Char Man Pinya Hot Sauce Review

Char Man Pinya

Fatalii is probably a pod that's been around longer than it seems, but to me, it seems a relatively new pod on the scene, because it's only been in recent years that I've encountered it. I've tended to think of it as a superhot, but that may not be the case and perhaps indicative of my unfamiliarity. I tend to think this because it seems to have a bitterness to it relative to superhots and it also has a floral nature that I associated strongly with Scorpions, an aspect I care less and less for over the years. Yet, I do also fully admit that may be both a combination of my own ignorance and the setting I've had it in. I say this because in this sauce, which is both very fruit-forward and very sweet, there is a fruitiness that is distinctive to pods, right before the bitter and floral hammer come screaming in. Possibly I've undersold these, but also they are used so infrequently it seems, that it's small work to avoid them. 

As to this sauce, I will say directly that this is exactly the kind of pineapple flavor I always hope for in a hot sauce. It is absolutely delicious and I can't think of another sauce where the pineapple is done any better. Now, I will also say that I wish a different pod was used. I know that Scotch Bonnets and Habaneros are used a lot and are tired and all sauce makers want to differentiate themselves, but even though this sauce is perhaps my favorite application of Fataliis and puts them in perhaps the best possible light, I still wish a better-tasting pod was used. 

This has not prevented me from loving this sauce and using it happily, though. This is the kind of thing I want in my pineapple sweet-hots, for sure. This thing is a gem on pizza and on meats of all kinds, including and perhaps particularly on burgers, chicken, of course, and I finally got my long-sought dream of getting pina colada shrimp to work, by careful application of this on coconut shrimp. The flavor cancellation with several of those foods works to great effect and dramatically reduces both the bitter and floral parts, leaving the inherent fruitness of the pod working with the wonderful pineapple. But, it's a balancing act, of course. If the sauce is used a bit too heavily, those start to rear their heads again. Sauces are meant to work with foods and this one does, to great effect with judiciousness. 

Now those aspects may be more limited to me and my palate, but in a way, I guess it also could be a positive, as I definitely am cautious to try to avoid those other flavor notes and thus elevate whatever food I'm using this with. I don't think I've ever had a Fatalii sauce, again in my limited exposure, where it hasn't read as a superhot and I think the heat here can possibly take some users aback, particularly if non-chileheads. It does dissipate somewhat quickly, though, so I think it potentially makes a nice bridge or intermediate sauce.

Bottom line: This is not quite a tale of two sauces for me. It has the best pineapple, but a pod where I wished a different one were used. Still, if you are a fan of pineapple sweet-hots, I unreservedly recommend you give this one a shot.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 9
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 7 

Earthquake Spices Death By Garlic Hot Sauce Review

Earthquake Death By Garlic

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I picked this up. I glanced briefly at the ingredient list, noted the Fresnos and Worcestershire, along with the black garlic, but still paused. I hadn't exactly been bowled over by the previous sauces from this company and was considering putting them on a bit of a pause for a year or two, to try again at some later point. You can read the other two reviews on this blog. With makers I'm not familiar with, it works on a sort of sliding scale. Depending on how much I like whatever sauce(s) I'm introduced to them with, I might try to buy the entire lineup of other flavors as well. This works on the other side as well, where if I intensely dislike a sauce, I might write the company off entirely. But there is also the middle ground, the gray area in the center, which was kind of where Earthquake fell after the first two sauces. 

The sauce was, by no means, surefire. The Fresnos are always a strong ingredient for sauces, but adding Jalapeno and Habanero, while perhaps a touch pedestrian, is probably as close to automatic as one can get in hot sauces. Heat-wise, given those, this is also fairly nominal. I understand there are a couple of other heat level variations of this and I probably will also seek those out at some point. Garlic is something I like but also feel it can become overbearing fairly easily in hot sauces and depending on what type of garlic is used, might put it outside of the realm of positive returns. Naming something "death by [x]," usually means whatever the [x] is in the phrase will result in that being very forward, but here we have black garlic. Black garlic will carry a lovely umami load, but is not intensely garlic-y forward, and it was in the middle of the pack of ingredients, so the naming convention I found a tad confusing. Once I opened the bottle, however, which is what really matters, most of my doubts were dispelled. 

The earlier part of this had a fascinating sweetness that I didn't initially understand. That, combined with the Worcestershire, created a wonderful dynamic, while the mouth feel was largely that of pepper pulp, giving it a nice body, while still retaining a lovely consistency. As I got on in the bottle, it definitely started to predictably lean more towards the Worcestershire, but there was enough contrast that it wasn't restricted entirely to that. As I had initially kind of expected, this was definitely quite umami-heavy, but flexible enough to also work nicely on chicken and a few other cheesy dishes I tried it on. I think it would also do quite wonderfully on non-sweet breakfast foods, but generally, no matter where I put it, I found the experience at least interesting. I wouldn't care to repeat some of them, but none were outright bad. 

Bottom line: This is a delicious, very heavily umami sauce with a confusing name that it doesn't really live up to. If you need a good summer sauce for grilled meats, this is an excellent bet. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 9
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 6   

Splintered Hummin' & Strummin' Hot Sauce Review

Splintered Hummin' & Strummin'

I don't generally have a lot of interest in strawberry sauces, as they take me generally a really long time to get through. I'm not a fan of the strawberry chicken combination, outside of say a summer strawberry salad, and as most of them are fairly sweet, there's only so much ice cream I consume, either with or without a nice strawberry hot sauce. So, it can take a bit to get through a bottle and space is always kind of at a premium in my fridge door.

But, they can be interesting on burgers and this was the last of the sauces from Splintered that used the base of Reapers and so on, described elsewhere here in other reviews, with replacing the main fruit and for the sake of completeness, I definitely wanted to have a crack at it. I had no idea when I got them how sweet or fruity they would actually be and I think at least some part of me had a high notion of making a July 4 sundae, potentially, with all of them, but alas. This, like the others, is not particularly sweet, but like the other berry flavors, is very forward in fresh fruit flavor. Strawberry, though, is a lot more subtle than I think the other two are and consequently, the superhot bitter of the Reapers reads a bit more here. It also feels ever so slightly hotter, but it is still not particularly blazing. 

The real issue I have with this one is the consistency. This sauce is not watery, but overall quite thin. I found this to be a bit of a dilemma, as it was too runny to work well on burgers and not quite sweet enough for desserts. Actually, I should take that back. It worked the best on ice cream, but the runniness again created an issue. There was some very nice favorable flavor cancellation there and I was debating hunting down some strawberry shortcake to try it there. 

It is not anywhere near as savory as the other two berry variants, so flexibility is somewhat of an issue. Fortunately, I had this during summer and during summer, when strawberries are more in season, it's always nice to have a summer strawberry salad or two and that's where this thing really shined, beyond the ice cream and possibly the desserts I mentioned. It brought the salad to life in a way that perfectly contrasted with the crispy bacon and chicken nuggets, and though I used cheddar cheese, I think some nice bleu would have really been the ticket. So, you may have to fish around a bit to pair this, but it definitely can be well worth it when you find the combination.

Bottom line: The last of the fruit-based Splintered sauces based on the same foundation, this one is definitely the equal to the others in flavor, but is marred considerably by the consistency.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 5 

Splintered Dirty Blues Hot Sauce Review

Splintered Dirty Blues

Alright, a 1 and a 2 and 3 and let's get going. What we have here is the usual Splintered framework, at least as far as the fruit-based sauces that I've done (as well as the one on deck - check TOC at right for any you may have missed), which is vinegar, Reaper mash, Jalapeno mash, salt, and both onion and garlic powder. This is the base upon which the various fruits lay upon and it's very interesting, because it almost functions as a control group. I quite like the idea, though the results vary for me pretty widely. This one, however, I'm happy to say, is my favorite of the lot by a pretty wide margin...at least for now. 

This is because the blueberries have a fresh and lively vibrancy, a freshness to them, along with a wonderful concentration of flavor. In the background, we have the aromatics and the peppers, with the Reapers bringing a slight degree of heat. While I still feel the onion and garlic powders are unnecessary and all the sauces would be better without those things, I will note that their base with fruit combination works the best here and the sauce by itself is pretty nice. It is not sweet enough to use on pancakes and it failed pretty considerably on blueberry pie, but it works well on ice cream and I could see it doing well with other breakfast foods, like sausage. Indeed, it is on meats where this really shines. Chicken, pork, and beef all worked wonderfully with it. I have my doubts on pairing it with fish, but I was tempted to go track down some buffalo to pair it with...I still might. I think it also could come together well with something like cheeses. 

For me, my preference with fruit-based sauces will always be towards the sweeter side of things and that might be my preference generally...discounting the Louisiana-styles and Mexican-style sauces, of course. I do think if you like fruit-based sauces, particularly the ones with blueberry, this one is definitely worth a go, even though it presents a side I don't think I've seen many of the other ones necessarily come forward with. Reaper has definitely been used with blueberries before elsewhere, but the berry taking on and meshing with the other components so well was something I was pleasantly surprised to find. Even with the Reaper, like the other Splintered fruit sauces, the heat here is pretty tame. 

Bottom line: Easily my favorite of the Splintered fruit sauces thus far and to my mind, probably the best. If you're a fan of blueberry hot sauces, this one should be on your radar. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 6

Lunar Ghost Smoke Hot Sauce Review

Lunar Ghost Smoke

I've mentioned this before about other sauces, but I can't get away from the idea that words matter, that they have to mean things, in order to have any value. The more specific the word, the less I feel like we should drift from its designation. Take, for instance, the word "decimate." This is a very specific Roman practice of reducing something, usually opposing armies of lands they'd captured or otherwise subjugated, by 10 percent. We are familiar with "deca" as in a unit of 10 and are familiar with such words as decade, but "deci" is on the other side of the zero and means 1/10, as "centi" means 1/100 of something, such as a meter, or cent as in 1/100 of a dollar.

Anyway, sriracha also means a very specific type of hot sauce. Sometimes companies will want to use this, but then make something that might otherwise be a very fine sauce, such as this one, but which will not register as the word it's using. Sriracha, in a lot of ways, could be considered a sort of liquefied chili-garlic sauce, and it has a characteristic of imparting a fairly specific flavor, but one general enough to be good solo or incorporated into various Asian dishes. It can be used as either dipping sauce or topping, as well as mixed in. This is another that does not really work this way, from a flavor perspective, and is not what I would call a sriracha. 

I really liked the idea of this, a sriracha with some nice Ghosties bringing heat and flavor, as well as the addition of smoke. It sounded quite interesting, but what's here is very much a Ghost-forward sauce, in terms of both flavor and heat. This means there is quite solid heat, to be sure, probably well above what will be comfortable for most non-chileheads, but also a very notable superhot bitter, which is probably the main flavor note. There are accents of the Ghosties before the roaring heat and bitter come on, along with the smoke and a bit of pungency from the vinegar, but the sugar and garlic part of things are lost nearly entirely.

This is a sauce that almost immediately overpowers whatever it's used on with that bitter aspect. While I found it a lovely sauce when using it as incorporations with lighter amounts and mixing it in with other sauces or foods, sprinkling it over the top was not something I found overly enjoyable. Once I got out of the idea of using it for Asian foods, which can often be a bit light and delicate in terms of flavors, I found a lot of places I liked it, but again, mixed in with other stuff. Indeed, that's where I think this shines and has a lot to offer. 

Bottom line: This is not what I would call a sriracha and I'm a bit confused as to why they called it that. Taken as its own thing, it has a lot to offer, such as putting the Ghosties very forward and showcasing what they can bring, which is its best footing.

 Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 5
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 5