Tennessee Blood Orange Ghost
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gdA3RP7WcY
Well, ol' Roger over at Burn Your Tongue happened to have a sale right before I was getting ready to go on a road trip (which was why the previous post was a bit earlier than normal) and since I was, as seems perpetual to me, in need of a fruit-based sweet hot or two, I dropped in to one of the spinoff locations to pick up a few at the tidy discount he was offering. I picked up a few of those, figuring I'd get back to them once I returned, but this one proved too much to resist and I had to fight back using this (and another, which will be forthcoming) prior to leaving, so as to have enough left to both review and to film for the FOH series.
My favorite citrus overall is probably blood orange and it was that, in combination with the Ghost, still my favorite superhot, that pushed me over into picking this one up, even though I had some misgivings about the lime. Happily, those misgivings turned out to be misplaced as this is one special sauce indeed. The citrus notes combine into a sort of general citrusy tone, while the garlic, Ghost, and salt blend together in a near magical fashion. The tomato is there to put out some roundness and bring the whole thing together, with the result being quite nice and absolutely one of those sauces wherein the whole is more than the sum of the parts. I found it an absolute delight on meats and meat-forward dishes, but one of the really neat things about the company, which I was not familiar with prior to Roger putting them on, is that they have an entire section of their website devoted to pairing the hot sauces with foods. Absolutely brilliant and I commend them highly for this. I haven't tried everything there, but might get another bottle to do that. I will say that, for me, this sauce is a touch limited as far as usage in that whatever it is needs to accommodate citrus, so pizza and cream-heavy dishes are probably out, at least for me.
This is definitely one of the more delicious sauces I've had this year and the last few it's felt a bit like I'm trudging along trying to find ways to use them. Here, I had to hold myself back from using it up and I'm always overjoyed when I find sauces like that, which are rarer and rarer for me these days, which is also probably to be expected. Having that superhot means the heat is the flash type, which means it is immediately hot, like a lighter coming to life, and then cools off right after, such as if you let off on the gas of a lighter. Still, this is one that kind of skirts the line between being overly hot for normies, if I had to guess. I won't say it's chilehead territory outright, but more the red line separating.
Bottom line: An absolute stunner of a sauce, both unique and utterly delicious. Pretty much a must for chileheads and fans of Ghosties.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 10
Flexibility: 3
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8
Overall: 6
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