Wicked Provisions Wicked Original Hot Sauce Review

Wicked Provisions Wicked Original

This sauce is heavily punctuated for me by an absence, by what's missing, perhaps not defined by it necessarily, but very marked by it and that is the presence of Cayenne. This is, at heart, a Cajun style sauce, in that it is more or less aiming to be a Louisiana-style with a bunch of additional flavors, including two very curious ones. Those are specifically the fairly prominent liquid smoke and the shot at umami with the tamari. This is not to say this isn't a good tasting sauce. It most definitely is, but the entire time, I kept waiting for the Cayenne hit that never came. This is, of course, because there is no Cayenne in this sauce.

There is instead another of my favorite pods, Fresno, backed up by the richer tones of the Arbol. Fine, but I think I have flavor expectations at this point, and my palate expects the anchor of Cayenne to be there. In fact, were Cayenne to be added to this, even if it replaces the Arbol, this would make a much tastier and better sauce, at least as far as I'm concerned. There are additional elements like garlic kicking around in there as well, but they don't rear up quite as much as the Fresno, vinegar, and liquid smoke. I think Fresno does better in somewhat thicker and heavier sauces, but I can appreciate trying to put a spin on a very mature sauce type. For me, I kind of think you can't really have this kind of sauce work to its fullest without Cayenne, though. 

As to that smoke, using this in sauces in this forward of a manner means that it need to be paired with food for the best results and this can create somewhat of an issue where I like to use the Louisiana style or Cajun. Both are a couple sauce types that by their nature tend to have the flexibility cut down somewhat, especially if they are also of the more watery loose variety, which this one also is, given that it comes with a restrictor cap. I don't necessarily want smoke when cutting down the richness of an Alfredo sauce, say, or even in a mac and cheese that doesn't also have bacon. This does work extremely well when smoky meats are present and is excellent on meats generally. I will also say that they got some nice Fresnos, as this runs just a touch hotter than sauces of this type normally go, but still nothing challenging. 

Bottom line: I've referenced the Louisiana style repeatedly in these pages, but the addition of smoke I find to be somewhat mixed. Definitely an interesting spin on things with the tamari, but I really wish this also had Cayenne in there.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 5