Yeak Chruk
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjyCCbxqpjY
I saw this one crop up in a few places when I was poking around during Black Friday stuff last year and a couple things grabbed my eye. I had no idea what it was, exactly, but Cambodian anything, particularly food, is fairly rare for me to come across and I've certainly never had a hot sauce. Also, without looking too far into the ingredients, the idea of Habanero and palm, me thinking it was more like a hearts of palm thing (it is actually palm sugar, which I find a bit deceptive), could be a very intriguing blend. Anyway, I took a chance on it, as it was on special, if nothing else to check those boxes.
What this turned out to be is yet another offering that pushes hard at the boundaries of what is a hot sauce. In this case, it pushes hard at the idea that it's even a sauce, as this is one of the more watery things I've yet had that called itself a sauce at all, let alone a hot sauce. Looking at the verbiage on the label, I got as far as them "starting with a brine" and got it immediately. They started with a brine and just never quite got past that. Although I dislike the practice, I understand entirely why so many things that I don't consider hot sauces call themselves that, though. The hot sauce industry is a billion dollar one, so calling yourself a hot sauce, rather than more correctly a brine, is almost certainly likely to result in higher interest as well as sales.
Anyway, for this, we have the fairly basic flavors of vinegar, Habanero, salt, sweet (from the sugar), and some very light traces of garlic, all of it heavily muted or "watered-down," if you will, though I say it with quotations facetiously as this is quite literally what happened. I'm not a fan of pouring water on my food, truth be told. I don't like things that approximate it, such as French dip sandwiches. If I get those, I never dunk them, as soggy food strikes several wrong texture notes with me. With soup and sandwiches, I *may* consider it with tomato soup, as that has a typically much higher consistency (much moreso than this, certainly), but even then it's unlikely. This aspect, as one might expect, interferes considerably with flexibility of use.
I don't dislike the flavor of this at all; indeed, I found what was there to be pretty solid, but it takes a lot of chasing to get anywhere near the concentration I want. This also applies to the heat. Though water does not change capsaicin, dispersing it over a greater amount of liquid is necessarily going to change how hot it reads. Again, this is rather a shame. Had they reduced this down somewhat, and made it closer in thickness to an actual sauce, the nifty squeeze bottle + cap packaging be damned, this would have been considerably improved. As it is, I find this a brine that is packaged with a labeling error (I will say their label overall is quite good, though, very legible and giving food suggestions) calling it a hot sauce. While I will be using it up, I will be treating it as a brine once the support video is filmed.
Bottom line: This is a brine, not a hot sauce. A certainly very tasty brine, but a brine no less.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 2
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 4
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