The General's Berry Breach Hot Sauce Review

The General’s Berry Breach

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook & Instagram. 

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

I have a stance about fruit-based sauces and it is that I think they should always lean towards the sweeter side of things. Now, admittedly, this is my direct preference and does not preclude me trying and sometimes enjoying sauces that don’t fit into this characteristic exactly, but that is what a not inconsiderable part of me wants when I see fruit as an ingredient in a sauce. For this, I was very interested to see what the result would be with their first fruit-based sauce, given this company’s very distinctive approach to the other sauces. 

The General’s sauces all tend to have a fairly notable characteristic in the flavor note that I’m fairly sure is due to the fermentation and how much mash is going into the respective bottles. This sauce joins the others in that and like most of the others, is relatively few ingredients. We have blueberries, Habanero mash, vinegar, honey, and salt. The honey is an interesting addition, given that it is far too subtle of a flavor to be there as a tasting note and instead winds up as sweetener. Most of the flavor here is Habanero, with a salted blueberry side note. There is a degree of bitterness here from the Habs as well that I could have lived without, even with the honey probably at least tempering that somewhat. This is definitely far from a sweet sauce, however. As far as heat, what is there is mostly immediately, but with Habaneros comes a slight build as well, which this does. I would call it a nice warmth, but not particularly challenging.

As with many other sauces that skew away from sweetness, I think it works against the sauce here and it would have been better served to lean a lot harder into the sweet side. I know, I know military-theme, tough guys, rah rah and all that, but that’s marketing and irrelevant to what’s actually inside the glass. I think had they skipped the honey and instead used pure maple syrup and also more of it, the result would have been a lot closer to my happy zone. I definitely enjoy what is here, which works nicely on both chicken and especially red meat, but making it sweeter would not have detracted from those and would have also positioned it nicely against the other sauces in the line-up. It also would have opened up things for dessert, which I assume even military rah rah tough guys also enjoy from time to time. 

Bottom line: The first foray from The General’s into a fruit-based sauce was as interesting as I was expecting. While solid, it ultimately does not quite hit the spot I was hoping.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 5

Butterfly Bakery Mustard Cranberry Hot Sauce Review

Butterfly Bakery Mustard Cranberry

This is a fascinating sauce and one of the few that comes to mind which places the Ghosties front and center from a flavor perspective. Most of the time, when sauces use this ingredient, it is more as accent, if used for flavor, but generally, the idea is that it will provide some superhot heat. Here, it delivers both heat and flavor, which is enhanced considerably by the lovely Carmen peppers also in the mix. To be sure, while the heat is not quite what I would call chilehead only, there is little question a superhot is in the mix and I suspect it make take normies unaware, if they are not prepared somewhat for it.

So we already have that profile, which gets us some pod fruitiness, along with some bitter superhot notes, and then in comes the mustard and cranberry. Mustard and the quinine of cranberry tend to be fairly forceful notes, with the latter of the two borderline unpalatable in its raw form. There is quite a bit of bitterness to be had with those as well, so I was greatly curious of the direction this sauce would take. It is one of the more intriguing combinations I’ve had, in that you have the pod flavors, as noted, then grace notes of the mustard and a not-exactly-but-close sort of berry quality from the cranberries. Altogether, it sort of defies categorization.

I will be frank here. The enjoyment of this sauce rather greatly depends on where you put it. I don’t find it an overly flexible sauce, as there are definitely some strong flavors going on here. Pairing notes suggest German food, which I think is definitely the good call. Some nice smoked ham, some outstanding cervelat, maybe some brats are all on the money. Rye bread is also a suggestion and I do think sandwiches are one of the places it excels. If you happen to be making a sandwich where you would want both mayo and mustard, for instance, making up a spicy mayo with this and using that as a sandwich spread, especially if you’re pairing it with a nice creamy cheese, like a high quality Havarti, is going to put this is fantastic territory. In terms of pairing, just think of a food where you’d want a fairly strong mustard to go and you’d about have it. 

Bottom line: One of the more unique sauces (I can think of nothing quite like it) out there, but a bit narrow in terms of application scope. While the heat level isn’t overbearing, some familiarity with the bite of Ghosties would definitely be in order before stepping in.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 5

Lauren Urban Farms Pink Panther Hot Sauce Review

Lauren Urban Farms Pink Panther

The naming convention of this sauce I find a little curious. There is no connection with the motion picture franchise, nor to Peter Sellers, nor to Henry Mancini, not even to the animated series from United Artists. The color of this sauce is decidedly not pink. Panthers were not a part of the creation of this sauce, which is understandable, given that they don’t actually exist and the word itself translates to leopard and/or jaguars. There is a genus of panthera, but that doesn’t refer to any specific big cat...all very curious indeed.

It is here that I will do that rare thing and directly refer you to the sauce makers website, where we can see pictures of this saucing, utilizing some nifty peppers, in creation and can at least understand the pink part of things. There are a couple of pods here that I don’t think I’ve ever run across before, certainly not in a sauce. They are the purple heirloom Bells, which I may have had in the past in another setting, though I don’t recall specifically now, and the buena mulata pepper, which is an offshoot of the Cayenne. The name is kind of fascinating as it refers in direct translation to a “good,” which is the buena part, though in this context it appears to often mean merry as well, female person of mixed African and European heritage, the “mulata” part. How this got applied to an ornamental pepper pod seems like it would be a fascinating story.

In any case, as far as its usage in a sauce, I found it to be very curious. There are definitely shades of Cayenne, but almost more like Cayenne-lite or maybe a more tamed version of Cayenne. It seems closest to a Lousiana-style or Cajun, given how extremely loose and watery the sauce itself is and this is another that probably needed to come with a restrictor cap. There were a lot of subtleties that were strongly reminiscent of home-canned pickles and the juice thereof, but not overtly...just subtly. I find the flavor here to be fascinating and somewhat light and delicate on the palate. Regrettably, in my experience, it also meant that it would wind up getting lost with various foods and after flavor cancellation, I’d be left with a vaguely peppery vinegar aspect. This is a shame, as the sauce is quite lovely in tone, but also means pairing must needs be judicious. There more you can get out of its way and let it shine, the better, so think some nice roast chicken, but I do believe it will also be exquisite in some vinaigrettes and dressings as well. 

Bottom line: I love coming across new pods and quite enjoyed my experience with this. It perhaps resembles most a Lousiana-style Cayenne or Cajun sauce, though a far more delicate one.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6

Savir Foods Churro Ancho Dessert Hot Sauce Review

Savir Foods Churro Ancho

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook & Instagram.

Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRIWsYDAx7M

This is a sauce I was not expecting to like and wasn’t aware it existed until very recently. I’d seen other Savir Foods hot sauces here and there, but I noted their lineup seemed a bit light and a lot of them had onions, which was kind of the end of things...or so I thought. I really like this idea of dessert sauces, which is a relatively new kind of thing or direction, if you like, for the hot sauce world. Certainly, I have covered a few others on this blog, but most hot sauces are not really intended for that and usage there winds up being more incidental than anything else. 

The main reason I didn’t expect to like this was the idea of the cinnamon. I’m not a huge fan of that and a little goes a long, long way for me. I’m not a fan of cinnamon things, particularly, and find that cinnamon gets used as a hammer too frequently for my taste. I don’t keep any cinnamon powders or sticks at all at hand and if I come across them in a recipe, will usually just delete that part. When checking this one out, I noted it also had Ghosties, Cayenne, and dates, the last of which is fairly unusual for sauces, though I’ve run into it twice already this year (the other one being the Seed Ranch Smoky Ghost hot sauce, which may or may not be posted by the time you read this - check TOC at right). This is not a particularly hot sauce, though, just has a nice comforting bit of warmth in the velvety mouth feel it delivers. 

This sauce uses the dates better. The label describes the cinnamon as a warm cinnamon and I have no idea what that means, but it does seem gentler than in other things I’ve had it in. I think the cinnamon is used very nicely here and it melds with the the sugar and fruit and the avocado oil and possibly the nutritional yeast in a very lovely and smooth way. I found this, to my great surprise, quite enjoyable and tried it on a number of pastries. I also tried it on ice cream, which was a bust, but if you stick to using it anywhere you might normally use or want cinnamon, this should work the trick quite nicely indeed. Obviously, this precludes savory foods, but by calling this as a dessert hot sauce out of the gate, a reduced flexibility comes more or less built in.

Bottom line: This is an amazingly lovely dessert sauce, in addition to being one of the happier surprises I’ve come across in recent memory. If you like or love cinnamon, you will probably get more out of this sauce, but I did find it astonishingly pleasant.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 9
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6

Monoloco Matasanos Hot Sauce Review

Monoloco Matasanos

Note: This sauce appears on Season 23 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nFpzH0lw2M 

It’s hard to think of a flavor profile that would be more contrary to my palate, excluding things that actively make me physically ill, like onions. As I’ve noted, I’m not generally a fan of Indian flavorings or food, and the more forceful those particular spice blends tend to be in things, the less I find it palatable. Here, it is quite prominent and it is backed by one of the more bitter aspects I’ve run across in a sauce. This could be the superhot bitter of the Reapers, but I strongly suspect it might also be at least partly due to a mix of dry spices at play. Whatever the cause, I find great difficulty in locating enjoyment when using it.

It is immediately blazing, quite beyond what any non-chilehead will likely find either tolerable or enjoyable, so definite chilehead only territory. It was in the 9 slot on the show, which is sometimes meaningful and sometimes not, but here it is pretty reflective of the punchiness this sauce delivers. Heat-wise I found it rather pleasant, but accompanied by that bitter, that bit of enjoyment dissipated almost immediately. I half wonder if them using oil, which should create a smoothing effect, might be interfering with the integration of the dried spices somewhat, but in any case, there is a slight graininess to the sauce as well, which further doesn’t help matters. 

Where I think this would be in best use would be to add it to a sauce in the Indian style of food. I think it would work exceedingly well there blending in with the other spices and with its quite hot nature, one would not need to use a great amount of it. Obviously, that is very much not my thing, so I’m not the one to try this out, but for other chileheads who may like Indian cuisine more than me, I think they could find much to enjoy here and presumably, that would also temper the highly bitter nature of this sauce.

Bottom line: This is the second sauce from Monoloco that is very much not for me. While I found it slightly more enjoyable than the XXX (reviewed elsewhere here), it is going to be getting gone as soon as I film the Q2 2026 Wing Thing.  

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 1

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