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