Silk City Shake And Pour Over Hot Sauce Review

Silk City Shake And Pour Over

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCj4S-xqpzU

Mastermind Jeff Levine has done it again, with another banger entry into an already impressive list of entries over the years. Here, we have a label directly either parodying or paying homage, honestly not entirely sure which, to the cover and titles of the seminal KISS album from 1976, coming on the heels of the equally seminal preceding Destroyer record of the same year, nearly six months to the day.

Inside, we have a sauce strongly reminiscent of the Badass Jew (reviewed elsewhere here) hot sauce, though this one has a touch more sweetness and a touch less pepper flavor than did the other. It is worth noting that the other one was a SOTY contender in one of the more competitive years of this blog, which will shortly have some bearing for this sauce. The Shake & Pour Over is a bit lighter and maybe a tad runnier than I remember the other being, but they are overall quite close. In a lot of respects, if this sauce was reduced down a bit, I think you’d have a fine spaghetti sauce, though I’m not going to attempt it. I might suggest that Jeff, should he happen across these scribbles, considering doing that, though, as I think it would be fantastic and perhaps a bold new addition. Spike the heat very slightly upward and you’d have a very solid arrabiata sauce, for instance.

As I said, I won’t be attempting it, as this sauce is delicious in nearly every application in which I’ve tried it, sans Mexican or Asian food. It is accessible enough that I suspect it wouldn’t necessarily be bad in either, though assuredly not to my preference. One of the attributes that sauces utilizing tomato all seem to share is this sort of cross-food platform flexibility and this definitely falls into that category. Heat-wise, we’re dealing strictly with Habaneros, as far as I’ve been able to find, and at that, in the middle of the ingredient list, so heat is quite moderate. This is not only a great introduction to Silk City itself, but could be a fantastic gateway sauce for those chilehead curious, as it both delivers a fairly low and slow heat, but the flavor is fantastic as well.

Bottom line: Somewhat unusually, first post a new year and we already have our first Sauce Of The Year candidate, but for a sauce that packs this much great flavor and value into a bottle, from one of the more consistently inventive makers out there, it would be hard for this not to be in contention.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 8