Double Take B-Sides Hot Sauce Review

Double Take B-Sides

Anytime I have a sauce from The Hot Ones show that I find impressive and that introduces me to a new company, I generally will use it as a launch point and look more into the sauce company. In this case, Double Take is another maker that likes to heavily use onions, so this will be the end of my little foray into their lineup, unless other sauces come out that don’t include them, but this was one I picked up from somewhere during a Black Friday 2023 buy (yes, it sat on my shelf for that long, staring longingly at me – I wound up with a deluge of Lousiana-style/Cajun style sauces this year, unusually) and kept meaning to get to.

The verbiage on the label, which itself is kind of a throwback both to the earlier times of vinyl and to the psychedelic era, claims this as the best Louisiana style sauce, which is not a position to which I’d agree and perhaps didn’t ultimately pan out, as I don’t see this sauce any longer in their lineup. This is kind of a shame, as flavor-wise, this is definitely near the top for this style of sauce. I found it, with the excellent combination of Habanero and red bell, to be quite delicious and sort of representative of the style, with one major caveat. It is unfortunately that same caveat that sinks the rating overall on this a bit.

This is one of the loosest sauces I’ve ever had, basically the consistency of water. This is a huge problem as it tends to separate and pool rather easily, even with a restrictor cap. The tendency will be to use a lot of it because that same looseness leads to a lack of concentration of flavor, so to get the desired density, the thought would be to use more, but because it is so runny, you will readily get puddles, unless it is something that can absorb the liquid. Obviously food stickiness is a problem and the label copy suggestion, of putting it on pizza (does anyone actually use a Louisiana-style for that food?), sounds like a recipe for instant tragedy to me. It would have strongly benefitted from either being reduced and/or some xanthan gum.

Heat-wise, it’s only Habanero, which is towards the end of the ingredient list, so it wouldn’t have been challenging to begin with, but particularly not with the sort of watered-down effect of the sauce.

Bottom line: This sauce is a good example that was one finishing step away from being a top tier contender and had it been more concentrated and/or less loose, I believe it would have been in SOTY contender territory.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 8
           Flexibility: 3
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 5