Earthquake Spices Biohazard Hot Sauce Review

Earthquake Spices Biohazard

I think this review might be more random thoughts in nature, as I don’t find this works particularly well as an actual hot sauce. It is very loose, quite watery, needs a restrictor cap it doesn’t come with, is very vinegar forward, and is a fruit sauce that has no discernible sweetness, which is a big-time no-no in my book. Happily, even though it lists apple cider vinegar, the stinky foot aspect of that particular vinegar doesn’t read at all, but that is kind of where my happiness ends. If you have this sauce solo, you can definitely get a nice blast of salt, with grace notes of a sort of amalgamation of the berries, and an undercurrent of the superhot bitter of the  mighty mighty Reapers, which also make this sauce punchy enough to be better reserved for chileheads. I’m going to stop well short of suggesting it is a salt or berry or Reaper flavored vinegar, but vinegar is quite forward in the flavor profile. That flavor profile is not bad, per se, as much as I find it confusing. There is enough fruit flavor,especially if you hit one of the fruit chunks that underlines the potential and what could have been, that it needs to be accounted for and combined with the runniness of the sauce, I found it fairly challenging to use, though definitely it worked best on fried foods, like chicken tendies. To be sure, though, I vastly preferred other sauces there as well. I will definitely be using it as a chilehead vinegar, however, in composite recipes going forward and I think it will be very interesting in something like a quinoa salad dressing or possibly as part of cole slaw dressing.

I find a lot of amusement with the label, which lists the sauce as “Bioharzard,” which is not a word. I looked up the website, where it is listed and pictured correctly as “Biohazard,” so this is probably a typo. Another typo is in the ingredient list, which spells raspberry as “rasberries.” The scale has at the highest level, a mushroom cloud, on a scale trying to reference piquancy, but titled using a word that references to measurements of planetary vibrations. Obviously, that has nothing to do with heat, so the entire thing reads with a bit of dissonance. Then there is the “CONSUME AT YOUR OWN RISK” tag, which is probably meant to indicate that the sauce will contain some good heat, but in light of other elements, has some additional connotations. Finally, it is stated that this sauce will be “great on everything,” and I usually don’t get too much into label copy, but this particular one is bringing me a good deal of merriment. I can’t imagine anyone wanting something along these lines on a pizza or a bagel and lox. 

Bottom line: This one needs a lot more refinement. I can’t imagine what was in the bottle I had was what they envisioned when they set out to make this. There is conceptually some good stuff here, and if they re-ordered the ingredients, such as putting the berries first, then the vinegar, then sugar, and then the rest of the stuff, they would probably be on to something...as well as having a sauce with more appropriate body. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 2