Torchbearer Mushroom Mayhem
Note: This sauce appears on Season 20 of The Hot Ones.
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUi-s-VfeAI
I really like the ethos of Torchbearer, going with an all-natural motif, shooting for some healthy aspects to the sauce, and coming up with some really inventive stuff along the way. For some of the sauces I've had from them, I find them more interesting than good, which is not meant to be an insult in any way, but more a reflection of the dynamic and wonderfully creative aspects of the sauces overshadowing the flavors a bit...for me, anyway. All of the reviews on this blog and the all of the FOH videos on YouTube are a reflection of my own personal and distinct palate, which may (and hopefully does) match readers and viewers to an extent, but my enjoyment is specifically derivative of that palate.
I don't think I've ever had a sauce from Torchbearer that I think is outright bad, but there are definitely some I've enjoyed a lot more than others. This one fell solidly in the "ok" category for me. I certainly didn't hate it, but didn't love it or especially like it much for the earlier testing I'd done, but found it solid enough to want to finish out the bottle...until, that is, I put it on a fast food burger, which got me thinking...
One of my all-time favorite menu items at any restaurant was the old Mushroom N Swiss burger from Hardee's back in the 80s and early 90s. I worked at Hardee's and consequently had steady access and so I had a lot of those, often even when not working. Once the changeover with Hardee's and Carl's Jr. came about, actually, even well before that, I think they deleted the menu items and other places would do weird crap with theirs, like add mayo (having built a lot of those myself, that was verboten). This sauce made me immediately think of the mushroom sauce that came on those, which it is nowhere near, to be sure, but the flavors here seem to point a bit at a steak sauce and indeed, on red meat, this stuff is nothing short of fantastic, where you get an amplification of both the mushroom flavor and the general umami.
I tried it on a few different foods and generally didn't like it. It would often strike me as overly astringent or the floral notes of the Scorpion would be too forward and overshadow the more subtle flavors in there, but in the right setting, all of that goes away and you get a nice solid heat, along with the sauce substantially adding to the flavor dynamic. The molasses-Mandarin orange combination I find an intriguing one, to be sure, but with that substantial of a depth of flavor, it needs a strong foil to counter it a touch. When this sauce is the main flavor, I find it a bit off-putting, still not bad, per se, just not what I'm after. Heat-wise, both Scorpions and Habaneros here put this at a steady 2.
Bottom line: This is another one I find kind of puzzling for a wing sauce, given its inclusion on the Hot Ones show, but on red meat, it is near magical...assuming you like mushrooms, of course.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8
Overall: 5
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