Burns & McCoy Especia Roja
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=X8H-Oz70hlU
I must admit to a bit of frustration with this one. Since the other sauces I've had from this company have been either intriguing or a delight, I looked through their lineup to find more from them. Long-time readers of these pages will know that I have a strong aversion, likely an intolerance, to onions and they tend to make me immediately and violently ill. This condition has made me rather necessarily have to scour ingredient lists to make sure I'm not inadvertently getting into something that will see me sprinting for the nearest toilet or garbage receptacle. When I added this one to the hit list, onions were not an ingredient. Once I got a bottle in, with the new label refresh (I liked the previous labels better, tbh), evidently there was a change in formulation as well as there they are, in granulated form.
This is not the first time this has happened (Born To Hula and CaJohn's also come to mind as companies that have changed things up from what I could find listed online), and I rather hate when sauce companies do this. Obviously this is more on a personal-to-me-and-my-condition level, but as a foodie as well, I dislike that trend. It almost always results in a flavor downgrade. I get that for economic reasons it may make sense from a purely business perspective, but my palate is unmoved by those particular considerations. Anyway, that form of onions I mentioned is one I don't come across a lot, as it usually is powder, which I can tolerate in fairly small doses, but granulated is essentially the same thing, just a lot coarser grind. I don't know why this was reformulated, but the other sauce was definitely of much higher interest. In any case, since I had it in hand, I thought I'd give it a shot and see how we fared.
A certain person who shall go unnamed herein, for whatever reason, was really hung up on the idea of not buying taco mix seasoning, just hated the very concept because it was a waste of money, since it is more or less just a collection of spices in various ratios. So, she always insisted on making it herself, which tended toward the cumin-heavy side enough that I found myself greatly tiring of that spice, and still largely am to this day. This reminds me of that flavoring, just in a sauce form. The idea of fire-roasted peppers and fire-roasted tomatoes was a good one, filled with promise, as was having pepitas, which could be leaning towards a mole. Adding the pomegranate juice (gone in this latest incarnation) and it sounded a lot like something that could be unique and wonderful. Add in the Chocolate Habs and we have the makings of something, dare I say, special. Alas, this is not.
This is a nice smooth medium thickness sauce, with a lovely coloration. We have the chiles you would normally find in chili powder, garlic, salt, cumin, onion powder (which are the main components of taco seasoning mix) and that overall aspect is by far the main flavor, albeit somewhat of a cumin-dominant one. I also found this sauce had a rather bitter aftertaste, which I found unpleasant, possibly because I poured a bit heavy to try to get a better sense of the sauce. probably still would have tried to use it up in its entirety, except the times I have, it has fouled my gut afterwards. So, it will unfortunately be heading to the bin once I shoot the support video for it. Heat-wise, it's almost non-existent. No one really uses pre-packaged taco mix seasoning for heat, but for flavor, and that appears to be the intent here as well.
Bottom line: If you're more of of a fan of the flavor profiles I mentioned above than I am, this is probably worth a shot. I'm thinking of keeping an eye out for the old formulation, as it sounded interesting enough that I still want to try it, but the sauce in this bottle and my system are in too strong of disagreement to carry on.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 4
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1
Overall: 2
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