Merf's Peaches & Scream Hot Sauce Review

Merf's Peaches & Scream

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue, ace hot sauce purveyor. Check him out on Facebook. 

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAUur8o7h4Q

This is a kind of odd coincidence, in that this is the second sauce to not only use the play of words of "peaches and cream," but the second I've done this year, the other being from Ginger Goat, reviewed elsewhere here. And both of them sort of call to mind the question of what's in a name. When I hear a word in the name of a sauce, there are certain expectations. If that word is peaches, I anticipate that flavor. Now, the overall tone may be different, ranging from the aforementioned Ginger Goat, to the absolute best of that type, the Eddie Ojeda peach sauce, which tastes like about the very best peach pie or cobbler you're ever likely to have in this life, but the idea is if you put an ingredient in the name of a sauce, it should be represented, probably heavily, in the flavor profile.

This one, however, seems to dispense with that reasoning. There are many flavors present here, most of them fairly undertoned, but peach is generally not among them. Given that it is, at best, a fairly light flavor and in the ingredient list, it falls behind several other stronger tastes, no real surprise there. This is not the only bit of oddness to this sauce. Generally, when we see sweet-hots, particularly fruit-based ones, they tend to be on the thicker side of things, all the better to hold to stuff, especially when they're also meant to be a dessert sauce. This absolutely will not work there, but it is also quite watery and runny, nearly the equal of your favorite Louisiana-style.

I somewhat question the ingredient label, to a degree, in that the Reaper is the very last ingredient on the panel, but this is quite a fiery sauce, as in chilehead-only territory, well beyond most Habanero sauces (that ingredient is around where peaches is). We also have both carrots and mangos, not to mention vinegar, the flavor profile of all of which show up to a fashion, but are not mentioned in the sauce name. I think part of the issue here is that it's very unclear what this sauce is meant to be. The runniness precludes it from a number of areas it might normally go, and the flavor profile knocks that number down further. What is really curious is that if you use it on breaded foods, which is usually a safe bet for runnier sauces, as it gives something to absorb into, the flavor sort of vanishes and you get this weird effect of the vinegar cutting down somewhat the richness, while leaving a heat charge behind. It's one of those sauces where I have to find places for it to fit and I think this definitely works to disadvantage here. 

Bottom line: A rather unique sauce, best reserved for chileheads, and one that does not really have an obvious natural fit, with a the profile and looseness of the sauce working against it somewhat.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 3
           Flavor: 6
           Flexibility: 3
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 4