Backdraft Fire Sauce Hot Sauce Review

Backdraft Fire Sauce

From one “kitchen sink” sauce, we follow immediately up with another, though this one is definitely less “kitchen sink” and more just overly busy. It very clearly is more a sweet mustard than any other thing, albeit one with a hodge-podge of what I’d say are excessive stray elements. One of those is the Peruvian seasoning, which contributes a dry-herby sort of feel to things that I could very much do without. I also kind of question the thought of sweetening mustard with both cane sugar and molasses, but that part is less egregious.

The main flavor components here are: mustard, Worcestershire sauce, molasses, and there is also red Habanero pepper mash as well, to sort of give it a slight modicum of heat, along with some cane sugar. The label itself is pretty silly, ranging from suggested use of “EVERYTHING” to calling it a “Fireman’s worst nightmare” and then saying it is dedicated to firefighters...taken literally, which I will now do, is the idea that it is bottled-up bad dreams dedicated to firefighters? Also, calling this “fire” sauce instead of hot sauce is kind of silly and meaningless. This is not to say that hot sauce has intrinsic meaning, since hot usually denotes temperature and you could have literally anything bottled be a “hot” sauce...or cold sauce. Colloquially, the condiment we all know as hot sauce is a reference to capsaicin and moving to “fire” sauce should denote a potentially higher degree of that.

Here, it is does not. We’re dealing with red Habanero, somewhat down in the ingredient list, and heat is quite moderate. It is not appreciable particularly in the flavor. Since this really wants to be considered a hot sauce rather than a mustard, it will be judged in that way. The flavor is quite busy, with a term I like to use called severalmany things going on at once. This sauce would have benefitted tremendously from being stripped back somewhat and simplified and it kind of feels like someone just kept adding stuff until they got to a desired end, rather than pulling back and starting over. It works reasonably well on most meats, excepting, oddly enough, sausages, and it’s a bit too cold (and eggs too expensive at present) for me to try it in either egg salad or potato salad or deviled eggs, but I tend not to love sweet mustards there and definitely prefer uncomplicated flavors towards part of a cohesive whole, rather than a bunch of random notes like this one delivers.

Bottom line: I’m almost tempted to call it a novelty sauce, but I don’t think that’s the intent. Considering it a more or less overly busy sweet mustard is the good move here. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 3