variable, it would be interesting to test various chileheads to see how close they could estimate SHU to actual testing.  

Finally, this brings us to the point about persons being disappointed that Ed is not letting Pepper X go into the wild, as what happened with the Carolina Reaper, I - hugely speculating here - am guessing this may be because of either an exclusivity contract (and accompanying NDA) with First We Feast and/or Heatonist, two companies he and his peppers have been strongly associated with, an association which has undoubtedly made him piles of money. Or, it’s possibly because he didn’t like what happened with the Reaper when that got released, either with a lot of people making money off a pepper it took him a long time to cultivate without him also benefitting, maybe up to taking a Reaper plant and using it to make their own strain competing with the Reaper. I think he alluded to another reason on one of the streams that I didn’t quite catch which is maybe related. Regardless, I get people are disappointed and it’s totally valid they dislike Ed’s choice, but I don’t see this as any kind of rationalization to attack or so much as question the character of the man or his integrity. For my part, I’m certainly well content to just enjoy the sauces utilizing the Pepper X.

It was not all rainbows and kittens for 2023, though. I think the chile surge, the huge spicy wave that was bringing us tons of hot goodies over the last couple years, is ebbing. There is still stuff coming out in that vein, but a lot of it is difficult to impossible to actually locate. Case in point, the Sour Patch Ghost candies. I didn’t find out about them, at all, until 10/22, when Brand Eating, one of my main sources for upcoming stuff, posted a little blurb, but here’s the fun part. The candies were only available to get via the Sour Patch website. Fine, all well and good, kind of silly to wall the product that way, but maybe it’s a limited run or whatever. So, I go there and it’s 7 - 10 days to process the orders, not to get the candy, but merely to process the order. I would have loved to have done those on camera for the FOH video series, but that means 14 - 21 days to get it, which would have put it well after Halloween. I’m just a microYouTube channel, merrily making content I think is fun, but definitely no money from it, and so the candy was definitely out of reach for yours truly, given I’d have to pay for expedited shipping, etc. to make the operative time frame. Banza also did the same fucking thing with their crossover bullshit pizza with Tabasco, which I find utterly hilarious considering the Tabasco sauces used on this are both sitting on grocery store shelves, as well as probably everything else on the pizza.

I get it; it takes time to R & D stuff, to put it into production at all, but if you’re intentionally knee-capping it on release, what’s the point? Take, for example, the Hot Ones tie-in stuff. Their most recent foray was into Hot Pockets. The tamer two (I did FOH content for both) went to retail and you have to use a specific delivery service for the actual interesting one that paired with The Last Dab Apollo. Again, small channel, I only work at home some days, so trying to get delivered whatever that one is/was is right out of the question. But, here’s the kicker. They’re making that product for me, me and other chileheads on that level, and putting them out of our grasp on release seems foolish, incredibly, massively stupid. They are not going to drive sales to a delivery service. Indeed not. They are just going to be added to list of crap I wouldn’t mind doing someday, but not to the extent I’m willing to spend a bunch of time and money chasing down.

There are other guilty parties, such as Jack In The Box, who came out with their Monster Tacos, including a spicy version, which would have been great, again, for October and Halloween, but it never hit any stores near me...at all. Ordeals like that are part and parcel of what is not often spoken about, except by me, when being a chilehead. It is, I suppose, on one level further fodder for a series I continue to kick around in my head for potential FOH video essays about the overall chilehead experience.

Anyway, let us now get to the blog. For this year, overall posting was down from last year, but by the end of Q3, 2023 was the #2 spot of all the years. I knew I would probably not make 95 posts, as I did last year...at least I was thinking not to do that...right before January 2023 beat the previous highest posting month, which itself was in 2022. I thought that 95 number was a bit much, but figured posts would be somewhere in the 60 - 75 vicinity. As it turned out, I wound up with 84 for this year, including this one. I think right around 70 somewhere is a pretty good amount, but this blog has always just kind of been “take it as it comes” and that will not be changing, so who knows where 2024 will wind up. 84 is not, I don’t think, too unreasonable. 2023 was also, by far, the biggest year in terms of views, thanks to an influx of what seemed to be overseas visitors. Welcome all!

I also did my first ever triple review, as well as a few doubles, and even some Mini-Reviews, so the amount of coverage for sauces was still pretty high, even if the overall post count was down. Also, we will roll past 500 total posts for the blog in 2024 sometime, probably January. Shortly after that, the blog will hit 500 sauces, cumulative, across both lists. You can see the specific breakdown further along in this post.

For the FOH video series, I also had the biggest year to date, after coming close repeatedly in months prior,  finally breaking 1,000 views for a month (December 2023), then 2,000, then 3,000, then 4,000, then 5,000, then 6,000, landing at over 7,000. Also breaking was view count for a single video of 1K, 2K, 3K, then 4K, 5K, and still rising as I post this, which was the Hot Ones x Hot Pockets Spicy Garlic Chicken Bacon Review. Given that this video was posted in December 2023, that was definitely the biggest driver of that surge.  

Speaking of breaking stuff, I once again managed to break a tooth in the spring of this year, different one this time from last year, for the 2nd year in a row, which caused me no shortage of agony, particularly with the high SHU sauces, which is kind of interesting. Capsaicin in open wounds is evidently not particularly useful...it started to get really bothersome in late May/early June, hence the slowdown for the blog during that time. I also had a number of other struggles, which I won’t relay here, but which contributed somewhat to a sense of burnout, although, as I’ve alluded, I started to feel like things were getting a bit out of control (at least on the FOH side) and I wanted to dial things down to get a better handle on content.

I have a pretty substantial catalog of both blog posts and videos, so there’s quite a lot to read and watch. YouTube, I think, at least for the part I’m in, tends to be very topical and having so much content filmed in advance was cutting down on a flexibility I wanted. Even though the channel is far from a top one in terms of viewership, that sort of internal frustration and stress definitely cut a lot of the fun from it and as this is something I really want to keep doing, I needed to find a happier medium. Also, again, as noted in Q3, for another year, I got to very few of the video ideas I had in mind from earlier years. I did not really manage to reach the desired FOH posting within 8 weeks after posting a written blog review, with sauces other than Hot Ones show entries...so that is going to be at the fore for 2024. Once again, I’m rather flush with videos in the can, so for the early part of 2024, we will be going back to regularly posting hot sauce videos on Saturdays as well as Sundays, at least for the early part of Q1 2024. Stay tuned to the YouTube Community section to keep tabs on posting schedule changes, if interested.

The initial idea with the FOH series was mainly to add video accompaniment to the written hot sauce reviews here, with non-sauce content just on the side, an idea which it nearly immediately skewed away from. This is partially because I greatly underestimated how many non-sauce spicy things were available, as well as the commercial resurgence of spicy food offerings. As I’ve noted before, YouTube viewer interest seems entirely dependent on the product, the subject of the video as it were. The fact is that non-sauce content draws far, far better than sauces generally. Of the top 10 FOH videos, only 1 is for a sauce, which speaks pretty well to viewer interest across 4+ years and 600+ videos.  The blog (and by nature, the FOH support videos) have always been more a labor of love than anything, so getting back to that sense of things seems to be the good move here and hopefully the new influx of viewers follows.

I do want to mention that in addition to the FOH videos, there is a fair number of posts on the YT Community tab for my page, many of them pictures of various things I’ve made with the different products in the FOH video series or just random posts, where I can engage with things in a more timely fashion than quarterly blog updates. I invite you all to check into those, if you’re interested and want to see more content. While FOH video posting is regularly scheduled, the blog posts, aside from the quarterly updates, is restricted entirely to sauce talk when I get around to writing reviews and the YT Community posts I use to try to cover any ground I may have missed...and post pics.

For 2024, I was planning to produce less non-sauce video content. For months, I had the sentence written here that I was going to actually do that, but I generally work on this post at random times throughout the year (yes, I know it is still meandering quite a lot - I have limits to how much editing I can do and still keep the general, informal, off-the-cuff tone that the vast majority of the other posts also have) and by the start of December 2023, it was pretty clear that if I let that wording stand, I’d be a liar. I have enough right now to keep the regular schedule of posting non-sauce FOH content on Wednesdays (not counting special event stuff) well through Q3, probably longer, and a bunch of other cool things I’ve found that I haven’t also done yet, and maybe after all that will have to revisit things.

Maybe this will finally be the year I screw around with challenges, other than the ones I’ve already done. I originally had the parenthetical “probably not” following the preceding sentence in one of the earlier drafts of this post you’re reading now, but I actually found a few I’m at least moderately interested in doing, and have 3 or 4 of them at hand now, 2 of which I have shot vidoeos for already (stay tuned for which they are), so I guess the answer for challenges is yes, but to a somewhat limited extent. I definitely need to ramp up tolerance before tackling the remaining ones, though. I imagine I’ll probably create a Challenges playlist at some point, which I’ve been kicking around for some time.

Back to the dialing back thing for a second, doing so would also enable me to return to at least one of the things I had in mind from a couple years back, but new stuff always excites me and I can’t seem to help myself.  I hope that sense of fun translates to the videos. It seems like it does when I go through and edit them and that is something I really want to get across to the viewers, that this whole food explorer adventurism is really, truly, a blast. I do have one significant change I’ve made (that no one seems to have yet noticed, which is what I wanted) that I’m continuing to fine tune and another, larger one I hope to make, at some point next year, and the more my main laptop acts like a craptop, the closer that gets. Everything I have in the can basically needs to be posted (or at least that’s the operating idea) prior (maybe) to bringing that online, so I will need to accommodate that as well.

The reaction videos, while a bit time intensive, are also kind of fun, so I’ll probably do a few more of those in 2024, but unless they perform better, that might be the last year for those. I do have some other fun stuff, such as maybe doing more shorts, on the back burner for 2024, and am looking forward to at least attempting some of those long-backburnered ideas.

Though it’s been far from the priority, I’m also closing in on finishing the hot sauce archives project, in which I go back and revisit via FOH videos certain sauces from the blog from back before the FOH content existed. I don’t really have anything specific in mind for that and am not doing any particular planning for it, so I think it’s going to be more or a less a thing that creeps up and I find I no longer have any sauces not covered that I want to do kind of deal.

Let’s turn now to The Hot Ones sauce coverage project. There are 22 sauces total, current through Season 22, of sauces I have left to get, with a few entries not in stock. I didn’t buy the Last Dab Reaper when it was kicking around before Black Friday and it deleted it from my cart, so I guess that’s gone again. Also, cannot find the Dingo Widowmaker anywhere, so I’m guessing that one is done as well. If both remain unavailable when I re-update the Hot Ones list in Q2 of 2024, I will just eliminate them from my remaining list entirely.

There may also be others by then, which will rather tidily speed things getting current up to whatever the running season is. I’m not there now, though, so once again, here is the priority order for the remaining sauces, updated to reflect what’s left:

    1) Sauces I’m interested in, that I have not done a written full review on, that I can get via one of the Burn Your Tongue locations.
    2) Sauces I’m interested in, that I have not done a written full review on, that I can get reasonably easily online (probably during a Black Friday sale). 
    3) Torchbearer Zombie Apocalypse (maybe I’ll luck out and find a mini-bottle of this somewhere. On the other hand, maybe I’m being unduly harsh. While I don’t remember the sauce fondly, at all, it has been quite a while since I had it...)
    4) Sauces I have done a written mini-review on. This honestly is somewhat unlikely to happen and I keep debating whether or not to delete it from this priority list entirely. I suppose if there is enough of a clamor, I might...maybe. However, if there is not more of a clamor by the update to this in Q2 2024, I’m going to also delete this from consideration then. I dislike the idea of moving from a mini-review into a full one, but I am at least toying with the idea of getting all of them from the earlier seasons that I’ve only done a mini-review on and then doing a Wing Thing video of just those (I think there are 9 total), but then I’d have to re-buy the Hot Ones Classic and The Last Dab Apollo and I’m not so keen on doing that, either. Stay tuned, I guess.

The seasons with sauces outstanding are:

Season 5 - 1 remaining
Season 9 - 1 remaining
Season 10 - 1 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 11 - 2 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 12 - 3 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 13 - 1 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 18 - 1 remaining
Season 19 - 3 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 20 - 4 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 21 - 4 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 22 - 7 remaining (2 at hand)

These are the sauces remaining, by slot position on the show:

#1 - 2 remaining (1 at hand)
#2 - 1 remaining (1 at hand)
#3 - 2 remaining (2 at hand)
#4 - fully covered
#5 - 2 remaining
#6 - 2 remaining (1 at hand)
#7 - 6 remaining (3 at hand)
#8 - fully covered
#9 - 4 remaining
#10 - 3 remaining (1 at hand)

We will get into the SOTY discussion more, but first, as we usually do, some stats for the blog. I’m changing the format a bit this year, because Google seems to not want to update and keep live-time stats the way they used to formerly and I'm doing this post a bit earlier than I have in years past:

Total posts (including this post): 494
Total views (as of this writing): ~61.6K
Total sauces full reviewed: 434
Total full review sauces with FOH video content: 307
Average rating, all full review sauces: 4.62
Total mini-sauce reviews: 51
Total sauces reviewed, combined: 485
Highest viewed individual blog review: ~1.8K - Private Selection Mango Scotch Bonnet

A couple notes here...the full review sauces with FOH content is a lot closer than the numbers here suggest, as I’m using the videos that are actually live, as in can be clicked to and watched. There are quite a few posted and scheduled, but not yet live, that bring that number up a bit...I might call the archive project, which I mentioned briefly earlier in this post, over once I get the numbers within 100 or so of each other. There are quite a few, like Wicked Cactus, long gone now, that it will be quite impossible for me to have in a video.

This brings us to the SOTY deliberations for this year. Since an overall score of 10 is, by design, virtually impossible for any sauce to achieve, a 9 is usually as high as these go. Even that is pretty rarified air and much more common, though still rare, is an overall rating of 8. The list of 8s in 2023 was pretty considerable. We had the Canal Street Louisiana Crude, the surprising Retsuko Rage, Puckerbutt’s Chipotle Express, easily the hottest entry to date, and the out-of-nowhere surprise of Prescribed Burn’s High Pulp sauce..

While I enjoyed all of them immensely, since it was posted in February, the Retsuko Rage consistently was an absolute blast out of the gate and then rather handily sustained its momentum. It was initially the runaway leader for SOTY and never really in any danger of slipping from the top spot. Not only was I thrilled that the sauce lived up to the coolness of its namesake in a licensed vanity sauce, not only did it feature my favorite superhot, the venerable Ghostie, which offset the stupid apple cider vinegar in it, not only was it consistently delicious each and every time I used it, but I got 8 ounces for $3, making this easily the greatest value of any sauce I’ve had, ever. I still have the bottle, staring at me from across the room in its display in my office as I type this, which also marks the first hot sauce bottle I’ve ever kept.

Truly, it was a spectacular sauce and I found myself repeatedly marveling that it was better than I remembered when I enjoyed it over the 6 months or so it took me to finish it. I seriously wish I knew who the actual sauce maker was, as, with all SOTY winners, I would like to revisit it (and also see if they could make it sans apple cider vinegar, to more perfect an already highly impressive entry). Our 13th winner of the Sauce Of The Year, for 2023, goes to Retsuko Rage.

One of my habits with things I really enjoy is hold off on the ending, slow-walk consuming whatever it is, trying to extend the savor and my delight and this applies to books or tv shows or video games or here, with the 2023 SOTY, very limited run hot sauces. I suspect it has some psychological underpinnings, but obviously there were a number of other sauces I wanted to get to in the meantime as well, but that delay I just mentioned was definitely a huge factor, just as it was with this next sauce.

My personal favorite overall sauce of the year, the Angry Goat Heatonist No. 7, didn’t score high enough to be in deliberation, though I’m singling it out because it is a fantastic, truly special sauce. So, while I don’t really go in for Honorable Mentions too much, I’m going to make an exception for that utterly incredible sauce, which I was quite sad to see go.

Previous TSAAF Sauce Of The Year winners (links to reviews in SOTY Table Of Contents link to the right):

2012: CaJohn’s Happy Beaver
2013: Blair’s Pure Death
2014: Born To Hula’s Ghost Of Ancho
2015: Voodoo Chile’s Voo Dew Honey Doo
2016: Pirate O’s Surface Of The Sun Hot Sauce
2017: Z’s Shield Maiden Hot Sauce
2018: Taco Jesus Cayenne Pepper Sauce
2019: Torchbearer Ultimate Annihilation
2020: Mikey V’s Sweet Ghost Pepper
2021: Gindo’s Original
2022: Hellfire Hellboy Legendary AF

If you want to read more from me, check out the YouTube Community page, which also contains a number of photos of different food things, as well as brief little notes to span the gap between the quarterly postings here.  

I also have another blog, where I type about wine, the Happy Sippin’ Companion (HSC). It has been put on inactive status as of 2019, with no plans to resurrect it, but still remains up for viewing (link also on right).

I also still slug away on Yelp, which you can click to from my widget. I’m finally resuming posts from my earlier layoff, but it’s still way off the pace from pre-pandy years. My distribution of ratings and further metrics are available on my Yelp profile page....I think. Maybe.

As always, I appreciate you dropping by. If there are any spicy products or sauces you’d like to see me get to or any video ideas you may have, please drop me a line in the comment section of any of the reviews or videos.

Silk City Misery Loves Company Hot Sauce Review

Silk City Misery Loves Company 

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

The full name of this appears to be Misery Loves Company Lone Wolf Hot Sauce...I think, and it's another tie-in sauce, this time with a podcast...I think. Maybe. I find the naming convention of this sauce honestly a bit odd because the last thing it is, in any way, is miserable. Indeed, this is yet another stunner from one of the most creative minds out there in the hot sauce world. 

Here we have a sauce that utilizes figs, fire-roasted peppers, and balsamic, all to gorgeous effect. It's a sauce that is at once sweet, just has a depth of flavor and body to it that speaks of excellence in design. Playing with figs can be challenging, both because of their innate hyper-sweetness, but also because they tend to make things on the thicker side when used. Happily, here we have a nice medium thick sauce that is what I would put as ideal for that ingredient. The Habaneros add a bit more body, a bit of bitter, and are the main heat driver, though this is not a particularly blazing entry.

If you're a chilehead who likes figs and absolutely I'm among that number, this is a stellar sauce to behold, particularly if you also like fire-roasted peppers, which I also do. Obviously, this is going to pair well with cheese and crackers, but it would be also on some Arabian foods and is a dream on the lighter meats, not counting fish. I think it could work on calamari or shrimp, but I didn't particularly find it a success on fish and I found it a bit overly sweet for what I want on a burger. I am considering it on some ham, but haven't hit on how I want to use it there just yet, but that does call to mind that this a very fun and lively sauce and a pleasure to experiment with and even if it misses (case in point, I found it more interesting than good on pizza, but it was still loads of fun to try), the deliciousness of this sauce still carries through and saves it from being inedible. With some of the best value for dollar out there, it's pretty hard to miss with this one.

Bottom line: Jeff Levine comes up with some absolute wonders of sauces and this is among them. Definitely better if you like your sauces on the sweeter side, but the lower heat should keep this pretty accessible to the chilehead-curious.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Sauce Leopard The Sky Rider Hot Sauce Review

Sauce Leopard The Sky Rider

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

I love the name of this sauce company, like love-love it. It's probably my favorite sauce company name, if I'm being honest. The sauce names are wonderful. The labels are great, very nice level stripe between the label ends, outstanding graphics, very legible, like it's right near the very top as far as that stuff goes. With all this adoration of mine, it's saddened me a bit that I've found it hard to find a sauce from them that's really lived up to this. I enjoyed the Bird Blood (reviewed elsewhere here), but it wasn't a resounding triumph or anything. A lot of the sauces have onions, which precludes them, another has bananas, which I will probably get to at some point, but am not enthusiastic about as an ingredient generally. I sort of stumbled on this one by accident, but oh what a happy accident it's turned out to have been.

What we have here is a masterstroke of brilliance, combining the heat and flavor of Ghosties with carrots, tomatoes, and Jalapenos, along with a very intriguing sauce blend. I keep getting elements here and there that are delicious but that I can't quite put my finger on. All of this is very nicely balanced by a healthy dose of sweetness, but not so much that it's an actual sweet-hot sauce. This sauce, indeed, might just be the ultimate tightrope act, waking a line between earthy and fragrant, bitter and sweet, all while staying fairly accessible on the heat scale. I'd call it more appropriately a 1.5, but we don't do that here, and it's just not quite hot enough for me to give the push. This is definitely a way that normies can experience some superhot characteristics in a relatively tame setting.

I found I liked it best on lighter meats, so basically any of the birds you might enjoy, fish, and pork, as well as it making pizza pretty interesting. I did try it on Mexican food and while it's something I might use in a pinch, I find that sweeter sauces are not to my preference on that food type. It wasn't bad, but also wasn't something I think I'd be reaching for first. It's one that I have had a great time playing around with, while marveling at what a unique and flavorful creation it is. 

Bottom line: One of the more unique, and equally tasty, sauces I've come across in a while and happily one that approaches the promise implied by the creativity of the names. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Ginger Goat Peaches N Scream Hot Sauce Review

Ginger Goat Peaches N Scream

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uR0vApe-nU

I've seen these on the hallowed shelves of BYT for quite some time and have taken a gander at them a time or two, but nothing ever quite clicked for me to actually get a bottle. Either the ingredients didn't strike me as enticing at the time or had onions, but for whatever reason, despite them having a readily recognizable logo (though they need to get rid of the light orange bar behind the sauce names), I just made a note of them for some time in the future and found other stuff more exciting. 

For a lot of this year, my "hit" list, that is the running list of the sauces that I want to try, has been running way shorter than normal, which turns out a great problem to have as I could finally get to a number of those backbenchers. And happily, as with a few other sauces this year, I've found an absolute delight I didn't know I was missing, with this, my introductory sauce to Ginger Goat and, as they say, an absolute banger right out of the gate.

Truth be told, I think part of my interest in this particular sauce over other entries in their lineup was due to the fact that it had peaches in the name and one of my further back-of-the-brain ideas for the blog was to try to have coverage on every peach hot sauce I could manage that didn't have any banned or undesirable ingredients. Interestingly enough, this particular sauce, despite having peaches as the first ingredient, has very minimal peach flavor and when it does show up, it's more of a grace note. This is definitely more of a sauce in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

A lot of the lighter and brighter elements come more to the fore. Fresh ginger is definitely strong on the nose of this sauce, though not so much in the flavor. Carrots give it body, but don't come across as a dominant flavor, either. The apple cider vinegar and maple syrup are represented more generally in terms of astringency and sweetness. I'm not familiar enough with Chocolate Scorpions to comment too much on where they play in to the flavor, other than to note that, thankfully, there is little to no floral aspect to this sauce. This one is definitely edging more into chilehead only territory, but isn't quite there, to my mind.

Instead, what we have here is a fairly delicate balance of many things at once, all in this rather rich depth and creaminess provided by the olive oil. Basil is definitely one factor, but there are a few other spice elements here as well, beyond the aforementioned (or the garlic, yet another listed component). I'm guessing possibly a curry and maybe a cumin, as well as probably a few others I can't quite pick out. As with most sauces that have oils in them, the flavor changes a bit as you work through the bottle, but it has never been anything less than a delight. 

This is a sauce that does extremely well in non-rich settings, so the lighter meats, as a salad dressing, over rice as well. I had quite a lovely time using this on some shawarma, which is where I think it does exceedingly well. It's fine on chicken strips also, but, again thanks to the oil, this sauce is much better warmed slightly than cold, so if you can put it in that setting, it definitely comes across much better.

Bottom line: Very impressive introduction to me for Ginger Goat and this sauce is nothing short of a marvel, though, I daresay the more food adventurous you are, the better for this one.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Hellfire Devil's Blend Bourbon Chipotle Hot Sauce Review

Hellfire Devil's Blend Bourbon Chipotle

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcmRcH6INT4

I don't now remember exactly when I started the Hot Ones project, in which I started sailing through as many sauces as was on that show as possible, but Hellfire had a sauce in Season 14, which was early 2021 and it was one of the Devil's Blends. That particular one had onions, but I noted there were others in the Devil's Blend line, including this, which did not have onions. I started looking for this as soon as I was aware of it, so probably pushing 2 years, at this point, and, like the Full Shred from Hellfire (reviewed elsewhere here), it proved a bit difficult to come by, in terms of fitting into my normal hot sauce purchasing. 

I don't know recall how I came across it, but it wasn't in time for grill season, which is a pity, as this is yet another of those sauces that will probably work fantastically in that setting (and fear not, as I will be keeping what is left of the bottle, post FOH video, to try there next year). As it is, we have what is essentially a very Chipotle-forward sauce, with a little burst of heat from the Habaneros, but a fairly heavy smokiness to it. While there are a lot of fruits in there as well, I find they contribute more to a certain chunkiness and add more in bits to mouth feel rather than the sweetness I would anticipate from a barbeque or grill sauce, the former of which this somewhat resembles. We have oranges, mangoes, papaya, and peaches, but none of those read particularly forcefully. Neither does the vanilla or the wide array of other spices in there, as it is all subsumed  under the heavier mask of the smoked peppers.

What does read through a bit is some astringency from the garlic and more than a touch of rawness from the bourbon. While it is somewhat less so than in a number of other sauces I've had, it is still present enough to be a bit of a distraction. This sauce is somewhat better warmer than colder and I've played around with trying to concentrate it a bit using the air fryer, which works much better than even I had anticipated. Overall, I do think it balances the line between being a barbeque and hot sauce quite nicely, but ultimately, this seems to be much better if you can find a way to smooth off that rawness from the bourbon, which using it as a grill sauce should do well. The rating is, as usual, as an actual hot sauce, though flavor in particular, goes up somewhat under the conditions I mentioned.

Bottom line: Very solid and accessible sauce, for those who don't want to go too hot and prefer their hot sauces to tend more towards being a barbeque sauce.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 4

MSRF Ho Ho Hot Sauce Mini-Review

MSRF Ho Ho Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eNOjiwbze8

Another in the jingly jangly Xmas-y holiday themed novelty stuff on the aisles of Wal-Mart. This one wasn't on the shelf when I picked up the other two and I didn't expect to be back again this year, but I saw this goodie on the shelf and couldn't resist, since it was different from the others. The main difference, aside from the cutesy packaging and the idea of it being a Xmas tree ornament, is the presence of Habanero. Oddly enough, this makes almost no impact in terms of flavor, though it is notably hotter than the Don't Be Chicken hot sauce (reviewed elsewhere here). If I was rating it like sauces with a full review, I'd probably give it a 1 for heat. All in all, this is a pretty solid, more or less middle of the road Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce, with some slight heat from the Habaneros and an ok value for $3 at retail, depending on how much you like the packaging. Definitely one to keep an eye for at those post-Xmas Day clearance sales.

MSRF Don't Be Chicken Hot Sauce Review

MSRF Don't Be Chicken

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xlGUZoLbaY

Usually, I like to peruse the post-Xmas aisles at Wal-Mart because there can be some great deals found, as they generally want to move all of the holiday-related novelty crap out the door in time to reset to the newer holiday-related novelty crap forthcoming. Every year, I inevitably find myself in one of those stores for something or other (in one trip, this most recent one, I found material for three FOH videos, this one being the third of those, so you never know), and I will go wander by to see what they have, regardless of holiday. It's one of the perks and perhaps perils of being a food explorer. 

Anyway, sometimes you can find great deals and sometimes the price will be acceptable to try sets you are not expecting to be great, but wouldn't bother with at full retail and it's just a great load of fun to whip through them, but this year, I happened across a couple that caught my eye and weren't too egregiously priced. One of the them was the, also from MSRF, Beer-Flavored Hot Sauce trio, for which I did a mini-review (elsewhere on this blog) and this, which was an entire bottle of a single sauce and I felt needed the full review treatment.

Oddly, on the website, it lists this as both "Hot" and "Habanero," and the first is definitely not an accurate adjective and the second is at least possible, but also strikes me as extremely unlikely, given neither the flavor nor the heat of that pepper is especially present. While it does not specify the exact pepper on the label, it does call it "Aged Red Peppers," which almost always means Cayenne and flavor-wise, this is more strongly Cayenne than anything else. There is a delicate, lilting hint of garlic, so it's not a straight Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce, but more a Cajun, but the kiss of garlic is so light, it doesn't really play much into things, so, for intents and purposes, I consider it a Cayenne sauce.

It is a very solid representation of the style, all the way down to being mostly vinegar forward, though it also does have a smoothness more representative of something like a Frank's. If anything, this is a better-tasting version of that specific sauce. There is little to no heat to be found here and it works well in all of the usual places you would use a Louisiana-style sauce, from creamier sauce dishes to fried foods, to essentially any food leaning on the more rich side of things. At $5 retail, it's not a great deal, despite coming in a surprisingly higher detail glass/plastic/metal collectible bottle, but if you can find any of this at clearance, where it goes 50% to 70% on those post-Xmas sales, grab as many as you can. I know I will be. 

Bottom line: Very tasty sauce representative of the vinegar-forward Louisiana-style Cayenne, with no real heat to speak of, and a smoothness that makes it notably less abrasive than others in that style.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 6

MSRF Beer-Flavored Hot Sauce 3-Pack Mini Review

MSRF Beer-Flavored Hot Sauce(s) 3-Pack 

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8j45pJrPSc

For this year, I've decided, basically on a spur of the moment thing as I randomly found myself in Wal-Mart one day during when they had the holiday novelty kitschy junk out, to do some reviews (or, in this case, a mini-review) of some of the sets or whatever else I might come across before it goes to clearance. Crazy, I know, but some of the other sets I've done in years past I saw repeated and so I set a dollar cap mostly based on my perceived value (so sets that are $15 retail right now obviously won't be showing up) and dug around a bit. This is one of the first things I came across and long-time readers will probably suspect I've taken leave of my senses. While that is, in all honestly, probably always up for debate, here, despite not having a lot of sauces I generally like any alcoholic drinks added to, this one struck me as maybe fun and so I went with it.

There are 3 sauces here, in nifty 2 ounce bottles, and this is more a variation on a theme than 3 separate sauces. The base sauce is the same and is a straightforward Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce, one of my favorites (and hence why I thought this set might just work out, since that is a style I always keep on hand). The sauces are ostensibly adding the flavor (but probably not the actual beer) of Pilsner (probably American style), India Pale Ale (IPA), and Stout. Given that the base is a sauce not always intended to be high heat, these sauces are pretty tame, as in very low to no heat at all. 

So, essentially all that's left to talk about is the flavoring differences, since everything else, heat, flexibility, value, are identical. Without getting into too intense of a discussion about the different beer types, I will say that Stout is definitely not represented here accurately, if at all. I'll get into that more, but the Pilsner does retain some characteristics of the beer, though they are pretty subtle, while the IPA is kind of the oddball of the group, not really coming across as an IPA flavor, but rather some strange other thing. Of those, the Stout I found the most interesting, because it reminded me a lot of one of my first successful beers when I started home-brewing, which was a lovely Amber (if you want an idea of how that went, go find some London Pride). The Pilsner is closest to a straightforward Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce, with just hints of beer flavor, while the IPA is a lot more lively and has a touch of bite to it. The flavor there doesn't work as well as the other 2, though I can't say I find any of these to be in line for binning. There is also some strange text on the packaging, about using within 4 weeks after being opened, the reason for which I can't quite fathom. 

Bottom line: If you don't like vinegar-forward sauces, this is not for you. I'm guessing they used extractives for the flavor and it seems quite unlikely there is any actual beer to be found here, for better or worse. If a Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce is among your favorites, as it is with me, this set can be a nice bit of fun and worth at least a look, but truth be told, I wouldn't pay full price again and would definitely wait for clearance.

Merf's Fool's Paradise Hot Sauce Review

Merf's Fool's Paradise

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSKzCGttwq4

I picked this up initially to be a pizza sauce. My idea when I was looking about was for something along the lines of pineapple Habanero, if possible, one I hadn't had, but just a classic sauce, more or less, that I've had on pizza many, many times and loved. That wasn't in the cards for my trip, but I had this on the list after the other two sauces Roger bumped to me and I reviewed this year (see TOC). It wasn't exact, but I love Ghosties and I couldn't remember if I've tried a mango fruit-based sweet-hot on pizza before (I'm sure I have, but memory didn't deliver up the answer definitively), so I figured I'd give it a go. It wasn't exact and it turned out to not be ideal. Not to say it wasn't bad, but I still had an itch that needed scratching, that sort of splinter in your brain that drives you closer to insanity, not that I need much help there, I suppose.

Anyway, I started playing around with this sauce, this thick, sort of vaguely like mushed carrots, baby food, if I had to describe the texture, and it frankly is a lot of fun and quite unique. I kept thinking it had carrots in it, given the pulpiness from (I presume) the mangoes, though mango as a flavor is not especially present. It's more a kinda sorta vaguely semi-sweet sauce with traces of the roasted part from the roasted red peppers and more an amalgamation of flavors than anything else. The Ghost is set far enough back that it delivers a very pleasant glowing heat, but nothing particularly challenging and not much, if any, on the flavor end. I certainly can't say I've had a sauce quite like it before.

With fruit-based sweet-hots, there's always a sort of truncation of flexibility, in that it will tend to have a lot of food types cut out entirely as far as application. With this one, it is more restricted to the lighter meats. It was great on roast turkey, chicken tendies (probably where I liked it best) and I didn't quite get it it, but I'd bet would be very nice on pork as well. Given the texture, I think you could make a very interesting carrot or banana cake using this, without changing the recipe much as the monkfruit sweetener doesn't really add a lot of sweet to things. I had it on pizza once, because I find myself getting particular about those kinds of things, and while it didn't ruin it or anything, once was plenty for me. All in all, I find this a quite original take on a mango hot sauce (and I've had many), which is fairly rare to come by and there is much to like here, if you can work with the texture.

Bottom line: Another very interesting entry from Merf's and if fruit-based sweet-hots are your jam, this is definitely worth a go.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 5

Colorful Colorado Creations Colorado Red Hot Sauce Review

C3 Colorado Red

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOkAVL49-zk&t=6s

I hope you forgive my abbreviation of the company name but there is a reason that 3M no longer uses the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing name and hasn't for years. If you look at the title for this post, "Colorado" appears twice, which is one time too many, possibly two. The sauce itself is named Colorado Red, which strikes me as odd considering it's more of a sunflower yellow color, slightly pushing orange, with red flecks in it, which is not itself red. I suppose Colorado Red could be the name of a color, like Candy Apple Red, except I can't think of any colors, like Plum Crazy Purple, for example, that are not the actual hue of the color they're describing. Perhaps (probably) I'm overthinking this, but that's part of the fun. The logo, however, is great. I like it quite a lot and the label looks good, with a wonderful sauce level gap between the ends. I don't like the copy on the bottle or the arrangement of the nutritional info text too much, but there are a lot of positives here.

One of those positives, at least somewhat, is the flavor. Here, we have a very nice blend of the red bells and red Fresnos, two of the best-tasting peppers out there, rounded out with a flash of garlic, and some nice heat courtesy of the Ghost powder. The flavor is dampened somewhat by the oil in this, which is both vegetable and soybean, the choices of which I find confusing. I get you want oil for richness and smoothness, which is all to the good, but olive oil does a nice job of this, without tending towards the overpowering. This one isn't quite all the way there to that level, truth be told, but it's knocking at the back door pretty hard and I don't quite understand using both of them. One of the issues with sauces that use oil is the dynamics change pretty drastically when cold, which is definitely the case here.

As far as usage, I really like this on pizza, which was the impetus for me picking it up. It's nowhere near my favorite sauce for that application, as oil also makes it a bit of a challenge in terms of stickiness, but I think it works there well (I'm tempted to try to use this hot sauce as an actual pizza sauce, as I did with the Boar's Head (reviewed elsewhere here). It does nicely with other tomato-based sauce foods, such as spaghetti, say. I think this would also be probably pretty solid on lasagna and it can be a challenge to find sauces that handle that well. I don't love it on strips and it's already too rich to add to cream-based foods, like mac & cheese or alfredo. Heat-wise, this is probably better served for chileheads, but, if used judiciously, could definitely be a nice gateway sauce for normies. 

Bottom line: Overall somewhat pepper forward and nice-tasting sauce, that hovers very close to the border of being overpowered by the oils. If you like creamier and smooth hot sauces, definitely well worth a go.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 4

CaJohn's Raspberry Honey Mustard Hot Sauce Review

CaJohn's Raspberry Honey Mustard

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug0e3qNLJo0

Here we have an entry that raises a few questions. The first of these is should something with no heat be considered, or call itself, a hot sauce? For me, that answer is no. Since the product is marketed and labeled as one, that is, however, how we will be judging it. The hottest we get here is Jalapeno, which raises the second question of why I got it in the first place. For that, I truly do not know. I might have thought it had a different pepper (probably this, actually), but it was a CaJohn's sauce that I knew I hadn't done and that company is one that I've had a soft goal of eventually fully canvassing in these pages. I guess that's it. I truly do not know. I think I thought it was something else and when I was putting it on my hot sauce shelf and taking a closer look, couldn't quite decide where it would fit in, so it sat for a bit. I would not normally get a sauce that didn't go any higher than Jalapeno and for a lot of this blog, the mantra was Habanero or higher...

There is a third question that the sauce itself seems to be asking and that is what if we took the raspberry Chipotle sauce, that Fischer & Wieser claim to be the first and maybe inventors of, and we throw out the Chipotle entirely and instead make it raspberry mustard, with Jalapenos instead. This is a question, of course, that no one was actually asking and the results are predictably that I want there to be a smokey flavor there and keep trying to find it, in vain, of course, as this is not that kind of sauce. I don't really understand the intent but I see a reference to a charcuterie type style of meats, so I guess that.

It does work quite nicely on lighter meats. I found it to be a delight, even amidst me incessantly wishing it had smoke, on things like chicken, turkey, even taking a stab at putting it on a hot dog or subbing it in on cheese and crackers. I wish I had opened it when temperatures were warmer, because I truly think this would make an excellent grill sauce. It is a quite nice tasting sauce, even though, oddly, it comes across as a lot more subtle than expecting. To get a kind of flavor impact, I have to use enough to concentrate it and then it pulls in the raspberry, honey mustard, and yellow mustard aftertaste you would expect with this kind of sauce.

Bottom line: Not what I would call a hot sauce, but an interesting stab at a fruit-based honey mustard that is quite nice in the right applications.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 4

Bravado Passion Fruit Manuka Honey Hot Sauce Review

Bravado Passion Fruit Manuka Honey

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L-1LiE6Rqg

I'm not sure if I should have known better or not...see, here's the thing. For someone who doesn't like sour sauces, such as yours truly, I feel like I've run across a stupidly large amount of them lately. For this, though...ok, so most of the stuff I've had from Bravado not on The Hot Ones show has been mostly to my disliking, to the point where I stopped buying anything from them and had no plans for that to ever change. Then the show came along and when I decided to start covering the sauces on it, I grudgingly bought the Ghost Pepper Blueberry again and to my stunned shock and surprise, it was not only not awful on wings, it was quite good there. 

And then, to prove, it wasn't an anomaly, the Aka Miso and Black Garlic Carolina Reaper from Bravado were also pretty solid, so I thought, ok, these guys have earned another chance, which is where this sauce comes in. I didn't set out to buy an expensive (saffron is an ingredient in this sauce, hence the cost) sour hot sauce, but that's what I got. Indeed, I was thinking it would be another tropical fruit sweet-hot, given the honey...except it's Manuka honey, which I apparently have not had before. I've done a lot of research trying to figure out where this sauce went so wrong and apparently Manuka is not an especially sweet honey, which would probably have been a good thing for me to know before shelling out the coins, plunking them on the counter and getting a bottle of this.

So, there is this very weird chemical-y taste to this, somewhat reminiscent of when beer batches get infected, if anyone out there has ever experienced this. It's almost a sort of medical flavor, reminiscent a bit of Band-Aids and a hospital and maybe some lilting notes of iodine, if not. That's not quite what we have here, but it's a very prominent aspect. I'm not familiar with champagne vinegar, also used here, so maybe it's that, but maybe it's also the honey. Either way, that off-note dominates the sauce, along with a pervasive sourness almost certainly from the lemon and vinegar from the Ghost mash. 

Even after using half of the bottle, I've not only not found a place where this works well (maybe in a tea it could work, if you're into that sort of thing?) but it took that long to get a note of the passion fruit, albeit a backend one, and that's the first ingredient. Needless to say, there is not much Ghost flavor here, either. It is mostly that amalgamation of sour and off-flavor, so no honey flavor or what I would recognize as a honey flavor and none of the citrus notes, either. If saffron is in there, and I don't doubt it is, it's not pulling in very well, either, but saffron itself is somewhat of a subtle flavor, so not super surprised. 

I don't think the sauce has turned or gone bad, but that this is what it's supposed to be, which is wholly incompatible with my palate. I did think it had turned when I first tasted this sauce, far too thick to agitate, literally at all, but the more I kept trying to dig into it, the more I revulsed at using it, so, despite a solid punch of heat from the Ghost peppers, this one is heading for the bin as soon as I shoot the video for it.

Bottom line: This is a sauce that has really raised a lot more questions for me than anything else, but as a hot sauce, it's hard to imagine more of a miss, though I will say the heat level has a notable charge. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 0
            Flexibility: 0
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 0

Dawson's Shawarma Hot Sauce Review

Dawson's Shawarma

Note: This sauce appears on Season 13 of The Hot Ones.

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

I debate a lot amongst myself about whether The Hot Ones show, which clearly has a monumental impact, is a good or bad thing overall for the chilehead community. Certainly, in terms of exposure, especially on an international level, and creating a dynamic where a lot of companies feel they need to cater to a spicier-loving crowd, it is a positive. However, on the negative side, most of that "catering" stuff (including almost all of the Hot Ones tie-in products) is frankly commercial crap as an ode to cynical consumerism and the companies behind this clearly don't care about the actual community itself, and with all the increased exposure and attention comes an overlap of other trends, so we start to see a proliferation of "stunt" videos or attempts at it, which seem unenjoyable at best, and in some cases, have included trips to a hospital. 

There is also the intangible, which is where this sauce comes in, that pushes the show, as a whole, into the positive for me, and it's the choice of sauces appearing on-screen. One fine day, I assume once the show concludes, we will find out how the sauces make it onto the show, but I will say that, as someone who almost never watches the actual show, it has exposed me to a number of makers and sauces that I otherwise would never have experienced. That aspect speaks rather directly to me, as food explorer and lover of experimentalism in flavor, which is why I both have decided to do as many show sauces as possible and always look with interest upon the sauces of the newest seasons when those videos come out (full list in a separate TOC at right). I will also say that because of this activity of mine that the show has inspired, it has changed my mind a bit on a few sauces, which is mostly confirmation that it is good practice to try and keep an open mind. 

That aside, we have this sauce. Truth be told, shawarma is one of my most very favorite foods, but it is also one that I don't often have, unless I have some spare time, because, for the places around me, at least, it is not fast. Indeed, I was well due since I had not had any since the pandy and when I saw the title of this, I got excited and knew immediately what I had to do (and also what will be in the video for this, which should be posted in December 2023). Before I got to that, though, I had to put it through its paces. It's not characterized as strictly a shawarma sauce, but rather as a hot sauce and here, it is used as a wing sauce. So, run it through its paces I did.

Heat-wise, we're only dealing with Cayenne. It was in the 2 slot on the show for the season it was on and indeed, the heat is quite mild. The silkiness of the sauce from the olive oil, somewhat of a departure from the usual tahini that often is part of shawarma sauces at restaurants, gives it a very nice lush texture, rich, but not overbearingly so, given that olive oil is one of the lighter ones. There is also a solid amount of garlic in here, along with some of the usual suspects of shawarma. Usually spices of shawarma are an entire laundry list, which I won't detail here, as I also find it varies somewhat, but the general impression, though, again, not super forcefully, is one of the overall dynamic of shawarma. This is what is meant to happen, that you get an overall dynamic "whole is greater than sum of its parts" with shawarma, rather than isolating individual spices.

It is a beautifully designed sauce and a medium to medium-thick pour, which, again, is also right on the money. It is quite nice on pizza and I think it has a nice enough balance of garlic that I would at least attempt it on some Italian foods, such as spaghetti. It is thick enough to work somewhat well as a gravy, which is how I used it on chicken tendies and it was magnificent. There are usually three main types of meat used for shawarma, namely beef, chicken, and lamb. I found this worked exceedingly well on chicken, and I would guess pork also, but I didn't like it with burgers and don't think it works super well with red meat, which would also cut out the lamb. A lot of restaurant shawarma sauces follow somewhat of a similar pattern and I believe this is because with that many spices, the sauce really has to fit the application, another way in which this sauce is consistent with those.

Bottom line: This sauce reminds me a bit of some of the sauces from Torchbearer in its creamy, silky, garlicky nature, though it does pour easier, but it is a sauce that needs to be in the "right" application for best results. Definitely a great deal of fun to experiment with and is utterly delicious, definitely one of the better show sauces.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Savannah Bee Honey Hot Sauce Review

Savannah Bee Honey Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPmP5AseEq8

Not to be confused with the Savannah Bee Fire Honey (which has a forthcoming, as of the date of the writing of this review, anyway, FOH video - check Hot Honeys & Syrups playlist, link at right), this product is meant to be a hot sauce and it is perhaps the epitome of my expectations when I hear the phrase "honey hot sauce." We basically have here their excellent honey, paired with Scotch Bonnets, a wise choice as that is an outstanding pepper, and then the usual salt and vinegar additions. This is reflected first in the color, which looks, as you would expect, as a more or less paler version of a honey, with bits and pieces of peppers knocking about.

A couple things happen here...while the great taste of the honey is definitely the lead, we get a healthy dose of the pepper flavor, along with some moderate heat. We also get quite a lot of a looser sauce, given the introduction of the vinegar, but it is all balanced extremely well, straddling the line between what reads as one foot in the hot honey world (this actually tastes more like a honey than some of the other hot honeys I've done FOH videos on) and one foot in the hot sauce world.

The great thing about honey, if you like honey, is that it can pair with a fairly wide variety of foods. Pretty much anything fried is good, but you can also use it on breakfast foods or pizza as well. For me, since this one is a touch on the runny side, I tend to use it more where it can soak into something, which does cut down a bit on the flexibility, but the label also mentions drinks. While this is true, I'm not sure how much of a thing that actually is, as it is an application I almost never think to use and am not sure I would enjoy totally. I like eating heat more than drinking it, if that makes sense. 

All in all, while this sauce is a bit on the pricey side, this, like the aforementioned Fire Honey, is quite delicious and I'm rather thoroughly enjoying this bottle, as I thoroughly enjoyed the honey. This is, after all, the entire point of condiments, to enhance and increase enjoyment when it's used and both of those fit the bill marvelously.

Bottom line: For me, this is the new benchmark of honey hot sauces. While it is a bit light on the heat side, the deliciousness of the sauce overall comes pretty close to making up for it. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 7

Volcanic Peppers Sap N' Berry Fire Hot Sauce Review

Volcanic Peppers Sap N' Berry Fire

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmmdXWNTDR8

This is one of the more frustrating sauces I've had in a while. I like Volcanic and think they make cool and unusual sauces, which I applaud. Also, I like a good maple blueberry syrup and feel that frequently they're just not hot enough. This one, while fairly moderate in terms of heat, does bring enough of a punch from the red Habaneros that it vaults ahead of nearly everything else I can remember (I do have an FOH playlist of Hot Honeys and Syrups, if you're interested in seeing which I've done). In fact, if they made one alteration, deleted one ingredient, it would be atop the heap easily...but no, and hence, my frustration. 

There is a stunningly good sauce hidden here and it is marred by the addition of the allspice, a flavor note which shows up, calls my attention to it, and to which I wish was not present. It is an incredible distraction, no matter the application and I've tried many here. The first time I had it was on chicken tendies and I was expecting, you know, that good maple-blueberry-Habanero combination, that tried and true, through and through combination, that wonderful intersection of flavors, but that was definitely not it. In fact, that first taste, I pulled the tendie back after taking a bite and stared at the plate and may or may not have said, "awww, what the Hell."

My impression of it has not really improved much. It ruined this very cool red, white, and blue ice cream sundae I made (with the Char Man Fiyaberry sauce - reviewed elsewhere here), even after I brought in some very nice dark chocolate hot fudge. Mostly I like maple, with blueberry mostly as an accent, for breakfast stuff and depending on what I used it with, there would sometimes be a subtlety of flavor below that of the actual food, so I'd add more and then there would come creeping in the allspice to wreck the party, even when I added in healthy doses of the actual pure maple syrup I keep on hand. I don't quite understand why the allspice is there at all, let alone the quantity it's in, but that is essentially the tale of this sauce. Something that would be quite extraordinary marred by an incidental element. I don't dislike allspice, to be clear, but it has to be in the right application and this, as the man says, ain't it. If not for that element, this is more like an overall 5 or 6, but I'm not rating the sauce I wish I had. Thus, as it is...more's the pity.

Bottom line: If you like allspice more than me, you'll probably like this better, but what could be the best example of the maple-blueberry-Habanero connection is instead overly dominated by the spice factor.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 2
            Flexibility: 0
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 1

Black-Eyed Susan Death By Chocolate Mild Hot Sauce Review

Black-Eyed Susan Death By Chocolate Mild

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXI68LwT17Y

This is a company (I don't believe I would have chosen that particular name, given the attendant intimations if taken in a literal sense - here they appear to mean a very old nautical melodrama or possibly older slang for pistols or perhaps both) that I remember coming across my attention a while ago and I loved the name of the sauce, loved the logo, but it seemed like it was one of two things, either a mole' type sauce, which I'm not always in the mood to get or a sort of chocolate confection type syrupy sweet sauce, perhaps like a spicy fudge. Now that I've finally gotten my grubby hands on a bottle, I can say it is clearly more the former and also that I'm inordinately glad that I finally did.

What we have here is an amazingly complex flavor, full of spice and fruit and cocoa and Habanero dynamics, all into a very wonderful mix that I quite enjoy...in the right setting. Because it is a mole', it does limit the flexibility a bit, being restricted primarily to Mexican-style foods, where it is absolutely wonderful and a joy. It is also a sauce that I find works a bit better warmer than colder and I think you could absolutely use this as a mole' itself. In fact, if I wasn't having so much fun testing it out on stuff, whereupon I will surely run out before actually trying that, I might be inclined to give it a go in that setting...maybe I'll get another bottle and try that at some future point. 

It's a quite thick sauce, with this being the Mild version (not sure how I got that, to be clear - I thought I ordered or picked out the Hot version), it is very low in heat, but that really allows you to focus into the rich tapestry of flavor. It reminded me at time of a good fruitcake, to the point where I tried it out as close of a setting as I could find to that, but this is definitely into a fairly fixed food arena and desserts are not really among those playing there. I find a lot of people don't quite understand the difference between a mole' and a smother sauce or a hot sauce and getting a bottle of this is a quite good illustrative example, even as it straddles the line between those worlds itself a bit. One of the things it does the best, with the right foods, is to present a contrast to foods, but in a way that creates delicate interplay with flavors, rather than clashing, which is a hard trick to pull off.

Bottom line: Highly enjoyable, wonderfully flavorful, low heat and very unique sauce that is near magic when paired in the right setting.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6

Angry Goat Dreams Of Calypso Private Reserve Hot Sauce Review

Angry Goat Dreams Of Calypso Private Reserve

Note: This sauce appears on Season 20 of The Hot Ones.

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=-271-JV8uyg

It was an interesting experiment, seeing the differences in a sauce line that changing one ingredient made when I went through all of the "Hippo" sauces from Angry Goat earlier this year (reviewed elsewhere here) and now, we turn to the original Dreams Of Calypso (reviewed elsewhere here), one of the sauces I never quite entirely got a handle on, back from a couple of years ago. I wound up using it as a grill sauce, which would prove impossible with this sauce, for reasons we'll explore.

The biggest change to the Hippo line was moving into a superhot, specifically the 7 Pot Primo, which was in the Primo ROCKpotamus sauce, and it was a drastic change. Gone were a lot of the flavor elements, replaced by a very pointed heat rush from the Primos. This is also kind of the case here. Rather than an interplay between the tropical fruits and mustard being more in the fore, both are shoved way back in the profile, with the mustard an aftertaste grace note and the tropical fruit contributing to a much more subtle sweetness. The bitter superhot is immediately front and center and while I think this works a bit better than the ROCKpotamus did, it is certainly as much of a sea change. So, flavor-wise, we have the immediate flavor and heat sensation of the 7 Pot, with a very slight sweetness rounding it out and the slightly mustard notes at the very end. I find this sauce works much better when it can be with a more complex composite food, particularly one with a strong taste, such as a chicken sandwich. I also find this sauce a lot more palatable when warmer, but it's pretty enjoyable, like the predecessor, on any of the lighter colored meats. I played around with it quite a bit, going through most of the other foods I did on the non-Private Reserve version, so also go check that review out for reference.

While it is an interesting question of which pepper I like overall better, the long-favorite Scotch Bonnet or the 7-Pot Primo, which is a superhot I find consistently impressive, without answering that directly, I will say the Scotch Bonnet tastes considerably better. With the 7 Pot, not only can they come screaming out of the gate, as they do here, but there is also a nice build to the pepper. It was in the 7 slot on the show, which would put it, by my usual scaling of halving the position, at around a 3.5, which isn't too far off, but given the build capacity, I gave it the push to a 4, putting it solidly in the territory of being chileheads only. 

Bottom line: Definite upgrade in heat, but I'm not sure I would say the same in flavor. I do think it's an intriguing sauce, just less of one than the regular version, as this moves further into scorcher territory.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 4

Hellfire Full Shred Hot Sauce Review

Hellfire Full Shred

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj9I8k2iZv4

One of the more entertaining things to me in the food world generally (such as the very odd Rap Stars line of snacks) is vanity products. Hot sauce seems to be a riveting magnet for guitarists frequently and here we have a sauce ostensibly "designed" by the mad axeman David Shankle himself...except not, predictably not, not, just like nearly all the other vanity sauces out there. 

In this case, the sauce from the Hellfire lineup that appears to be used is the Gourmet Red (which is reviewed elsewhere here). The sauces are not identical; this one, for instance, is far runnier, much, much looser and closer to a Louisiana-style, though not quite as watery. Flavor-wise, it seems to meld better with the foods when in this form than did the Gourmet Red, with the Cayenne, in particular, seeming to be a bit more forward, but the flavor profile is nearly exact, probably because the same ingredients are shared between them. I didn't check to see if the specific order is identical, since Hellfire likes to create labels that overly challenge my ailing vision and don't update the graphics, even online, but we have the same aspects in flavor.

The other review, which you should read, covers a lot of stuff I've already tested. With this sauce, I've tried using it in place of a Louisiana-style, to slightly better effect, but the conflict of taste is still there. The only food recommend is to use it on a naan pizza. While I don't know what that thing is, exactly, there are a lot of Indian references in the sauce, to the point where if I liked Indian food, this could be a strong winner. As it is, I don't particularly and so it is not. 

Bottom line: A much thinner, and also much harder to find, version of the Hellfire Gourmet Red, though I think this consistency works better overall for the sauce.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 2

Char Man Fiyaberry Hot Sauce Review

Char Man Fiyaberry

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=VtqNGBTa6nM

So let's talk about slick label design, rather than my usual crabbing about it when it's bad. This is a bit more pronounced in the FOH videos, but this is a prime example of what TO do when designing a label. It is very clean, legible, the colors all work together, there is a very smart bit where it uses the gap between label ends, just very, very smart and one of the best hot sauce labels I've ever seen. There is an odd bit of copy about the Norse goddess Freya, which I don't fully understand in how it relates to this sauce, other than she had a fondness for strawberries, but the name itself doesn't really reference anything Nordic. I think they were trying to go for "fireberry" or something along those lines, but "fiya" is not a Norse word. 

As to the sauce, it starts with strawberry preserves, so one would expect it to be on the sweet side, which it is, though that is dialed down considerably by the Scorpions and the red wine vinegar. The Scorpions, in particular, in addition to bringing a blazing heat - this is another chilehead only sauce - also bring with them their customary bitterness and flowery nature, which mars the effect a bit for me. I like the concept here, a very hot strawberry-forward dessert-y sauce, but I think it would have been more successful had another superhot been chosen, such as the Reaper or even the Ghosties. 

Berry and meats go together, so this could work on a burger (provided it's tailored for it), chicken tendies it's ok, same with rotisserie chicken, could work on turkey. There is a suggestion for the website to pork, but I found that not to be an especially good combination and much of the success of this will be directly dependent on how  much you like the taste of Scorpions. I find if I can find a way to mask it, by either having it with something like strawberries or on ice cream, it comes across a bit better, but only temporary. The Scorpions here are quite forceful, which is great on the heat side, but a lot less great on the flavor side.

Bottom line: If you're a chilehead who likes Scorpions and sweet-hot dessert sauces, this is worth a go. For me, the results are a bit more mixed and while I could see where they were going, it didn't quite get all the way there for me.

Breakdown:

       Heat level: 4
       Flavor: 3
       Flexibility: 3
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 3