Gindo’s x Deane’s Market & Deli Sun-Dried Tomato Hot Sauce Review

Gindo’s x Deane’s Market & Deli Sun-Dried Tomato

I am not at all familiar with Deane’s Market & Deli, but figured it was probably something in Illinois somewhere and, perhaps predictably, that is exactly what it is. I imagine this is perhaps in proximity to Gindo’s, as it appears to be more or less a local favorite and you know, those are great. I have a few of my own in relative vicinity, one of which has food that has appeared in a video or two and one that was the source for hot sauce in the area for quite some time in the pre-Roger of BYT days. My education did not stop there. In the ingredients is something called a Red Fish Pepper, something I’d never heard of nor seen or even seen used prior to this sauce. It appears to be mainly a red bell variant, but it’s kind of cool that it shows up here. 

For a company that primarily makes fairly boutique, chef-ish, one-off sauces, this is perhaps the creme de la creme of them all. What we have here is a carefully orchestrated sauce that would be and is absolute magic on sandwiches, which is perhaps the thing delis generally are known for best. The secret here is the kalamatas. It is the first flavor you get before the deep richness and impact of the sun-dried tomatoes comes in, itself followed by a lovely back end finish of appreciable, though modest, heat as a finish. This is from the Carolina Reaper powder, and bolstered a bit by the Thai peppers. I’m usually not a fan of powder usage in sauce, as I think it goes wrong way more than it goes right, but here, it is in the hands of a maestro, and it shows. The orchestration is fantastic and something I have seen very few sauces do, dancing across the palate with all the grace of your favorite ballerina.

It’s hard to imagine a more gourmet sauce than this, particularly representing some of the very best that delis can offer, all in one delectable sauce, and, of course, given my fondness for pickled olives generally, this speaks to me rather directly. Given those olives, however, it does limit flexibility somewhat, but it is a great trade-off to my mind and where it works, it works spectacularly. Obviously, your mileage may vary somewhat dependent on how much you like those, but if it’s anywhere near as much as me, you will have great fun playing around with it in a variety of settings and for me, this is another of those sauces that works exceedingly well with Italian food flavors generally.

Bottom line: Gindo’s has done it again, putting out yet another brilliant sauce that makes me strongly suspect that magic is afoot somewhere over there.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7 

Butterfly Bakery Honey Field Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Butterfly Bakery Honey Field Habanero

I’m tempted to make this a relative rarity for this blog and do a fairly short review, as I don’t really have a lot to say about this sauce. It all comes down really to how much, or if, you like the flavor of orange Habaneros. Are the ones from Honey Field better than the ones I can put my grubby mitts out and grab from the grocery store shelf nearest to me? I’m willing to concede the point and the design of this sauce, with those Habs front and center as the first ingredient, is very much focused on representing that pod...but it is not a pod I view particularly fondly, nor have I ever. I do think this is about as good as a sauce can be where this is the intent and it has a very nice mouth feel, but I don’t love the flavor of orange Habs. 

I do wish I would have thought to hold out some of the Vermont Habs sauce I did earlier in the year to compare and contrast, as both sauces really do well to highlight the differences between the red and orange Habanero, especially in terms of flavor. I don’t dislike the flavor here and will definitely empty out the bottle, probably mostly where I would use a Louisiana-style, as I think it works in those settings best. It does bring a nice warm heat with it, but this is not something to which I’ll be returning. 

Bottom line: This is one of those sauces that just winds up not resonant to my particular palate, but it is otherwise a fine sauce, particularly if one enjoys the flavor of orange Habs.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 6

Merman’s Revenge Cajun Hot Sauce Review

Merman’s Revenge Cajun

This is the second product I’ve from this company, the first a glaze that I did an FOH video on in the late part of last year, but which wasn’t a hot sauce per se and so didn’t show up here. I wasn’t overly fond of that sauce and some of the aspects that stuck out a bit to me also appear here, namely the rather forceful nature of the garlic. I don’t mind garlic and in quite a few settings, like it considerably, but in hot sauces, I prefer it be more accent, something more like another component instead of abrasively aggressive. Unfortunately, it winds up being more the latter here. To wit, there are both garlic bits and granulated garlic in the proceedings. The garlic pieces are reading more as jarlic to me, which probably explains the harsh nature of that component.

Cajun sauces are essentially Lousiana-style Cayenne sauces with extra ingredients and for the base Cayenne sauce here, we have a lot of pepper bits in it. The flavor of that part reminds me a lot more of the vinegary hit of something like Crystal, while the pepper pieces and the garlic impart a grit that sort of makes an unpleasant mouth feel, depending on where you use it. I don’t generally get a lot of Cajun sauces, as I think garlic, while a flavor I’m generally favorable towards, has a lot of potential to be overused in the overall flavor mix. I very definitely do not find the approach here to be particularly enjoyable. 

Both the grit and the overly garlic-forward flavor cut down the flexibility quite a lot for me here. There is plenty of a vinegar charge to cut through the richness of foods and at times, the garlic won’t read too obnoxiously, but one really has to be judicious with applying it, perhaps doubly so since this did not come with a restrictor cap. I presume it doesn’t because of all the bits and pieces in the sauce, but the potential for oversaucing with this loose of a sauce is quite pronounced and for me, this is definitely not something I would like to oversauce with. This style of sauce tends to have fairly low heat and this fits nicely into that motif, though I didn’t find it registered much heat at all, even for the style. It’s not egregious enough that I’m going to bin the sauce, but it is one that I will be using up perhaps somewhat grudgingly.

Bottom line: If you’re a fan of fairly prominent and forceful garlic notes in your low-to-no heat vinegar-based hot sauces and don’t mind some grit, this is probably well worth a look. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 3
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 2

Gindo's Mild Roasted Red Pepper Hot Sauce Review

Gindo’s Mild Roasted Red Pepper

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFkTRz8Onqk 

This is a bit of an unusual selection, in that I wouldn’t generally pick something that is intentionally low heat. A couple of things strike me, one which was a factor in me getting the sauce in the first place and the second something that came about later after consideration of me contemplating something on the label. The first of those was that Habanero was listed in the ingredients, so I thought there might be perhaps a modicum of heat. To that end, there is not. There is no heat really to speak of at all in this sauce, but that ties in to what was on the label. It is intentionally a mild sauce and there is mention that it is a perfect sauce for beginners new to the chilehead world. I definitely would not disagree with that, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a good thing. 

I write these reviews and make these videos and cast them out in the world on their own, without ever knowing who may be reading or viewing and perhaps, if all the stars align, may be inspired by something they read or see, some neuron, the right neuron, fires and things click over for them. I have tried to not get into gatekeeping territory and it’s been very important to me for a very long time to be as inclusive as possible and it struck me that people who may be in the beginning of their chilehead journey are not especially represented here. The blog has generally been more reflective of where I see myself, which is far more intermediate to upper end of heat chilehead, but that was its design. While this doesn’t mean there will be more milder sauces that I intentionally pick (and I have backed off of my earlier impulses over time), I do think it doesn’t hurt anything to have sauces like show up from time to time. All of us start from zero and have different beginnings, different origin stories on our path into the chilehead journey.

Anyway, as to the sauce, roasted red peppers was one of my happiest food discoveries, perhaps ever. I should back up. Fried red peppers was a world-altering event for me, but those I found a tad hard to come by, but it was that which set me on the discovery to roasted red peppers, which were far more readily available. I loved those quite a lot, but also discovered that at times, they would come out of the jar a bit slimy. This sauce is basically like a fresh and vibrant roasted red pepper, in its very best form, made into a sauce, with that same freshness and vibrancy. It is that flavor, tinged with salt and vinegar, which constitutes nearly all of the flavor and it is pretty wonderful...provided you like roasted red peppers, of course. This would be brilliant on a sandwich or pizza or any other place you might use the roasted red peppers and the sauce is both so flavorful and mild, that you will not be punished for oversaucing. 

Bottom line: Definitely a potential gateway sauce, as those have to taste great, though I think this serves more as just an excellent version of roasted red pepper more, given the lack of heat.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 9
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 6

Butterfly Bakery Chipotle Squash Hot Sauce Review

Butterfly Bakery Chipotle Squash

If one wanted a sauce that was strongly reminiscent of fall and a warm, comforting hug in a bottle, one would be hard pressed to find one more apropos than this. Once again, Butterfly Bakery comes forth with a work of genius, pairing roasted butternut squash, one of my very favorite fall foods and one that never fails me to drag me back to those chilly and biting nights that heralded both the end of summer and that the harvest was well and truly at hand. Fall has been my favorite time of the year for a very long time and things like that I suspect constitute a significant part of that formation. Add to that the smell of smoke in the air, as people fired up their furnaces or had bonfires, perhaps a last ceremonial hurrah before the bite of winter ended outdoor activities of that nature for another year.

The squash, of course, you could make into nice soup or add to casseroles or perhaps into a sauce for a nice macaroni dish and it’s one of those ingredients that if I ever see it used in a hot sauce, I’m immediately interested, instantly curious to see what they did with it. It is a tad unusual, but here, it is used to glorious effect, along with the pairing of some lovely tomatoes, to add a nice richness and depth, and, of course, the fresh Chipotles that are part of the proceedings. The first ingredient to all of this, it should be noted, is red Serranos, which I’m beginning to think more and more are underrated as a sauce ingredient. 

This sauce has a slight bit of grit from the seeds, but a nice amount of heft to it, creating a quite solid mouth feel. It is also very tame as far as heat, and they laid back a bit on the smoke, so one can use quite a lot of this sauce when experimenting and it is a very good sauce to do that with. The adage that if you make a good enough tasting sauce, the flexibility will be built in still holds true and I think you could have yourself a lovely time just playing around with different food pairings and this sauce, naturally going through all the suggestions on the label, of course. They are once again on the mark here with a truly unique and delicious sauce. 

Bottom line: A very accessible sauce that speaks to me on a number of levels, but with the low heat level, this is one probably more appealing to foodie first chileheads.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7