I deliberately held off on creating this post, both because I was thinking more of a year end thing and also because I thought there might be another sauce review I could squeeze in there. As I'm suffering from a mild (what I'm guessing is) flu this weekend, additional sauces are out. I still have a few bottles left to polish off or toss. I hate wasting food; I hate wasting anything. Wastefulness is anathema to me, so a sauce has to be really bad for me to do that.
The few I have left drifting down to the last remnants of the bottles, the Orange Krush, the Chipotle Slam, the Texas Pete -- none of those are quite bad enough I'm willing to toss them. In the case of the Chipotle Slam, since my wife has undertaken a new diet and I don't know when or if I will be having fish tacos again. The sauce works marvelously with seafood and less well with everything else and really doesn't have much of a heat charge, rendering it very low on the usefulness scale. The Texas Pete she likes, so I'm not worried about that getting used up, though I'm very tired of it now and the Orange Krush...I keep finding things I would rather have...I imagine that and the Chipotle Slam will get pitched on New Year's Eve, if either is not eaten by then. Perhaps I will make up a bold new tradition for my annual celebration of turning calendar pages.
I like to make lists and one of my favorite lists is a list of goals. Hot sauce is no different. When I started this blog in September, after deciding to get back in the hot sauce game, I wanted to find a standby Mexican sauce. That was my more immediate need. That has been done with the El Yucateco Green. While it doesn't fit every situation, it is the best thing going so far and the value per price point is unmatched as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps now is a good time to look over the list of sauces:
Everyday sauce: Trappey's Red Devil (this is also a mainstay, despite it having little to no heat)
Grilling sauce: CaJohn's Bourbon-Infused Chipotle Habanero (BICH)
Mexican-style sauce: El Yucateco Green
Asian-style sauce: Huy Fong Chili-Garlic Sauce
Louisiana-style sauce: Trappey's Red Devil
Sweet-hot sauce: CaJohn's Happy Beaver
Looking at this, we can see that heat is not a primary consideration. The Red Devil has precious little, the Chili Garlic a bit more and the El Yucateco has some but is mostly a low level. The only two that pack a punch are the CaJohn's offerings and never of them are really in the upper reaches, at that. They both will get hot, to be sure, but quite a bit of them must needs be used. The main thing here is taste, which is why I've decided to abandon purchasing any sauces that contain extract in them. Towards the end of the Stronger Than Death, it took on much greater overtones of extract. I did some accidental oversaucing on a burger and it has broken me completely as it made me borderline ill and the nauseating metallic taste is something I will not again suffer through. There is little reason; the commonality is that all of the sauces TASTE great and add to the flavor of the food, heightening the enjoyment of the experience. If a sauce diminishes that experience, it is time for it to go.
Back to the sauces, I would like to have another everyday sauce that packs more spice than the Red Devil. Even now, I will still choose it over other sauces, just because it is such a good-tasting sauce. I am also still searching, albeit much more slowly, for a Mexican-style sauce. I would like something like the BICH, which is so good that I will end the search or the Red Devil, again, on the Louisiana-style front. I'm pretty happy with the Happy Beaver on the sweet-hot tip, so no real looking there, either. I also would like to add another Asian-style sauce. Chili-Garlic will always be good and traditional and tasty, but like the Everyday Sauce problem, I'd like to rock a little heat.
Some of my other goals this year were to try to assess some of the various chilis. I don't typically enjoy eating raw pods, so that is a pretty rare event for me and I haven't sought out Morugas or 7-Pots or Red Savinas. I have made my way into using sauces that have all of them (except the 7-Pot) as a featured pepper. My outline was to work my way up. I believe I've pretty much surpassed the level of any of the habanero sauces and am now sort of hovering at the ghost chili. It's a pretty different world up there, in that rarefied air and I don't see myself getting past the ghost chili anytime soon. It still amuses me that the rotten abortion of a "ghost" sauce at Red Robin is what got me back...I guess I sort of owe them for reminding me of one of the more pleasurable experiences of life and restarting me back on this tasty journey. Still...that sauce is weak as shit and they do the Bhuts a terrible disservice using that description. I've gone past 50K, nothing world shattering and for 2013, will try to swing 100K, if I can find a sauce that will do it, that does not contain extract and also does not involve onions, given my intolerance to those...a very difficult proposition, I imagine, but we'll see what happens.
As to this year and (finally) the main subject of this list, I really only had three main contenders. Trappey's Red Devil I would disqualify because it does not pack any heat. So, we had these: El Yucateco Green, CaJohn's BICH and CaJohn's Happy Beaver. A brief discussion and then my pick...
El Yucateco Green came on strong and nearly saved habanero sauces for me. I had a few that weren't bad, but were not really worth getting again, unless I was in a pinch. This sauce changed all that and filled a void. It is also a very good tasting sauce, to boot and easily the best value of any sauce appearing in this blog this year. It is a little light on heat, however.
CaJohn's BICH was one that received a lot of deserved press for fantastic flavor and decent heat. I liked it so much, I've not only ordered more, but have given it away as gifts 3X. I found the runniness of the sauce made it somewhat difficult to use, but it really shone magnificently on the grill. Another friend of mine used it with an injector and was well-pleased, but the lesson here is that it needs both heat and some amount of cooking to really bring the flavor to the fore, which cuts down on flexibility. I have not personally tried the injection yet, but this is my current grilling sauce.
CaJohn's Happy Beaver is the most recent entry here. It possesses a similar, yet distinctive taste to the BICH, but without the runniness. It also works as well hot or cold and is far more flexible. I liked this one so much I immediately bought three more bottles. I keep one at work and one at home and this is one I like to have on-hand in the fridge. It is my current sweet-hot sauce. I've also given this away as a gift, though not nearly as much as the BICH.
Any of these would be deserving of the title and even as I write this, I still have trouble choosing. I've decided to leave it up to the overall rating from the reviews:
My pick this year, based on the numerical value is: CaJohn's Happy Beaver sauce, coming in at a 9 and nudging past both of the other two sauces, which were an 8, respectively. I don't rate manufacturers like that, but if I did, CaJohn's would be a runaway this year. Congratulations, for what it's worth and great job making some damn fine sauces!
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Happy Beaver Hot Sauce Review
CaJohns Happy Beaver Hot Sauce - [TSAAF Sauce Of The Year 2012]
UPDATE: Video support now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRCwpMQBFxc
One of the things I was very gratified to see this year was a holiday pricing community throwdown by the sauce manufacturers towards the sauce eaters: you and me and everyone else we can rope into our unique brand of madness. Because I can't trust any of my immediate local vendors (more on that in the archives), when CaJohn got in on this, I was all about it come Cyber Monday.
I got a good haul overall, adding further to my tally of the Bourbon-Infused sauce, which is my go-to grilling sauce. I also some some new ones I wanted to try, including last week's Sancto Scorpio and this week's Happy Beaver. Much like the Bourbon-Infused sauce, this was an instant love.
The bottle I got from the sale, in fact, struck me so hard that I instantly got online to try out Peppers.com. I'd been meaning to try an online sauce vendor and asked the ever-fantastic Scott Roberts for advice. That was one of the sites he commended and so I clicked the dials for 3 more bottles because this is something I must have on hand.
I'm a huge fan of sweet-hot, always have been. One of the things I disliked somewhat about the Bourbon-Infused was how runny it was. Imagine my delight when I had this nice thick, almost ketchupy substance. Gone was the bourbon overtones, but in its place was this fantastic consistency. The first bottle I got from Peppers, though, is much more liquidy...maybe not quite as watery as the Bourbon-Infused, but much less ketchupy. Taste is still there, though, so I chalk the inconsistency up to the eccentricities of buying from small batch hot sauce manufacturers.
The taste here is the Bhut Jolokia instead of Red Savina Habaneros and minus the bourbon. The vinegar is also much less prominent. We still have a similarity of sauces, to a degree, but in the case of Happy Beaver, we have slightly more heat, slightly less complexity and the somewhat flowery tones of the Bhut, which are blended spectacularly with the smoky chipotles. As thick as it is and as tasty as it is, this could easily (and has been) used as a dipping sauce, a task I must say the Bourbon-Infused is inadequate for. Heat is in the same range, somewhat less than the Sancto Scorpio. I'd figure high 30Ks, maybe low 40s. Like the Sancto Scorpio, it stays at a relatively and pleasant heat level, but unlike that sauce, it goes there nearly immediately.
Like the Bourbon-Infused, this will not go with everything. I had it on pizza, one of the foods I consider an easy test for nearly any sauce and found myself wishing I had pepper flakes instead. Yet, put this thing on burgers or an Arby's Triple Cheese Bacon sandwich (especially the Angus) or with chicken or seafood and watch this thing shine. I imagine it would work well on the grill also and given that I have enough bottles (hopefully) to last, I will probably give that a whack next year also.
I hate to mention this, since labels mean very little to me, but some of the copy on this one bothered me. To wit, I quote: "...it has been tamed for the less adventurous." It follows that by saying it is not for the novice but something an experienced chilehead would enjoy. No thanks for the backslap with the "less adventurous" crack and dial up some confusion for the contradiction. Look, I don't need to have my guts burning for hours and hours after I eat something. If I ever do (never will) desire that, I can just take a few drops of extract. I want a great-tasting sauce with some solid heat. Why the manufacturer wants to put in such frankly asinine text as "less adventuresome" (such a combination of adjectives will not help to sell sauce, I wouldn't say) and insult the buyer and consumer of this product is beyond me. I wouldn't normally mention this, but frankly that kind of shit irritates me. If I saw that on the bottle in a store and didn't know what it was, guarantee I would take the same umbrage I do now and buy something else...it's so goddamn unnecessary. As much as it irritates me, it will not, however, stop me from stocking this sauce on my own personal shelves and giving it to friends. For a lesser sauce, at $10/throw for a 5 oz. bottle, I wouldn't buy it again. Word to the wise.
Bottom line: I have made this a new staple, like the Bourbon-Infused. Also, like the Bourbon-Infused, I am giving some away as gifts for the holidays this year. If those two things aren't enough for a ringing endorsement, there is no such thing. Unlike the Bourbon-Infused, this is a lot more flexible, though there will be many instances where this will not be a preferred sauce, Mexican-food coming immediately to mind. Where it does work well, and there are many instances, it works fantastically.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 4
Flavor: 9
Flexibility: 9
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10
Overall: 9
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Sancto Scorpio Hot Sauce Review
CaJohns Sancto Scorpio Hot Sauce
I've seen a lot of hype about this one, probably because it features somewhat prominently the current record holder for SHU, the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper. I've seen it rated online at as many as a million SHU. Another facet, which I really like, is that a portion of the proceeds go to funding chile research and education at the Chile Pepper Institute in New Mexico. I'm all for furthering science!
Here's where the hype sort of de-rails, though. When talking about Lousiana-style hot sauce, which this is definitely in family of, we're always talking a couple universal factors. First is that it will be a vinegar-based sauce. Second is that it will come with a dropper cap, due to the thinness of the sauce. Check on both counts here, though this is thicker than the Cayenne or Tabasco-based sauces.
So, we're looking at a Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Lousiana-style sauce. No shame in that game, though this is a slightly more complex sauce than many of those I've seen, such as my beloved Red Devil.We have some sugar, lemon and garlic rounding out the bill, which do a nice job of balancing this, but we're talking vinegar and the Scorpion peppers as the respective stars of this show.
You know what you're getting as regards taste, generally, with Lousiana-style sauces and with Trinidad Moruga peppers and this doesn't stray from the path much on either count. We have the nice bite of the vinegar charge and we have the somewhat bitter and flowery taste of the pepper. On first taste, the pepper is more of a grace note, but as is the case with many of the superhot chiles, repeated applications will continue to build and frequently become dominating, which is the case here.
It's using the current recordholder for chile heat in a pepper, so there is definitely some heat here, but it starts subtle and mild initially and builds from there. It never got to the point of uncomfortability or intolerance, even when I used quite a lot of it at once, but rather ascended to a slow and steady nice smooth even heat that was quite pleasant. The heat of this is not rated online (at least not accurately) anywhere I've seen, so I'd put it in the 40K range somewhere, probably in the mids to lower.
Bottom line: If you like Louisiana-style sauces and/or Trinidad Moruga Scorpion peppers, this would be right up your alley. I like the Louisiana sauces, but I'm not quite sure on the peppers yet. I will know by the end of the bottle. I do like the extra kick, but I don't like terribly the residual taste of the Trinidads, which linger a bit longer than I care for and are also dominant during the after-eating belches. I like the thickness of the sauce and the flavor overall, but at $10/5 oz., it's hard to see where, even after I factor in all of the positives of this sauce, that I could realistically find a place for it in my regular rotation. That doesn't mean I wouldn't buy it again (I would), but it's not quite all the way to the point where I would make it a staple.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 6
Flavor: 7
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 7
I've seen a lot of hype about this one, probably because it features somewhat prominently the current record holder for SHU, the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper. I've seen it rated online at as many as a million SHU. Another facet, which I really like, is that a portion of the proceeds go to funding chile research and education at the Chile Pepper Institute in New Mexico. I'm all for furthering science!Here's where the hype sort of de-rails, though. When talking about Lousiana-style hot sauce, which this is definitely in family of, we're always talking a couple universal factors. First is that it will be a vinegar-based sauce. Second is that it will come with a dropper cap, due to the thinness of the sauce. Check on both counts here, though this is thicker than the Cayenne or Tabasco-based sauces.
So, we're looking at a Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Lousiana-style sauce. No shame in that game, though this is a slightly more complex sauce than many of those I've seen, such as my beloved Red Devil.We have some sugar, lemon and garlic rounding out the bill, which do a nice job of balancing this, but we're talking vinegar and the Scorpion peppers as the respective stars of this show.
You know what you're getting as regards taste, generally, with Lousiana-style sauces and with Trinidad Moruga peppers and this doesn't stray from the path much on either count. We have the nice bite of the vinegar charge and we have the somewhat bitter and flowery taste of the pepper. On first taste, the pepper is more of a grace note, but as is the case with many of the superhot chiles, repeated applications will continue to build and frequently become dominating, which is the case here.
It's using the current recordholder for chile heat in a pepper, so there is definitely some heat here, but it starts subtle and mild initially and builds from there. It never got to the point of uncomfortability or intolerance, even when I used quite a lot of it at once, but rather ascended to a slow and steady nice smooth even heat that was quite pleasant. The heat of this is not rated online (at least not accurately) anywhere I've seen, so I'd put it in the 40K range somewhere, probably in the mids to lower.
Bottom line: If you like Louisiana-style sauces and/or Trinidad Moruga Scorpion peppers, this would be right up your alley. I like the Louisiana sauces, but I'm not quite sure on the peppers yet. I will know by the end of the bottle. I do like the extra kick, but I don't like terribly the residual taste of the Trinidads, which linger a bit longer than I care for and are also dominant during the after-eating belches. I like the thickness of the sauce and the flavor overall, but at $10/5 oz., it's hard to see where, even after I factor in all of the positives of this sauce, that I could realistically find a place for it in my regular rotation. That doesn't mean I wouldn't buy it again (I would), but it's not quite all the way to the point where I would make it a staple.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 6
Flavor: 7
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 7
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Testing, As In 5Ws and 1H
I wanted to take a brief moment to discuss how I test sauces. The key word here is: thorough.
To wit:
Who: Me.
What: The sauce in question.
Where: At work, at home, occassionally at play.
Why: To further the information available via this giant big bad grande interwebz
When: Errrr...whenever I get to it.
How: This is the point of this BLOG entry...
I've mentioned earlier that I was looking for a Mexican sauce (more on that in a future entry), but not only cheap crappy Mexican-sorta food (Taco Bell, Del Taco) do I test this one. I also do homemade kick ass Mexican-ish food, such as Panko-holyshit-fish tacos with a homemade slaw. Awesome, even without a sauce. I mentioned chicken strips and pizza. Those are mandatory tests, but it does not stop there. In fact, it winds up being damn near everything. McDonald's cheeseburgers, fries, Wienerschnitzel stuff, which means their version of chili, Marie Callender's dinners, cookies, Hot Pockets, beef jerky, Subway sandwiches, pretty much anything I have around I'll try. There are very foods that can't do with a bit (or more) of spice...
I do this, even after I've completed a review, for the sake of thoroughness. I do this...for you.
To wit:
Who: Me.
What: The sauce in question.
Where: At work, at home, occassionally at play.
Why: To further the information available via this giant big bad grande interwebz
When: Errrr...whenever I get to it.
How: This is the point of this BLOG entry...
I've mentioned earlier that I was looking for a Mexican sauce (more on that in a future entry), but not only cheap crappy Mexican-sorta food (Taco Bell, Del Taco) do I test this one. I also do homemade kick ass Mexican-ish food, such as Panko-holyshit-fish tacos with a homemade slaw. Awesome, even without a sauce. I mentioned chicken strips and pizza. Those are mandatory tests, but it does not stop there. In fact, it winds up being damn near everything. McDonald's cheeseburgers, fries, Wienerschnitzel stuff, which means their version of chili, Marie Callender's dinners, cookies, Hot Pockets, beef jerky, Subway sandwiches, pretty much anything I have around I'll try. There are very foods that can't do with a bit (or more) of spice...
I do this, even after I've completed a review, for the sake of thoroughness. I do this...for you.
Q Heat Chipotle Slam Hot Sauce Review
Blair's Heat Collection Q Heat Chipotle Slam
I think, were someone to say I was a fan of Blair, I would find it a fair assessment. A lot of people credit him for inventing the whole "Superhot" and/or "Chilehead" craze and while I'd consider that something of a stretch, truth be said, he does make some fine sauces. This, however, is maybe the most confusing entry I've come across...
On the label, we have the "funky Q" as the scientific symbol for heat. So far, so good. We have Blair himself, purveyor of absurd levels of heat deliverance while maintaining great taste. Again, very promising. We have a 8.5 oz. bottle of hot sauce for $8, with very prominent chunks, presumably peppers AND a list of peppers that includes habanero, jalapeno, chipotle and cayenne. Forget promising, I'm thinking an unholy value and the deliverance of all that is good and right and spicy in the world.
Damn straight I picked it up when I saw it and then it sat in my closet, while I attended to other sauce matters. Finally, the streak of El Yucateco came to a (sad) close and I had need of some sauce for some Mexi-food and nothing open in the fridge to fit the bill. Time to fire up the blades and bust this bad boy out. My early impression were the Zakk Wylde Original Berzerker sauce minus the crazy garlic aspect. The lime came through a lot more here and I could finally detect hints of cilantro, but holy shit, my man Lazar, where is the goddamn heat? It's somewhat of a marvel that someone can make a sauce like that, utilizing those chiles and come up with such a lack of heat.
Sure, the taste and the blend displays Blair's typical (I say this so far only for him as a sauce artisan) sauce magic and artistry. The level of finesse here is astounding, but goddammit, when someone uses the scientific symbol for heat, I damn well expect some heat to be there. The heat level here is at the level of Red Devil, which is to say, more than not at all, but not a damn sight much.
So, to rationalize things, I say maybe Blair just wanted to test himself, take some peppers and neuter them and just make a well-balanced and somewhat tasty sauce for the candyasses out there. If he could pull it off, it's a feather in his cap as a cook, as a chef, as an artiste. Then I slug through more of the sauce and think what a damn shame it is. This is a good tasting sauce, overall. The lime is a bit heavy and the astringent nature frequently threatens to overpower what you use it on, but put this on some fish tacos and tell me you're not in flavor heaven. If this was even half as much as the Stronger Than Death SHU, I think we're done talking about other people's hot sauces and the new conversation is about making Blair the Food Emperor of the planet.
That's not what we have here, though. What we have here is a decent-tasting sauce, that works very well on certain things and less well, sometimes considerably less well, on everything else. I seriously am confused as to the target market of this. Is it Rubio's or some other purveyor of fish tacos? It's not bad on regular tacos, but it needs something like fish to really shine. It's complex and intriguing, at first, by itself, but the taste quickly wears and approaches boring, due to the distinct lack of heat. Where is the Slam?
Bottom line: Blair is a skilled sauce maker. I take nothing away from the Jersey boy and love his attitude, his approach to business, his dealings with Zakk Wylde and his sauce mastery, all of it, to death (no pun). I seriously don't understand what he's doing with this sauce. There is little to no incentive for a chilehead to buy it -- I've seen the SHU estimated at 800, which I consider accurate and which baffles me further -- and who else but a chilehead will seek out the wares of Mssr. Lazar? It's not in grocery stores and takes some doing to find out its very existence. but shit goddamn, under 1K SHU? So baffled...and never buying this again.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 5
Flexibility: 5
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 3
I think, were someone to say I was a fan of Blair, I would find it a fair assessment. A lot of people credit him for inventing the whole "Superhot" and/or "Chilehead" craze and while I'd consider that something of a stretch, truth be said, he does make some fine sauces. This, however, is maybe the most confusing entry I've come across...On the label, we have the "funky Q" as the scientific symbol for heat. So far, so good. We have Blair himself, purveyor of absurd levels of heat deliverance while maintaining great taste. Again, very promising. We have a 8.5 oz. bottle of hot sauce for $8, with very prominent chunks, presumably peppers AND a list of peppers that includes habanero, jalapeno, chipotle and cayenne. Forget promising, I'm thinking an unholy value and the deliverance of all that is good and right and spicy in the world.
Damn straight I picked it up when I saw it and then it sat in my closet, while I attended to other sauce matters. Finally, the streak of El Yucateco came to a (sad) close and I had need of some sauce for some Mexi-food and nothing open in the fridge to fit the bill. Time to fire up the blades and bust this bad boy out. My early impression were the Zakk Wylde Original Berzerker sauce minus the crazy garlic aspect. The lime came through a lot more here and I could finally detect hints of cilantro, but holy shit, my man Lazar, where is the goddamn heat? It's somewhat of a marvel that someone can make a sauce like that, utilizing those chiles and come up with such a lack of heat.
Sure, the taste and the blend displays Blair's typical (I say this so far only for him as a sauce artisan) sauce magic and artistry. The level of finesse here is astounding, but goddammit, when someone uses the scientific symbol for heat, I damn well expect some heat to be there. The heat level here is at the level of Red Devil, which is to say, more than not at all, but not a damn sight much.
So, to rationalize things, I say maybe Blair just wanted to test himself, take some peppers and neuter them and just make a well-balanced and somewhat tasty sauce for the candyasses out there. If he could pull it off, it's a feather in his cap as a cook, as a chef, as an artiste. Then I slug through more of the sauce and think what a damn shame it is. This is a good tasting sauce, overall. The lime is a bit heavy and the astringent nature frequently threatens to overpower what you use it on, but put this on some fish tacos and tell me you're not in flavor heaven. If this was even half as much as the Stronger Than Death SHU, I think we're done talking about other people's hot sauces and the new conversation is about making Blair the Food Emperor of the planet.
That's not what we have here, though. What we have here is a decent-tasting sauce, that works very well on certain things and less well, sometimes considerably less well, on everything else. I seriously am confused as to the target market of this. Is it Rubio's or some other purveyor of fish tacos? It's not bad on regular tacos, but it needs something like fish to really shine. It's complex and intriguing, at first, by itself, but the taste quickly wears and approaches boring, due to the distinct lack of heat. Where is the Slam?
Bottom line: Blair is a skilled sauce maker. I take nothing away from the Jersey boy and love his attitude, his approach to business, his dealings with Zakk Wylde and his sauce mastery, all of it, to death (no pun). I seriously don't understand what he's doing with this sauce. There is little to no incentive for a chilehead to buy it -- I've seen the SHU estimated at 800, which I consider accurate and which baffles me further -- and who else but a chilehead will seek out the wares of Mssr. Lazar? It's not in grocery stores and takes some doing to find out its very existence. but shit goddamn, under 1K SHU? So baffled...and never buying this again.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 5
Flexibility: 5
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 3
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Brother Bru-Bru's Very Hot Hot Sauce Review
Brother Bru-Bru's Very Hot African Hot Pepper Sauce
It took me a while to get to this, since re-starting the heat train, but I finally ran into that dreaded thing: the sauce I had to toss. I think I made it as far down as the neck before it opens up into the bottle proper, but it got the old heave-ho, away it goes tonight.
Why? The starter is the flavor. The first two ingredients are apple cider vinegar and water. Nothing wrong with apple cider vinegar, but having that as the dominant flavor, with the next more prominent flavor be that of an unnamed African spice (the name of which I no longer remember) is not really the way to win my affection. It might be the Japones pepper providing the somewhat distinctive taste here; it definitely is not the habaneros listed. If you were to want a taste that could be charitably described as an entire spice closet floating in apple cider vinegar, this would be the sauce you'd want to grab.
The flavor is not entirely unpalatable, just not especially good by itself and frequently jarring with food. I didn't find it offensive to the point of spitting it out, but I had great difficulty in getting it to play nice with anything and by that I mean adding to the taste experience and elevating the food. I'm imaging it might go ok with Southern food, such as collard greens and maybe some ribs, but even that is somewhat in debate and I didn't spend the time to try to find that out. I just couldn't see where it would be worth it to take the time and drive on down and plunk down the money at the rib joint, much as I love those two foods (in winter, I make me the shit out of some greens) just for a test. There was also the chance I would wreck the flavor, which would be a damn shame and I'd have to kick my own ass for that.
The flavor, unfortunately, is the best part. The worst part has to be the texture. If you're banging around in your kitchen, trying to make up a sauce and you decide to go with powdered ingredients, for whatever reason, as the main base of your sauce, chances are you will get some grittiness. Fortunately for you, now you need not bother. You could just buy this instead. It's not like taking a spoonful of the glass beads they use for sandblasting or anything, but it's definitely noticeable and draws attention to this rather irritating aspect and away from the food. If there is a single thing (and it wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world to peg) that rendered this to the trash bin, it's this aspect. Amusingly, there is a dripper cap on this. I discarded it and still the sauce came out by the drop. lovely. It also separated in the bottle, which is not a big deal, but adds to the unappealing aspects.
Finally, we get to the heat or rather lack of it. A friend of mine feels that if there is a hot sauce and the first word in the ingredient list is not a pepper of some kind, then the product is not worth having. I don't necessarily subscribe to it, but this sauce would give substantial credence to that theory. Calling something a hot sauce should indicate that there is some heat present. Labeling it as Very Hot and the hottest of the offerings should mean that there should be some charge there. I suppose this makes things hotter than eating them with no sauce at all, but the heat level is barely detectable.
Bottom line: Easily the leading contender for disappointment of the year. Brother Bru-Bru was a musician and tried hard to create an all-natural, sodium-free sauce, both of which he did. I wanted to like this sauce, but it fails on nearly every level a sauce can fail. This is very pedestrian, somewhat bland and boring, not hot and not very tasty, grainy liquid that simply does not work. At $3.59 for a 5 oz. bottle, I got screwed, no two ways about it. There are plenty of other sauces that deserve your patronage. This is not one of them.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 1
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 0
It took me a while to get to this, since re-starting the heat train, but I finally ran into that dreaded thing: the sauce I had to toss. I think I made it as far down as the neck before it opens up into the bottle proper, but it got the old heave-ho, away it goes tonight.Why? The starter is the flavor. The first two ingredients are apple cider vinegar and water. Nothing wrong with apple cider vinegar, but having that as the dominant flavor, with the next more prominent flavor be that of an unnamed African spice (the name of which I no longer remember) is not really the way to win my affection. It might be the Japones pepper providing the somewhat distinctive taste here; it definitely is not the habaneros listed. If you were to want a taste that could be charitably described as an entire spice closet floating in apple cider vinegar, this would be the sauce you'd want to grab.
The flavor is not entirely unpalatable, just not especially good by itself and frequently jarring with food. I didn't find it offensive to the point of spitting it out, but I had great difficulty in getting it to play nice with anything and by that I mean adding to the taste experience and elevating the food. I'm imaging it might go ok with Southern food, such as collard greens and maybe some ribs, but even that is somewhat in debate and I didn't spend the time to try to find that out. I just couldn't see where it would be worth it to take the time and drive on down and plunk down the money at the rib joint, much as I love those two foods (in winter, I make me the shit out of some greens) just for a test. There was also the chance I would wreck the flavor, which would be a damn shame and I'd have to kick my own ass for that.
The flavor, unfortunately, is the best part. The worst part has to be the texture. If you're banging around in your kitchen, trying to make up a sauce and you decide to go with powdered ingredients, for whatever reason, as the main base of your sauce, chances are you will get some grittiness. Fortunately for you, now you need not bother. You could just buy this instead. It's not like taking a spoonful of the glass beads they use for sandblasting or anything, but it's definitely noticeable and draws attention to this rather irritating aspect and away from the food. If there is a single thing (and it wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world to peg) that rendered this to the trash bin, it's this aspect. Amusingly, there is a dripper cap on this. I discarded it and still the sauce came out by the drop. lovely. It also separated in the bottle, which is not a big deal, but adds to the unappealing aspects.
Finally, we get to the heat or rather lack of it. A friend of mine feels that if there is a hot sauce and the first word in the ingredient list is not a pepper of some kind, then the product is not worth having. I don't necessarily subscribe to it, but this sauce would give substantial credence to that theory. Calling something a hot sauce should indicate that there is some heat present. Labeling it as Very Hot and the hottest of the offerings should mean that there should be some charge there. I suppose this makes things hotter than eating them with no sauce at all, but the heat level is barely detectable.
Bottom line: Easily the leading contender for disappointment of the year. Brother Bru-Bru was a musician and tried hard to create an all-natural, sodium-free sauce, both of which he did. I wanted to like this sauce, but it fails on nearly every level a sauce can fail. This is very pedestrian, somewhat bland and boring, not hot and not very tasty, grainy liquid that simply does not work. At $3.59 for a 5 oz. bottle, I got screwed, no two ways about it. There are plenty of other sauces that deserve your patronage. This is not one of them.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 1
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 0
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Zakk Wylde Stronger Than Death Berzerker Hot Sauce Review
Blair Presents: Zakk Wylde's Stronger Than Death Berserker Hot Sauce
This is the second to hottest of the four Zakk Wylde signature sauces. My first impression was that it was far different than the Original Berzerker sauce, which I was partially nervous about. While the Original Berzerker is not a bad tasting sauce, the garlic can get a bit overbearing. This one is both far more graceful and considerably more punchy at once.
The sauce is somewhat deceptive, starting out with a sort of mild and muted habanero flavor with the more flowery and bittery aspect of the ghost chilis. The garlic is there as a very minor grace note, but after the first five to ten seconds or so, the ghost chilis kick in and the heat becomes progressively more pronounced. Once that begins, the chipotles also assert themselves in the nose and palate, lending a very nice smokiness to the proceedings. This is a sauce that can become overpowering in heat, but not especially so in flavor and Blair has done a phenomenal job of masking the tinny aspect of the extract here. This one is much more flexible than the Original Berzerker and I'd rate the flavor as good to very good but not great.
As noted on the bottle, this did and does go very well with seafood and pizza and smoked ribs and spiking barbeque sauce and frozen tv dinners and cheeseburgers almost everything I tried it with. I presume it would also, as noted on the label, also go fantastically with beer. I'm struggling to think of anything I didn't like it on...Hot Pockets, I guess, but we're not talking any sort of culinary treat there, of course. Using it on them is a waste of this sauce and better reserved for something like Red Devil.
It is also not a sauce I enjoying having by itself. At ~59K SHU (literally stronger than Death, as in the original Death sauce also, cleverly ticking in a literal meaning as well as the borrowing of a Black Label Society album title), putting sauce on top of sauce tends to ratchet the heat level up to a level a bit beyond what is comfortable at work, which is where I keep this one, but not so much that it causes an immediate trot to to the can. The heat will dissipate nicely in about 10 minutes or so. With that nice level of warmth, this can be used sparingly and indeed, treating it more as an accent accompanies food very well and rises the taste experience, especially on McDonald's cheeseburgers, up very nicely.
UPDATE 12.26.12
I noted in another later post, but as I got towards the end of the
bottle, the extract really came to the fore, to the point where it was
obnoxious. I always shake the sauces well before using, so it wasn't a
matter of agitation. Possibly it was due to the age of the sauce, but it
got to the point where I didn't find the experience enjoyable and
disposed of the remainder of the bottle and alternately vowed not to
again engage any of the extract sauces. I've sort of hemmed and hawed
over down-rating this, but despite the initial good taste, overall, I
could not, in good conscience, leave the rating as it was, given that I
was unable to enjoy the entire bottle.
Bottom line: It is a very well-flavored sauce but many elements are going to be reserved more for the discerning chilehead. For most of the population, I think they're going to be distracted by the heat, which didn't appear to have a top ceiling on it and miss many of the subtleties of this (again) extremely brilliantly crafted sauce. At $10 for 5 oz. and for how long you can make this stretch, at least by not being stupid, this is a pretty good deal and you still get the keychain and the entertaining label pic of Wylde and one of his famous bullseye guitars as well as the "traveling case" look to the outer box packaging. I'm not so in love with this that I would have to have another bottle when I run out, but this is on my short list of sauces to potentially get again...or was until the update. This, along with all other extract sauces, is forevermore excised from any future purchases.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 7
Flavor: 7
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7
Overall: 7
Re-rate 12.26.12
Heat level: 7
Flavor: 5
Flexibility: 7
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 6
Saturday, November 10, 2012
El Yucateco Green Hot Sauce Review
El Yucateco Green Habanero
UPDATE: Video support now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpA1yKLl-FA
Too often, I think, reviews always start off with a negative. I think reviewers do this so they come across as a "hard sell" or cynical or neutral, any of which is viewed as being better than a pimp or cheerleader. I'm no coward and I've been waiting on writing this for a while while I relentlessly tested it, so let me just say it up front: this sauce is utterly fantastic. This is another first: the first sauce I've had directly recommended to me from a friend.
Now, with that out of the way, despite all the overwhelming (and other less so) positives, there is one gigantic detraction and that is the color. The bright pea-green color is very disconcerting and putting it on food tends to make it look less appetizing. Even as I type this, it sounds borderline remarkably stupid and petty, but it is nonetheless true. I wish they would have ticked over for an orange sauce if they wanted to differentiate. I get they were going for a green sauce echoing throes of tomatillo sauce, but that color is seriously distracting and it's taken me a while to get over that, to a degree, which is a shame, as this is a quite remarkable sauce.
At 9, 000 SHU, like the red, it's not particularly hot, but it is at least noticeable. What is less noticeable is that "bright" taste that habanero sauces seem to frequently have. That is very muted and subdued and the burn, when it comes, is delayed, as I expect from habaneros in general. The flavor is fantastic and despite it not working well on pizza, nearly everything I tried it on was better for having it there.That is the function of sauces after all, to improve the eating experience. I could use more heat, but as far as blending and having lovely flavor, this is a very difficult sauce to beat. Even when eaten directly, it doesn't taste overpowering and while the flavor is not good enough for me to want to have by itself in great amounts, quite a lot of this can be used. At $2.59 for a 4 oz. bottle and a dollar more to double it up to an 8 oz. bottle, the value per cost ratio may just be the highest of any sauce I've reviewed so far.
As noted, the heat amount is not great or particularly significant, but enough to be moderately respectable. The mild burn hangs in there for a good little bit and I would be endlessly pleased if they dropped something out with a higher boost, but all in all, I'm very pleased and this is the current heavy leader for my standby Mexican sauce.
Bottom line: There's still more to test, of course, slated upcoming, but I have reservations that anything will overtake this for my standby Mexican sauce. Like the Red Devil, the taste is wonderful and like the Red Devil, while it tastes acceptable on almost everything, it definitely excels on specific things more considerably. The most ringing endorsement I can ever make about a sauce is that I intend to buy it again and as soon as the last remnants of what's in the current bottle are gone, I'm going out to secure one of those larger bottles immediately. Standby or not, this one is necessary to have on hand.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 9
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10
Overall: 7
UPDATE: Video support now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpA1yKLl-FA Too often, I think, reviews always start off with a negative. I think reviewers do this so they come across as a "hard sell" or cynical or neutral, any of which is viewed as being better than a pimp or cheerleader. I'm no coward and I've been waiting on writing this for a while while I relentlessly tested it, so let me just say it up front: this sauce is utterly fantastic. This is another first: the first sauce I've had directly recommended to me from a friend.
Now, with that out of the way, despite all the overwhelming (and other less so) positives, there is one gigantic detraction and that is the color. The bright pea-green color is very disconcerting and putting it on food tends to make it look less appetizing. Even as I type this, it sounds borderline remarkably stupid and petty, but it is nonetheless true. I wish they would have ticked over for an orange sauce if they wanted to differentiate. I get they were going for a green sauce echoing throes of tomatillo sauce, but that color is seriously distracting and it's taken me a while to get over that, to a degree, which is a shame, as this is a quite remarkable sauce.
At 9, 000 SHU, like the red, it's not particularly hot, but it is at least noticeable. What is less noticeable is that "bright" taste that habanero sauces seem to frequently have. That is very muted and subdued and the burn, when it comes, is delayed, as I expect from habaneros in general. The flavor is fantastic and despite it not working well on pizza, nearly everything I tried it on was better for having it there.That is the function of sauces after all, to improve the eating experience. I could use more heat, but as far as blending and having lovely flavor, this is a very difficult sauce to beat. Even when eaten directly, it doesn't taste overpowering and while the flavor is not good enough for me to want to have by itself in great amounts, quite a lot of this can be used. At $2.59 for a 4 oz. bottle and a dollar more to double it up to an 8 oz. bottle, the value per cost ratio may just be the highest of any sauce I've reviewed so far.
As noted, the heat amount is not great or particularly significant, but enough to be moderately respectable. The mild burn hangs in there for a good little bit and I would be endlessly pleased if they dropped something out with a higher boost, but all in all, I'm very pleased and this is the current heavy leader for my standby Mexican sauce.
Bottom line: There's still more to test, of course, slated upcoming, but I have reservations that anything will overtake this for my standby Mexican sauce. Like the Red Devil, the taste is wonderful and like the Red Devil, while it tastes acceptable on almost everything, it definitely excels on specific things more considerably. The most ringing endorsement I can ever make about a sauce is that I intend to buy it again and as soon as the last remnants of what's in the current bottle are gone, I'm going out to secure one of those larger bottles immediately. Standby or not, this one is necessary to have on hand.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 9
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10
Overall: 7
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Zakk Wylde Original Berzerker Hot Sauce Review
Blair Presents: Zakk Wylde's Original Berserker Hot Sauce
This is the first product of the other of the two who are probably the major "small batch" hot sauce producers in the Chilehead world, Blair's Hot Sauce. The other one is CAJohn and the offering I had there was spectacular. This one was less spectacular, but overall quite tasty.
This is the mildest of the Zakk Wylde signature sauces and my first impression was this was an extremely skillfully crafted sauce. The habanero and garlic were initially very well balanced, with a hint of lime cutting through. As noted on the bottle, this did and does go very well with seafood and pizza and any other offering that would be paired well with beer. It does not, however, go particularly well with cheeseburgers.
It is also not a sauce I enjoying having by itself and there have been times that I thought the garlic was a bit overpowering, being reminiscent more of a garlic-type sauce than an actual hot sauce. There is some minor heat here, but I'd be surprised if the SHU rating was over 10K. Happily, none of the brightness I'm coming to strongly associate with habanero sauces was not present and for the most part, I found this enjoyable.
Bottom line: It is far from a polarizing sauce, but it won't work well with everything. What it does go with, it does spectacularly. What it doesn't go with isn't terrible, but does leave you wishing you had a different sauce. At $10 for 5 oz., this is not a particularly great deal, even with the keychain and the entertaining label pic of Wylde and one of his famous bullseye guitars as well as the "traveling case" look to the outer box packaging. I wouldn't be averse to using it again, but I can't foresee any future repeat purchase.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 4
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 5
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3
Overall: 5
This is the first product of the other of the two who are probably the major "small batch" hot sauce producers in the Chilehead world, Blair's Hot Sauce. The other one is CAJohn and the offering I had there was spectacular. This one was less spectacular, but overall quite tasty.
This is the mildest of the Zakk Wylde signature sauces and my first impression was this was an extremely skillfully crafted sauce. The habanero and garlic were initially very well balanced, with a hint of lime cutting through. As noted on the bottle, this did and does go very well with seafood and pizza and any other offering that would be paired well with beer. It does not, however, go particularly well with cheeseburgers.
It is also not a sauce I enjoying having by itself and there have been times that I thought the garlic was a bit overpowering, being reminiscent more of a garlic-type sauce than an actual hot sauce. There is some minor heat here, but I'd be surprised if the SHU rating was over 10K. Happily, none of the brightness I'm coming to strongly associate with habanero sauces was not present and for the most part, I found this enjoyable.
Bottom line: It is far from a polarizing sauce, but it won't work well with everything. What it does go with, it does spectacularly. What it doesn't go with isn't terrible, but does leave you wishing you had a different sauce. At $10 for 5 oz., this is not a particularly great deal, even with the keychain and the entertaining label pic of Wylde and one of his famous bullseye guitars as well as the "traveling case" look to the outer box packaging. I wouldn't be averse to using it again, but I can't foresee any future repeat purchase.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 4
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 5
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3
Overall: 5
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Valentina Black Label "Extra Hot" Salsa Picante Hot Sauce Review
Valentina Black Label Extra Hot
NOTE: This sauce appeared in Season Four of The Hot Ones.
UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmQFL0N77xk
Along with Cholula and Tapatio, this is the third leg of the triumvirate of large-scale Mexican-oriented hot sauces. It is probably the oldest of the three and easily the least popular (at least in Salt Lake). Cholula, in the United States, is far and away the king there, running away with a strong nationwide distribution and near-ubiquitous presence in so many places I've not lost count. They are also the only one, to my knowledge, to make the transition into sauce packets, which is a much bigger deal than it sounds. It's also probably the mildest of the three, though to my mind, it is also the best-tasting. So, to get to the point, if you've tried either of the others, you've basically tried this, though I think Valentina and Tapatio are closer to each other than to Cholula.
For $.99, I got a 12.5 oz. bottle and was very excited about it. This possibly could have been the prime standby Mexican sauce for which I've been searching, but sadly, oh so sadly, not to be. While it does have moderately more heat than either of the other two (Tapatio has an SHU of 3000, so I'd say this is maybe 3500 - 4000 somewhere), it is comparably less than a good jalapeno. The taste isn't good or bad; it's that same sort of "standard" Mexican sauce taste, which I've understood is malleable enough to use on almost everything.
So, while this is ok for what it is, which is for those people who want hotter versions of one of those sauce variations, I think my taste has moved on. It's very difficult eating this sauce on Mexican food when I have some El Yucateco left. It's doesn't even compare favorably to Texas Pete in several instances and despite it not being at all a bad-tasting sauce, it's a flavor that I find incredibly easy to tire of. The value is almost incomparable, except for it being almost entirely unpalatable to me. I can't imagine an instance in which I would intentionally choose it and unless my wife likes it (she likes the other two in the triumvirate), I may wind up having to pitch a mostly full bottle to make room for other and better sauces.
Bottom line: This is one of those sauces I call a "desert isle" sauce, not meaning that I would take it with me to a deserted island, but if I was cast adrift with nothing else (ignoring the more obvious larger concerns), this would do in a pinch. If I still ate ramen noodles, this is probably what I would use it for, assuming I was out of Red Devil or any other better-tasting sauce or if whatever Mexican restaurant I was at didn't have some good homemade sauce and was out of either of the other two in their table bottles.
Breakdown (Original):
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 2
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 2
** Update 04/17/13 **
As I am wont to do ever so often, I've decided, after spending a lot more unexpected time with the Valentina lately -- for all its faults, it was one of the few palatable during my recent bout with food poisoning -- that I probably did it a bit of a disservice rating it as low as I did. I stand by most of my comments. This will never be mistaken for an actual good sauce and it remains mostly one of those "better than nothing" sauces, yet it does have its uses and in the interests of fairness, I'm giving it a re-rate. This should not be taken to mean I'm going to rush right out and buy more, but you could have worse things in the fridge.
Breakdown (Re-rate):
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 4
Flexibility: 6
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 4
NOTE: This sauce appeared in Season Four of The Hot Ones. UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmQFL0N77xk
Along with Cholula and Tapatio, this is the third leg of the triumvirate of large-scale Mexican-oriented hot sauces. It is probably the oldest of the three and easily the least popular (at least in Salt Lake). Cholula, in the United States, is far and away the king there, running away with a strong nationwide distribution and near-ubiquitous presence in so many places I've not lost count. They are also the only one, to my knowledge, to make the transition into sauce packets, which is a much bigger deal than it sounds. It's also probably the mildest of the three, though to my mind, it is also the best-tasting. So, to get to the point, if you've tried either of the others, you've basically tried this, though I think Valentina and Tapatio are closer to each other than to Cholula.
For $.99, I got a 12.5 oz. bottle and was very excited about it. This possibly could have been the prime standby Mexican sauce for which I've been searching, but sadly, oh so sadly, not to be. While it does have moderately more heat than either of the other two (Tapatio has an SHU of 3000, so I'd say this is maybe 3500 - 4000 somewhere), it is comparably less than a good jalapeno. The taste isn't good or bad; it's that same sort of "standard" Mexican sauce taste, which I've understood is malleable enough to use on almost everything.
So, while this is ok for what it is, which is for those people who want hotter versions of one of those sauce variations, I think my taste has moved on. It's very difficult eating this sauce on Mexican food when I have some El Yucateco left. It's doesn't even compare favorably to Texas Pete in several instances and despite it not being at all a bad-tasting sauce, it's a flavor that I find incredibly easy to tire of. The value is almost incomparable, except for it being almost entirely unpalatable to me. I can't imagine an instance in which I would intentionally choose it and unless my wife likes it (she likes the other two in the triumvirate), I may wind up having to pitch a mostly full bottle to make room for other and better sauces.
Bottom line: This is one of those sauces I call a "desert isle" sauce, not meaning that I would take it with me to a deserted island, but if I was cast adrift with nothing else (ignoring the more obvious larger concerns), this would do in a pinch. If I still ate ramen noodles, this is probably what I would use it for, assuming I was out of Red Devil or any other better-tasting sauce or if whatever Mexican restaurant I was at didn't have some good homemade sauce and was out of either of the other two in their table bottles.
Breakdown (Original):
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 2
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 2
** Update 04/17/13 **
As I am wont to do ever so often, I've decided, after spending a lot more unexpected time with the Valentina lately -- for all its faults, it was one of the few palatable during my recent bout with food poisoning -- that I probably did it a bit of a disservice rating it as low as I did. I stand by most of my comments. This will never be mistaken for an actual good sauce and it remains mostly one of those "better than nothing" sauces, yet it does have its uses and in the interests of fairness, I'm giving it a re-rate. This should not be taken to mean I'm going to rush right out and buy more, but you could have worse things in the fridge.
Breakdown (Re-rate):
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 4
Flexibility: 6
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 4
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