MSRF Ho Ho Hot Sauce Mini-Review

MSRF Ho Ho Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eNOjiwbze8

Another in the jingly jangly Xmas-y holiday themed novelty stuff on the aisles of Wal-Mart. This one wasn't on the shelf when I picked up the other two and I didn't expect to be back again this year, but I saw this goodie on the shelf and couldn't resist, since it was different from the others. The main difference, aside from the cutesy packaging and the idea of it being a Xmas tree ornament, is the presence of Habanero. Oddly enough, this makes almost no impact in terms of flavor, though it is notably hotter than the Don't Be Chicken hot sauce (reviewed elsewhere here). If I was rating it like sauces with a full review, I'd probably give it a 1 for heat. All in all, this is a pretty solid, more or less middle of the road Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce, with some slight heat from the Habaneros and an ok value for $3 at retail, depending on how much you like the packaging. Definitely one to keep an eye for at those post-Xmas Day clearance sales.

MSRF Don't Be Chicken Hot Sauce Review

MSRF Don't Be Chicken

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xlGUZoLbaY

Usually, I like to peruse the post-Xmas aisles at Wal-Mart because there can be some great deals found, as they generally want to move all of the holiday-related novelty crap out the door in time to reset to the newer holiday-related novelty crap forthcoming. Every year, I inevitably find myself in one of those stores for something or other (in one trip, this most recent one, I found material for three FOH videos, this one being the third of those, so you never know), and I will go wander by to see what they have, regardless of holiday. It's one of the perks and perhaps perils of being a food explorer. 

Anyway, sometimes you can find great deals and sometimes the price will be acceptable to try sets you are not expecting to be great, but wouldn't bother with at full retail and it's just a great load of fun to whip through them, but this year, I happened across a couple that caught my eye and weren't too egregiously priced. One of the them was the, also from MSRF, Beer-Flavored Hot Sauce trio, for which I did a mini-review (elsewhere on this blog) and this, which was an entire bottle of a single sauce and I felt needed the full review treatment.

Oddly, on the website, it lists this as both "Hot" and "Habanero," and the first is definitely not an accurate adjective and the second is at least possible, but also strikes me as extremely unlikely, given neither the flavor nor the heat of that pepper is especially present. While it does not specify the exact pepper on the label, it does call it "Aged Red Peppers," which almost always means Cayenne and flavor-wise, this is more strongly Cayenne than anything else. There is a delicate, lilting hint of garlic, so it's not a straight Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce, but more a Cajun, but the kiss of garlic is so light, it doesn't really play much into things, so, for intents and purposes, I consider it a Cayenne sauce.

It is a very solid representation of the style, all the way down to being mostly vinegar forward, though it also does have a smoothness more representative of something like a Frank's. If anything, this is a better-tasting version of that specific sauce. There is little to no heat to be found here and it works well in all of the usual places you would use a Louisiana-style sauce, from creamier sauce dishes to fried foods, to essentially any food leaning on the more rich side of things. At $5 retail, it's not a great deal, despite coming in a surprisingly higher detail glass/plastic/metal collectible bottle, but if you can find any of this at clearance, where it goes 50% to 70% on those post-Xmas sales, grab as many as you can. I know I will be. 

Bottom line: Very tasty sauce representative of the vinegar-forward Louisiana-style Cayenne, with no real heat to speak of, and a smoothness that makes it notably less abrasive than others in that style.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 6

MSRF Beer-Flavored Hot Sauce 3-Pack Mini Review

MSRF Beer-Flavored Hot Sauce(s) 3-Pack 

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8j45pJrPSc

For this year, I've decided, basically on a spur of the moment thing as I randomly found myself in Wal-Mart one day during when they had the holiday novelty kitschy junk out, to do some reviews (or, in this case, a mini-review) of some of the sets or whatever else I might come across before it goes to clearance. Crazy, I know, but some of the other sets I've done in years past I saw repeated and so I set a dollar cap mostly based on my perceived value (so sets that are $15 retail right now obviously won't be showing up) and dug around a bit. This is one of the first things I came across and long-time readers will probably suspect I've taken leave of my senses. While that is, in all honestly, probably always up for debate, here, despite not having a lot of sauces I generally like any alcoholic drinks added to, this one struck me as maybe fun and so I went with it.

There are 3 sauces here, in nifty 2 ounce bottles, and this is more a variation on a theme than 3 separate sauces. The base sauce is the same and is a straightforward Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce, one of my favorites (and hence why I thought this set might just work out, since that is a style I always keep on hand). The sauces are ostensibly adding the flavor (but probably not the actual beer) of Pilsner (probably American style), India Pale Ale (IPA), and Stout. Given that the base is a sauce not always intended to be high heat, these sauces are pretty tame, as in very low to no heat at all. 

So, essentially all that's left to talk about is the flavoring differences, since everything else, heat, flexibility, value, are identical. Without getting into too intense of a discussion about the different beer types, I will say that Stout is definitely not represented here accurately, if at all. I'll get into that more, but the Pilsner does retain some characteristics of the beer, though they are pretty subtle, while the IPA is kind of the oddball of the group, not really coming across as an IPA flavor, but rather some strange other thing. Of those, the Stout I found the most interesting, because it reminded me a lot of one of my first successful beers when I started home-brewing, which was a lovely Amber (if you want an idea of how that went, go find some London Pride). The Pilsner is closest to a straightforward Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce, with just hints of beer flavor, while the IPA is a lot more lively and has a touch of bite to it. The flavor there doesn't work as well as the other 2, though I can't say I find any of these to be in line for binning. There is also some strange text on the packaging, about using within 4 weeks after being opened, the reason for which I can't quite fathom. 

Bottom line: If you don't like vinegar-forward sauces, this is not for you. I'm guessing they used extractives for the flavor and it seems quite unlikely there is any actual beer to be found here, for better or worse. If a Louisiana-style Cayenne sauce is among your favorites, as it is with me, this set can be a nice bit of fun and worth at least a look, but truth be told, I wouldn't pay full price again and would definitely wait for clearance.

Merf's Fool's Paradise Hot Sauce Review

Merf's Fool's Paradise

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSKzCGttwq4

I picked this up initially to be a pizza sauce. My idea when I was looking about was for something along the lines of pineapple Habanero, if possible, one I hadn't had, but just a classic sauce, more or less, that I've had on pizza many, many times and loved. That wasn't in the cards for my trip, but I had this on the list after the other two sauces Roger bumped to me and I reviewed this year (see TOC). It wasn't exact, but I love Ghosties and I couldn't remember if I've tried a mango fruit-based sweet-hot on pizza before (I'm sure I have, but memory didn't deliver up the answer definitively), so I figured I'd give it a go. It wasn't exact and it turned out to not be ideal. Not to say it wasn't bad, but I still had an itch that needed scratching, that sort of splinter in your brain that drives you closer to insanity, not that I need much help there, I suppose.

Anyway, I started playing around with this sauce, this thick, sort of vaguely like mushed carrots, baby food, if I had to describe the texture, and it frankly is a lot of fun and quite unique. I kept thinking it had carrots in it, given the pulpiness from (I presume) the mangoes, though mango as a flavor is not especially present. It's more a kinda sorta vaguely semi-sweet sauce with traces of the roasted part from the roasted red peppers and more an amalgamation of flavors than anything else. The Ghost is set far enough back that it delivers a very pleasant glowing heat, but nothing particularly challenging and not much, if any, on the flavor end. I certainly can't say I've had a sauce quite like it before.

With fruit-based sweet-hots, there's always a sort of truncation of flexibility, in that it will tend to have a lot of food types cut out entirely as far as application. With this one, it is more restricted to the lighter meats. It was great on roast turkey, chicken tendies (probably where I liked it best) and I didn't quite get it it, but I'd bet would be very nice on pork as well. Given the texture, I think you could make a very interesting carrot or banana cake using this, without changing the recipe much as the monkfruit sweetener doesn't really add a lot of sweet to things. I had it on pizza once, because I find myself getting particular about those kinds of things, and while it didn't ruin it or anything, once was plenty for me. All in all, I find this a quite original take on a mango hot sauce (and I've had many), which is fairly rare to come by and there is much to like here, if you can work with the texture.

Bottom line: Another very interesting entry from Merf's and if fruit-based sweet-hots are your jam, this is definitely worth a go.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 5

Colorful Colorado Creations Colorado Red Hot Sauce Review

C3 Colorado Red

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOkAVL49-zk&t=6s

I hope you forgive my abbreviation of the company name but there is a reason that 3M no longer uses the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing name and hasn't for years. If you look at the title for this post, "Colorado" appears twice, which is one time too many, possibly two. The sauce itself is named Colorado Red, which strikes me as odd considering it's more of a sunflower yellow color, slightly pushing orange, with red flecks in it, which is not itself red. I suppose Colorado Red could be the name of a color, like Candy Apple Red, except I can't think of any colors, like Plum Crazy Purple, for example, that are not the actual hue of the color they're describing. Perhaps (probably) I'm overthinking this, but that's part of the fun. The logo, however, is great. I like it quite a lot and the label looks good, with a wonderful sauce level gap between the ends. I don't like the copy on the bottle or the arrangement of the nutritional info text too much, but there are a lot of positives here.

One of those positives, at least somewhat, is the flavor. Here, we have a very nice blend of the red bells and red Fresnos, two of the best-tasting peppers out there, rounded out with a flash of garlic, and some nice heat courtesy of the Ghost powder. The flavor is dampened somewhat by the oil in this, which is both vegetable and soybean, the choices of which I find confusing. I get you want oil for richness and smoothness, which is all to the good, but olive oil does a nice job of this, without tending towards the overpowering. This one isn't quite all the way there to that level, truth be told, but it's knocking at the back door pretty hard and I don't quite understand using both of them. One of the issues with sauces that use oil is the dynamics change pretty drastically when cold, which is definitely the case here.

As far as usage, I really like this on pizza, which was the impetus for me picking it up. It's nowhere near my favorite sauce for that application, as oil also makes it a bit of a challenge in terms of stickiness, but I think it works there well (I'm tempted to try to use this hot sauce as an actual pizza sauce, as I did with the Boar's Head (reviewed elsewhere here). It does nicely with other tomato-based sauce foods, such as spaghetti, say. I think this would also be probably pretty solid on lasagna and it can be a challenge to find sauces that handle that well. I don't love it on strips and it's already too rich to add to cream-based foods, like mac & cheese or alfredo. Heat-wise, this is probably better served for chileheads, but, if used judiciously, could definitely be a nice gateway sauce for normies. 

Bottom line: Overall somewhat pepper forward and nice-tasting sauce, that hovers very close to the border of being overpowered by the oils. If you like creamier and smooth hot sauces, definitely well worth a go.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 4

CaJohn's Raspberry Honey Mustard Hot Sauce Review

CaJohn's Raspberry Honey Mustard

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug0e3qNLJo0

Here we have an entry that raises a few questions. The first of these is should something with no heat be considered, or call itself, a hot sauce? For me, that answer is no. Since the product is marketed and labeled as one, that is, however, how we will be judging it. The hottest we get here is Jalapeno, which raises the second question of why I got it in the first place. For that, I truly do not know. I might have thought it had a different pepper (probably this, actually), but it was a CaJohn's sauce that I knew I hadn't done and that company is one that I've had a soft goal of eventually fully canvassing in these pages. I guess that's it. I truly do not know. I think I thought it was something else and when I was putting it on my hot sauce shelf and taking a closer look, couldn't quite decide where it would fit in, so it sat for a bit. I would not normally get a sauce that didn't go any higher than Jalapeno and for a lot of this blog, the mantra was Habanero or higher...

There is a third question that the sauce itself seems to be asking and that is what if we took the raspberry Chipotle sauce, that Fischer & Wieser claim to be the first and maybe inventors of, and we throw out the Chipotle entirely and instead make it raspberry mustard, with Jalapenos instead. This is a question, of course, that no one was actually asking and the results are predictably that I want there to be a smokey flavor there and keep trying to find it, in vain, of course, as this is not that kind of sauce. I don't really understand the intent but I see a reference to a charcuterie type style of meats, so I guess that.

It does work quite nicely on lighter meats. I found it to be a delight, even amidst me incessantly wishing it had smoke, on things like chicken, turkey, even taking a stab at putting it on a hot dog or subbing it in on cheese and crackers. I wish I had opened it when temperatures were warmer, because I truly think this would make an excellent grill sauce. It is a quite nice tasting sauce, even though, oddly, it comes across as a lot more subtle than expecting. To get a kind of flavor impact, I have to use enough to concentrate it and then it pulls in the raspberry, honey mustard, and yellow mustard aftertaste you would expect with this kind of sauce.

Bottom line: Not what I would call a hot sauce, but an interesting stab at a fruit-based honey mustard that is quite nice in the right applications.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 4

Bravado Passion Fruit Manuka Honey Hot Sauce Review

Bravado Passion Fruit Manuka Honey

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L-1LiE6Rqg

I'm not sure if I should have known better or not...see, here's the thing. For someone who doesn't like sour sauces, such as yours truly, I feel like I've run across a stupidly large amount of them lately. For this, though...ok, so most of the stuff I've had from Bravado not on The Hot Ones show has been mostly to my disliking, to the point where I stopped buying anything from them and had no plans for that to ever change. Then the show came along and when I decided to start covering the sauces on it, I grudgingly bought the Ghost Pepper Blueberry again and to my stunned shock and surprise, it was not only not awful on wings, it was quite good there. 

And then, to prove, it wasn't an anomaly, the Aka Miso and Black Garlic Carolina Reaper from Bravado were also pretty solid, so I thought, ok, these guys have earned another chance, which is where this sauce comes in. I didn't set out to buy an expensive (saffron is an ingredient in this sauce, hence the cost) sour hot sauce, but that's what I got. Indeed, I was thinking it would be another tropical fruit sweet-hot, given the honey...except it's Manuka honey, which I apparently have not had before. I've done a lot of research trying to figure out where this sauce went so wrong and apparently Manuka is not an especially sweet honey, which would probably have been a good thing for me to know before shelling out the coins, plunking them on the counter and getting a bottle of this.

So, there is this very weird chemical-y taste to this, somewhat reminiscent of when beer batches get infected, if anyone out there has ever experienced this. It's almost a sort of medical flavor, reminiscent a bit of Band-Aids and a hospital and maybe some lilting notes of iodine, if not. That's not quite what we have here, but it's a very prominent aspect. I'm not familiar with champagne vinegar, also used here, so maybe it's that, but maybe it's also the honey. Either way, that off-note dominates the sauce, along with a pervasive sourness almost certainly from the lemon and vinegar from the Ghost mash. 

Even after using half of the bottle, I've not only not found a place where this works well (maybe in a tea it could work, if you're into that sort of thing?) but it took that long to get a note of the passion fruit, albeit a backend one, and that's the first ingredient. Needless to say, there is not much Ghost flavor here, either. It is mostly that amalgamation of sour and off-flavor, so no honey flavor or what I would recognize as a honey flavor and none of the citrus notes, either. If saffron is in there, and I don't doubt it is, it's not pulling in very well, either, but saffron itself is somewhat of a subtle flavor, so not super surprised. 

I don't think the sauce has turned or gone bad, but that this is what it's supposed to be, which is wholly incompatible with my palate. I did think it had turned when I first tasted this sauce, far too thick to agitate, literally at all, but the more I kept trying to dig into it, the more I revulsed at using it, so, despite a solid punch of heat from the Ghost peppers, this one is heading for the bin as soon as I shoot the video for it.

Bottom line: This is a sauce that has really raised a lot more questions for me than anything else, but as a hot sauce, it's hard to imagine more of a miss, though I will say the heat level has a notable charge. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 0
            Flexibility: 0
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 0

Dawson's Shawarma Hot Sauce Review

Dawson's Shawarma

Note: This sauce appears on Season 13 of The Hot Ones.

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

I debate a lot amongst myself about whether The Hot Ones show, which clearly has a monumental impact, is a good or bad thing overall for the chilehead community. Certainly, in terms of exposure, especially on an international level, and creating a dynamic where a lot of companies feel they need to cater to a spicier-loving crowd, it is a positive. However, on the negative side, most of that "catering" stuff (including almost all of the Hot Ones tie-in products) is frankly commercial crap as an ode to cynical consumerism and the companies behind this clearly don't care about the actual community itself, and with all the increased exposure and attention comes an overlap of other trends, so we start to see a proliferation of "stunt" videos or attempts at it, which seem unenjoyable at best, and in some cases, have included trips to a hospital. 

There is also the intangible, which is where this sauce comes in, that pushes the show, as a whole, into the positive for me, and it's the choice of sauces appearing on-screen. One fine day, I assume once the show concludes, we will find out how the sauces make it onto the show, but I will say that, as someone who almost never watches the actual show, it has exposed me to a number of makers and sauces that I otherwise would never have experienced. That aspect speaks rather directly to me, as food explorer and lover of experimentalism in flavor, which is why I both have decided to do as many show sauces as possible and always look with interest upon the sauces of the newest seasons when those videos come out (full list in a separate TOC at right). I will also say that because of this activity of mine that the show has inspired, it has changed my mind a bit on a few sauces, which is mostly confirmation that it is good practice to try and keep an open mind. 

That aside, we have this sauce. Truth be told, shawarma is one of my most very favorite foods, but it is also one that I don't often have, unless I have some spare time, because, for the places around me, at least, it is not fast. Indeed, I was well due since I had not had any since the pandy and when I saw the title of this, I got excited and knew immediately what I had to do (and also what will be in the video for this, which should be posted in December 2023). Before I got to that, though, I had to put it through its paces. It's not characterized as strictly a shawarma sauce, but rather as a hot sauce and here, it is used as a wing sauce. So, run it through its paces I did.

Heat-wise, we're only dealing with Cayenne. It was in the 2 slot on the show for the season it was on and indeed, the heat is quite mild. The silkiness of the sauce from the olive oil, somewhat of a departure from the usual tahini that often is part of shawarma sauces at restaurants, gives it a very nice lush texture, rich, but not overbearingly so, given that olive oil is one of the lighter ones. There is also a solid amount of garlic in here, along with some of the usual suspects of shawarma. Usually spices of shawarma are an entire laundry list, which I won't detail here, as I also find it varies somewhat, but the general impression, though, again, not super forcefully, is one of the overall dynamic of shawarma. This is what is meant to happen, that you get an overall dynamic "whole is greater than sum of its parts" with shawarma, rather than isolating individual spices.

It is a beautifully designed sauce and a medium to medium-thick pour, which, again, is also right on the money. It is quite nice on pizza and I think it has a nice enough balance of garlic that I would at least attempt it on some Italian foods, such as spaghetti. It is thick enough to work somewhat well as a gravy, which is how I used it on chicken tendies and it was magnificent. There are usually three main types of meat used for shawarma, namely beef, chicken, and lamb. I found this worked exceedingly well on chicken, and I would guess pork also, but I didn't like it with burgers and don't think it works super well with red meat, which would also cut out the lamb. A lot of restaurant shawarma sauces follow somewhat of a similar pattern and I believe this is because with that many spices, the sauce really has to fit the application, another way in which this sauce is consistent with those.

Bottom line: This sauce reminds me a bit of some of the sauces from Torchbearer in its creamy, silky, garlicky nature, though it does pour easier, but it is a sauce that needs to be in the "right" application for best results. Definitely a great deal of fun to experiment with and is utterly delicious, definitely one of the better show sauces.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 7

Savannah Bee Honey Hot Sauce Review

Savannah Bee Honey Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPmP5AseEq8

Not to be confused with the Savannah Bee Fire Honey (which has a forthcoming, as of the date of the writing of this review, anyway, FOH video - check Hot Honeys & Syrups playlist, link at right), this product is meant to be a hot sauce and it is perhaps the epitome of my expectations when I hear the phrase "honey hot sauce." We basically have here their excellent honey, paired with Scotch Bonnets, a wise choice as that is an outstanding pepper, and then the usual salt and vinegar additions. This is reflected first in the color, which looks, as you would expect, as a more or less paler version of a honey, with bits and pieces of peppers knocking about.

A couple things happen here...while the great taste of the honey is definitely the lead, we get a healthy dose of the pepper flavor, along with some moderate heat. We also get quite a lot of a looser sauce, given the introduction of the vinegar, but it is all balanced extremely well, straddling the line between what reads as one foot in the hot honey world (this actually tastes more like a honey than some of the other hot honeys I've done FOH videos on) and one foot in the hot sauce world.

The great thing about honey, if you like honey, is that it can pair with a fairly wide variety of foods. Pretty much anything fried is good, but you can also use it on breakfast foods or pizza as well. For me, since this one is a touch on the runny side, I tend to use it more where it can soak into something, which does cut down a bit on the flexibility, but the label also mentions drinks. While this is true, I'm not sure how much of a thing that actually is, as it is an application I almost never think to use and am not sure I would enjoy totally. I like eating heat more than drinking it, if that makes sense. 

All in all, while this sauce is a bit on the pricey side, this, like the aforementioned Fire Honey, is quite delicious and I'm rather thoroughly enjoying this bottle, as I thoroughly enjoyed the honey. This is, after all, the entire point of condiments, to enhance and increase enjoyment when it's used and both of those fit the bill marvelously.

Bottom line: For me, this is the new benchmark of honey hot sauces. While it is a bit light on the heat side, the deliciousness of the sauce overall comes pretty close to making up for it. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 7