Angry Goat Pink Elephant
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=ETBksru3fq4
As part of my 2023 prep during the later part of 2022, I systematically went through the list of my personal favorites for hot sauce brands (see Sauce Of The Year list, link at right) to canvas a bit and find out what I missed. From there, I made a list, naturally, since I love making lists, apparently, and this (and a few others from Angry Goat) I put near the top. I really like both cranberries and fresh ginger and Ghosties, as I've noted more than a few times before, is definitely my favorite superhot, by a fairly wide margin. The rest, the pomegranate juice, the red bell, Jalapeno, and Habanero additions, all signs pointed to go for this one, given that Thanksgiving was coming up.
I didn't wind up with this one quite in time for this, but no matter, the grocer near me sells deep-friend turkey breasts and I could always pick one of those up, since the turkey I did (and ate) myself for Thanksgiving was long gone by the time I cracked this baby open. I did, in fact, get one of those breasts to try this out and the results were...ok, so here's the thing. I've had cranberry and turkey many, many, many times and it's a flavor combination I love dearly. However, I intensely dislike anything other than the whole berry cranberry sauce, so when people try to fancy it up and put things like orange and so on in it, it just winds up coming across to me as shit. So, in terms of scratching the turkey-cranberry connection itch I had in mind, it was a total fail, largely because the effervescence of the fresh ginger reads so strongly in the flavor profile. I don't mind this, but my tastes, as noted, are fairly narrow with regard to that specific protein and berry combination.
So, a new dilemma arose. The sauce was fantastic. The flavor was both highly inventive and refreshing, as well as quite yummy, but the only way I can describe how it felt when interacting with the turkey was wrong. Fresh ginger is huge with Asian food, of course, but cranberries not so much (thanks to the quinine) and that didn't seem like it was going to be a worthwhile experiment. Same with burgers and pizza. So, I had to cast about to find something that would work well with both the very distinctive tastes of both fresh ginger and cranberry. Either by themselves makes things a bit narrow, but both at once...it proved quite a challenge. Cue the chicken strips, where this was an absolute marvel (as well as other composite dishes that have cranberries in them and which will tend to downplay the fresh ginger a bit). Pork was also suggested and indeed, on pork chops in particular, this borders on heavenly. It does take a fairly specific food to work well with this sauce, but when it hits, it is quite magical. It can be especially brilliant as a nice change of pace sauce.
As to the peppers, even with both Habanero and Ghosties, this is lower key. The Ghosties impart a bit of bitterness to the proceedings, in that way that only superhots can, while the other peppers were there more to round things out a bit and possible contribute to the reddish hue of the sauce. It definitely is going to push at what might be too hot for most chileheads, but for chileheads, will not prove particularly challenging.
Bottom line: Another very intriguing entry from the fountain of innovation over at Angry Goat. Fans of cranberries and fresh ginger will definitely find this more enjoyable than those who are not.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 10
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9
Overall: 6
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