Food Club Louisiana-Style Hot Sauce Review

Food Club Louisiana-Style Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIp8VqEDP0k

After a really long time of doing the various grocery store sub-lines hot sauces sparingly, and often not at all, we have yet another entry, which is, again, because it's a Louisiana-style and I am in need and both are new entries or at least ones I have not yet seen (the other being Smart Way, reviewed elsewhere here). With store brands, it can be a very mixed bag. You might get get something much worse than a name brand, something that is, more or less, hitting the "good enough" mark, which is where I believe they're generally aiming, or even, occasionally, something better than name brands. For this one, it is definitely a case of the middle description.

By now, we all know, or should know, what a Louisiana-style sauce is, but if not, it is essentially 3 ingredients: Cayenne (or, more rarely, red Jalapeno), vinegar, salt. Most companies with also toss in some xanthan gun, in order to keep things more suspended, and I've seen water here and there as an ingredient also, but generally, this is a fairly stripped down, simple sauce, which relies on the incredibly tasty prowess of the Cayennes. Sometimes companies will throw in additional flavors, such as garlic, which then makes it more of a Cajun sauce, but for a base Louisiana-style, it's those ingredients I mentioned at the start of this paragraph.

Those are the totality of the ingredients here. This one is slightly on the saltier side of things and is more astringent, reminding me more, if I had to pick a brand, of Crystal, but it's not abrasive quite on that level. It's generally fairly middle-of-the-road for this style, aside from those two characteristics I mentioned. I would put this more or less in the middle, of all the other entries out there, but at a buck for 12 oz., this hits that rare target that most store brands are shooting at, which is an excellent value. Heat-wise, like most Louisiana-style sauce, this is fairly minimal.

Bottom line:  A solid representation of this style of sauce. Very low frills, but it comes close enough to hitting all the marks.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 6