Death By Kraken Hot Sauce Review

Monroy's Death By Kraken Hot Sauce

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14CDkOPd03Q

I think a funny thing happens sometimes to people who consume hot peppers or hot sauce regularly, and who keep up with the happenings in the world them, the so-called chilehead community. That is as we get higher and higher up the chart with different strains and varieties of pepper, setting new SHU records along the way, sometimes we forget about the former top heat holders. The tendency of Reaper this and Pepper X that and Dragon's Breath in the wings and so on, getting all the glory and press, the tendency often seems to degrade the earlier peppers. Because the Carolina Reaper replaced the Trinidad Scorpion does not suddenly make the Ghost peppers any less potent. It doesn't make us automatically and suddenly tolerant to their punch, unlike Habaneros, which would have to work pretty hard to get to that kind of heat.

You talk about peppers hitting, let alone exceeding the million SHU mark, and you're talking about a playground that 85%+ of the planet would never consider passing the gate. It is some fairly rarified air and it's good to remember that. So those other peppers can have their prestige and moment, with all of the various sauce makers diligently putting them through the kitchen paces to come up with the next winning formula. There are still tried and true past masters, like the affable Jolokia, and it's nice to sauce makers still relying on that flavorful entry as an ingredient.

This sauce honestly took me a bit by surprise. I saw it on the shelves, probably a year or so ago, maybe a touch longer, and as I had a number of bottles of superhots already (sauces in that vein I find rarely make good everyday sauces for me), I passed it by, but liked the name (and label) considerably and mentioned the sauce in passing to Roger when I was chatting with him about something or other else. The man remembered (it is a memorable name) and slid a bottle my way, but I had it on my future list, once my other superhots ran down a bit. Fast forward to now and I rather wish I would have picked it up at the time.

The first impression I got was a callback to a sauce that has been gone a good 3 years now, at least, that of the Wicked Cactus Ghost Of The Samurai (see TOC if you want to read that review). It had a very distinctive flavor from the Ghost pepper powder, which this one also shares. Using the powder is something I'm surprised more makers don't do, as you can easily get a wicked amount of heat through the concentration into a powder, while still retaining a more solid flavor profile than using extract. The Ghost chili powder is pretty distinctive, though, but it was a largely welcome one for me, a bit earthy, in the same manner as is cumin, though in a different way and flavor, of course.

The second impression was one of tamarind, which was something I was definitely not expecting. Tamarind is an ingredient I rarely (almost never) see in hot sauces, as there is generally not much of a push at the Asian flavor profiles directly. After scouring the label, I was unable to find that particular ingredient, so I suppose it may be the combination of flavors with the mango. Honestly, all of the individual fruit flavors are pretty lost and it just reads as a general sweetness, albeit along the lines of a sweet plum or tamarind. There is also an unidentified chile pepper as an ingredient, which is odd considering they list out both Bell pepper and Ghost chili powder. If I do have a complaint about the label, it is that facet.

Flavor-wise, I do find it quite favorable and have not found anything I didn't like it on, other than ramen (where I don't like sweet sauces) and Mexican food (clashy, clashy). I say sweetness, but this is not a hugely sweet sauce, not gloppy sugar or anything. The sweetness is more of a grace note than anything, which melds nicely with the Ghost pepper powder flavor.

On the heat side, it definitely packs a wallop. One of the interesting facets of it is that you get the immediate brace of heat that is typical of sauces that use Ghost pepper powder, but then it kind of settles in and opens up after that first shot across the bow. I'm trying to think of a time that it didn't immediately ping the receptors in the back of my mouth and can't, which I found kind of interesting. After the initial flare-up, though, you can get a hotter build fairly readily, and it doesn't have a restrictor cap (bit too thick for that), so using it judiciously is the wisest course.

Bottom line: This is a very unique sauce, with an unexpected flavor that borders on outstanding...and yes, another SOTY candidate.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 7
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 9
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8


Overall: 8

Diablo (Jalapeno) Pepper Sauce Review

Cactus Candy Company Diablo (Jalapeno) Pepper Sauce

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxzfN1dVGDw

I always get kind of excited when I see the word "Diablo" or "Diabla" or the related variations in association with foods. Shrimp Fra Diavolo (Italy) is one of my very favorite dishes to make and eat. Same with Shrimp Diablo (Mexico) when I'm eating out. Both are reliable standbys when I'm at a restaurant for the first time and don't know to what extent, if any, I can trust the kitchen. Both are dishes that when done right border on art, but even if done not so great, like Thai food generally, they're still pretty hard to screw up.

So this, with the idea of a hot sauce calling itself Diablo, perked my attention when I saw it there, hanging out on the shelf. I originally got this during an impromptu COVID shopping spree, when I figured that places were going to start being shut down and I wanted to make sure I had a backlog at hand, just in case. I would not normally be motivated to get a Jalapeno sauce, as I'm finding those rather universally disappointing these days. Sadly, this will not be a sauce to break that streak.

Indeed this one, coming out of Arizona from a candy company, is going to be binned, once the video is shot.  The label is an absolute mess, as you can see, and it should have perhaps given me my first clue, though I don't automatically reject sauces based on labels.

Imagine, if you will, someone going to the trouble of make an apple cider reduction, then dumping a bunch of taco seasoning spices into it and bottling it. That is, in effect, what we have here and it is rather noxious, immediately ruining whatever it is put on. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there is little craft here and this is easily the worst sauce I've had this year. I am calling it Jalapeno, based on the website description. Despite it being the only pepper listed in the ingredient panel, there is, however, no actual Jalapeno flavor to be found. This is really a shame as a solid Jalapeno flavoring would have really helped out here.

Bottom line: This is fundamentally not a good sauce, unless what you really want is heavily cider-flavored vinegar-based sauce with some random spices thrown in.

Breakdown:

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


Overall: 0

Private Selection Calabrian Chile Hot Sauce Review

Private Selection Calabrian Chile Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Video support now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6uCtnbfSMo

It occurs to me that all of the Private Selection line of stuff is limited edition. Perhaps Kroger just commissions whoever is making this for an x-volume batch and just calls it good. I don't know but Calabria, that delicious bit of Italy, is responsible for a number of Private Selection items, including salami. I was unaware, until I found this sauce, there is also something called a Calabrian Chile Pepper. There are also some Greek chilis (Puglia) and even a sweet red Italian varietal (Campagna). If this is not sounding hot, it is with good reason. This is not a particularly piquant hot sauce, though it does throw in Habanero, for good measure, at the very end.

It lists as being an excellent choice for things like pizza, pasta and other Italian-ish delectables, and indeed, it does do a fair job on every one of those I tried it on. In fact, this is one of the most tested sauces I think I've had, including an application I almost never use (see the video of this sauce). It did not work amazingly well on the staples of fried chicken fingers or fish sticks, but worked well on every other application, including tacos, which should give you some type of idea how overall incredibly flexible it is.

The taste, though, doesn't strike me as something so much meant for the foods listed on it, but aimed much more at Mexican or Spanish cuisine. Despite having a veritable laundry list of stuff, the flavor profile reminds me an awful lot of something specific to the Upper Midwest, a "hot sauce" that comes in a round plastic tub. Called Village Hot sauce and coming out of Grand Forks, North Dakota, it is a fairly bland, sort of one-note concoction relying heavily on tomatoes, which meld well with what spices (they also claim Jalapeno) they add in there. This sauce is very reminiscent of that (people in MN & ND) will know what I mean, although this one is slightly more bitter than the Village Hot Sauce, which is overly one-dimensional to the point where I find it boring. It does serve as a great entry point, however, into hot sauce in general.

Bottom line: This is the first sauce I've had that is this mild get anywhere near SOTY territory, but yet, here we are, another candidate for 2020. This is also an outstanding hot sauce, like the one I mentioned in the preceding paragraph, to use to introduce neophytes to the wonders of hot sauce.

Breakdown:

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


Overall: 8

Pain 100% Hot Sauce Review

Spicin' Foods Pain 100% Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4S-DwrqkE

Note: This sauce appeared in Seasons 1 and 2 of The Hot Ones.

I happened to be poking around a specialty store not too long after I worked out which sauces from The Hot Ones show I had not done and would consider doing in the future and came across a couple of entries form the various line-ups. I have not really been a fan of the various "Pain" entries, either the Pain Is Good line or the Pain X% line, but in the interests of moving forward with the various show sauces, picked it up, happily in the smallest bottle I could find, a sort of mini-flask. I know flasks are probably a waste of glass comparatively, but I like them and any sauce that comes in one I will at least give a look. No, I don't know why and yes, I know that several of the lines I just mentioned come in flasks, but chalk it up to a general preference and leave it at that.

I got this one back and though this one has a very small neck, the sauce had discolored in it. After ridding myself of that, I gave it a quick smell and taste and was somewhat reminded of Blair's Pure Death. Now the last time I said that (last year), the sauce that reminded me of that also wound up being my Sauce Of The Year. So I was semi-excited at the prospect of another SOTY candidate this early in the year after several years of it being much deeper in the year. My excitement was quickly tampered as I got into this sauce, though...

I have some issues with this sauce. The first is the SHU rating they've attached to it. They list it on the website as 40K, which is woefully inadequate, sort of like Samyang listing their hot chicken noodles as having less heat than a jalapeno. Like those, this is off considerably, as far as rating, and is much hotter than 40K. They also call it 100% natural, which is an assertion largely dependent on how natural you consider extract. They have buried it in the "Natural Pepper Flavor" listing, but there is unquestionably extract in this. Pure Death itself, I believe, is rated somewhere around 40K and this is notably hotter. It also does not act like something relying solely on Habanero, nor is the flavor consistent with that, given the metallicy taste that sooner or later makes its presence known when extract is used. This also makes this sauce a bit of a chore to use, as that aspect tends to be overpowering with extended use.

Flavor-wise, in the beginning, the flavor sensation that first make me think of the Pure Death is very nice. It tends a bit more to the bitter, but it retains enough to keep that alive...that is until the extract comes roaring in, both accelerating the heat and wrecking the flavor. The label actually notes this idea, the hotter something is, the less flavorful, which is somewhat generally true, but if you click on the Table Of Contents or look at the last posts of any of the years this blog has been running, you can find quite a number of sauces that are able to do both without relying on artificial, chemical means. Unlike the Pure Death, this one has to be tempered in its usage or it can easily ruin whatever you're using it on, which is rather a pity, but the same applications of nearly everything still apply.

Bottom line: This is a great example of why I tend to eschew extract sauces. We have an otherwise solid sauce that is easily ruined with extract, which reduces its usefulness and value considerably.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 6
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6


Overall: 6

Samfuego Habitual Hinkelhatch Hot Sauce Review

Samfuego Habitual Hinkelhatch Red Pepper & Roasted Garlic Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Video support now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU6CLROmZ6s

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.

To this point, I will say the Samfuego sauces have been pretty interesting to me. The approach to hot sauces is unlike anyone else's and the flavors are definitely unique. I'm all about the spirit of experimentation. For me, this has been somewhat of a mixed bag with these sauces to this pint, though, as they often seem not to fit the food I'm pairing them with in a manner I would desire. This sauce also seemed like it would be following that pattern.

For starters, calling this a hot sauce seems to me to be a stretch. In the video series, I refer to a phenomenon as a "1 by default," a rating which means it is hotter than nothing, but is not what I would call a "true" one, meaning that as a chilehead, I find some degree of disappointment with the piquancy of it. This would definitely apply to this sauce and "1 by default" is not a rating I use on this blog, so I will have to give it a zero for heat. Taste-wise, it leans a lot towards apple cider vinegar without any being in there, kind of a neat trick, if you like that flavor, and assuming that the ingredient panel is correct.

These sauces also heavily utilize prickly pear, which is a cactus fruit. Like the other desert fruit we're pretty familiar with, agave, there is a very distinctive taste to that kind of sweetness. In here is also dark chocolate and basil, just to make sure things don't ever get too mundane. The sauce in the bottle had separated by the time I got to this, but no wonder, as heavier ingredients like roasted garlic and red pepper wouldn't stay suspended too long, I don't imagine. This is indeed a sauce you have to agitate every time.

As for usage...I'm not a huge fan of this sauce straight. It definitely comes across as a taste more than the sum of its respective parts, but it is not a flavor especially resonant with me. I tried it on chicken strips, which was a bust, then on a burrito, figuring maybe the hatch chile might meld with that, another definite no-go. Eventually, I tried it, almost at random on a Ham & Cheese Hot Pocket and it struck me, even with the nasty dreck that is their cheese sauce. This is a sauce strongly in need of a cream base of some sort. To test this further, I also put it on a pizza and it was much better, melding pretty well, better even than the Hot Pocket. So, this definitely is something you will want to use on a food with cheese (preferably directly on it) or at minimum, with a cream base. That does, however, significantly limit the flexibility.

Bottom line: A very flavorful, though somewhat astringent, sauce that is very distinctive and forceful.Works best with either a cream base or something involving cheese and very limited to not at all outside of that.

Breakdown:

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


Overall: 2

2K20 Q1 Update

2K20 Q1 Update

I’ve decided, at least for now, to go back to quarterly updates here. It is an interesting challenge, to keep up with the pace I’ve set for myself with the FOH series. The response to COVID-19 is going to impact the FOH series somewhat, without some major reversion. I have enough in the pipeline to go through the end of April, but filming further episodes may be somewhat challenging in the near future. It has been doing a great job of driving content for the blog, so it’s working out well, to this point. It’s also a great load of fun and I’m hopeful that everyone has checked it out and enjoyed it. It both allows me to branch out a bit, as well as to keep this blog consistent, at least in terms of content and tone...aside from one small difference, that being that I have also decided to open things up a bit and accept product, on a limited basis, for review. For now, that is mostly Roger Damptz, of Burn Your Tongue, up in Ogden, Utah, who has provided some products he wanted to see reviewed here and on FOH, but if manufacturers of hot sauce and/or spicy snacks (or restaurants either offering or considering spicy menu entries) out there happen to be reading this want to get in on it, please feel free to contact me.

The biggest posting year that the blog has ever had was 2013, with 52 entries. I’m not sure I’ll ever be enjoying that rarified air again, as I tend to finish through sauces before opening a whole bunch more (hence the inconsistency of posting schedule here), but between this and the FOH series, there should be a lot more content available from me...at least for this year. I don’t know how long I will be able to maintain the posting schedule at FOH, as I’m bound to run out of snacks and so on at some point, though right now, the non-sauce videos are greatly outpacing the sauce videos, at least in terms of planning and scheduling, but sauces should be good to go for (hopefully) at least all of 2020, regardless of COVID-19, assuming I don't wind up getting taken out by it, which is, of course, a very real possibility for all of us.

One of my goals, in addition to getting everything on my Standards AND the previous SOTY winners (as  many as I can find, anyway)  to have video support, is to start checking though the sauces (barring any that have prohibited ingredients, naturally) featured on The Hot Ones video show. I have posted a full list of The Hot Ones sauces throughout all 11 seasons and linked to the ones I’ve done. I also will be doing a quarterly round-up/fridge door sauce clean-up in the style of The Hot Ones, with the first episode coming out tomorrow, April 01, 2020 (no joke!).

Skip this paragraph and the next  if you don’t share my love of statistics, but out of a total of 66 sauces on the show, I have done 7 in full reviews and 7 in mini-reviews. There are 4 sauces that are discontinued entirely. I have rejected 33 due to having onions, which leaves about 15 or so to do, assuming I don’t go back and expand the mini-reviews for the ones I've done there (unlikely).

All sauces that I have done that also appear on the show will have their reviews referencing that factoid, as well as in which season they appeared. There are zero seasons I currently will be able to do to 100%, so my goal now is really just to do as many as I can that I’ve missed, which I may possibly be able to do this year, as there are a lot of duplicates. As long as the show runs, I will keep tabs and update.

I also wanted to mention that due to a counting error, the totals were wrong at the end of the year for 2019 and maybe beyond. By my reckoning, I’m at 203 sauces overall already, with the 200th overall review (including the mini-reviews) being the Bear River Buffalo. I’m still a bit off with 200 full reviews and that total includes, as mentioned, the mini-reviews, but I’m going to wax philosophic for a moment...I always expected, when I started this blog and was doing it, that I would eventually hit that number, but for the early part of last year and even in 2018, it seemed very, very far away and as mentioned, I was considering running out what I had and then letting the blog drift more towards hiatus. Without Roger both bringing back BYT and clearing up a significant sourcing issue for me AND giving me the support, it is certainly possible it may not have happened at all, so, again, my deepest and mightiest heartfelt thanks that Roger is in my corner. 

Right now, BYT, as it is situated in a closed mall, is, for all intents and purposes, mostly shuttered at the moment, but I look forward to the day I can triumphantly return to browse those shelves. I'm also hopeful he will move forward with an online shop. The Burn Your Tongue Facebook page seems to be the best place to get updated news from him, which would include stuff like I mentioned, so I will include that here: https://www.facebook.com/BurnYourTongue/. I know he definitely could use your support and definitely deserves it.

Take care, everyone, and thanks for dropping by.

Arthur Wayne Limitless Hot Sauce Review

Arthur Wayne Limitless Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8igJ6M0i58

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.

I was looking through my sauces on deck to find something more along the lines of sweet hot. This one, with pineapple listed, likely as a sugar source, seemed a good bet. What I did not realize was that it also is a sauce I would consider more a super hot, with both Moruga Scorpions and Jolokias playing heavily into the mix. The text of this one lists it as "limitless" in application, hence the name, and I'm not sure I would argue that. It worked well on nearly everything I tried it on, though it needed to be used sparingly or would otherwise pretty handily overpower the flavor of what I was using it on. It also mentions this is a hotter version of a different sauce they make, but I was not able to get much of a read on what that flavor might be, as the Scorpions are very prominent here, both in terms of heat and flavor. I may try to track down that other sauce, though, as this seems like a pretty well-crafted sauce, even if it does not strike me as simply a hotter version of something else.

The heat is pretty immediate and comes roaring in, somewhat obliterating whatever other flavors might be there. The predominant flavor profile here is the Scorpions, so it is basically a sweeter aspect to an otherwise very hot pepper. If you don't like the flavoring of Scorpion peppers, you may struggle with this sauce somewhat. It does not have a restrictor cap, which could lead to oversaucing, which you probably really do not want to do with this one, but the sauce is thick enough, that kind of cap would cause issues. Have a care, though, as the heat can build and get fairly intense for a non-extract sauce. In fact, I would also go so far as to say this one is better left solely to the chileheads.

Bottom line: Heat here is pretty stepped up, so this is best to be used solely by chileheads. It can quickly overtake flavors of food, with the dominant flavor here of Scorpion peppers. While I don't love everything about it, it is also our first contender for Sauce Of The Year for 2020.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 8
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8


Overall: 8

Murder By Primo Hot Sauce Review

Jersey Barnfire Murder By Primo Hot Marinara Sauce

UPDATE: Video support for this sauce available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS-i_LbNTyA

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.

 Now, with a name like this, it's pretty hard to miss remembering it, which is a very smart touch from Jersey Barnfire. I didn't know they were the makers of this, in fact, until I started checking out the label and so on. It sounded like it might have been a superhot at the time I first saw it, so I took a pass. I mentioned it at some point to Roger, who also remembered it and threw in a bottle when he gave me the hook-up for review sauces. I also, it should be noted, did not know it was a marinara, either.

There is indeed a dearth of sauces on the Italian side of thing. Most of the time, if you're hitting up pizza, you're using something that isn't really intended for that, but which works well enough. Move to spaghetti or lasagna or any heavily Italian-oriented dish, though, and you run down pretty quickly into dried pepper flakes. Sure, this will do in a pinch, but quite a number of us have given a lot of consideration to why this style of food, given its prominence and popularity, doesn't seem to have many sauces aimed at it. This sauce goes a long way towards answering that question, I think. More on that in a bit...

First, though, the brilliance of the labeling here. We see nice slash writing across the front, with a sort of black and white montage, instantly calling to mind something out of a Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett story. The throwback to the black and white days is complete with the text on the back, which is clear intended to be a throwback to mafia mobsters of old. Just touches of absolute brilliance and I was pretty excited to try it as well, for the fact that I don't often run across Primo peppers too often in sauces.

So, I cracked the bottle open and immediately got another throwback, this one to more bygotten days of...let's just say it smelled skunky. How about that? If we're thinking the days of skunk weed, which is a scent pretty hard to forget after you're immersed for a while, and even if it's been multiple decades since the last time, any encounter is instantly recognizable, you're on the money. That the exact smell I got and I checked the label to see if it was also made with hemp or something. It, indeed, was not.

Sometimes something will have a fairly foul odor, but an overall good taste, which may or may not also reflect the smell. Not the case here. My guess is some interaction with the vinegar and the herbs and it seems much clearer now why sauce makers are not aiming anything at the Italian food side of things. I thought for years it was the clash of flavors, but that may be only part of the story. Whatever happened here has resulted in a foulness of flavor. If you can mask the flavor, there is a solid and fairly robust heat, but if you can't disguise this...far, far less enjoyable. I can't say it works a lot better on Italian food than any of the other ones I will usually use, even if it is a marinara. It's possible this is spoiled, but you can get quite a few of the shots at Italian flavoring staples to kind of see what they were going for, but this is a major miss for me.

Bottom line: This is a shame. Unless you really like the smell and flavor of skunk weed in your food, or really want to get a feel for Primo peppers and can't find anything else, steer clear of this one.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 0
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1


Overall: 2

Pepplish Provisions Peach Agave Garlic Hot Sauce Review

Pepplish Provisions Peach Agave Garlic Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctYwBGc8UsQ

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.

This is one of those sauces where I'm not sure how to approach it. I would not normally be inclined to pick this up, with the ingredient list in the name not indicating a pepper of any kind. In a bit of BLUF action, I will say that how much you like this sauce will directly depend on how much you like agave. To me, it gets a lot more hype than it deserves and I struggle to think of anything with it as an ingredient that I like. I can tolerate certain margaritas, for instance, but if given my druthers, will tend elsewhere. That said, I try to be as open as possible in food adventuring, as long as there is not an ingredient that makes me actually sick or that I have tried enough to find wholly unpleasant. A read through the archives will give you an indication as to what those are. Agave, I will say, is not among them.

I also have some pause with the Peach part of things. Peach, even if you're eating one fresh, is a fairly light, subtle, even delicate flavor. Most of the sauces I've had with peach as an ingredient tend to have the peach washed out nearly immediately by whatever else is in there. Sometimes the result is still a great sauce, but peach is a flavor for me that, even if artificially amplified, still retains that delicate nature.

This particular sauce seemed to me to be flavored more along the lines of Mexican cuisine. I tried it on both pizza, breakfast burrito, and chicken strips as well. Despite the website feeling this can function as a barbeque sauce, for me, the only way that works is to mix it into actual barbeque sauce. They also mention a smokiness, which I don't find. There is an earthiness that tends to be in a lot of Mexican-style sauces, but it is countered by the strongly present sweetness. Here, indeed, the conundrum. The sauce's flavor profile strikes me as more Mexican, yet the sweetness precludes that working well in that setting. It is an interesting and unique-tasting sauce, but does not seem to have a natural home. It worked the best on pizza, but there's still quite a number of other sauces I'd rather have first there.

Heat-wise, it does have a bit of a spark to it. I'd put it right around a 3. That part was very pleasant and as I kept going with the sauce, I minded it less. I don't really have room for a sauce to grow on me, though. While I admire the spirit of experimentalism (and I think this is a very well-crafted and blended sauce, overall), this does not quite hit for me.

Bottom line: Fans of agave and heat should give this a shot. Very unique flavoring, but one that is just not resonant with me.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4


Overall: 4

Bear River Bottling Lightning Hot Buffalo Sauce Review

Bear River Bottling Lightning Hot Buffalo Sauce

UPDATE: Video support now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfd4lx9lczI

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.

Next, due to some counting errors, this is actually my 200th written sauce overall review. I still have a few miles to go on the full reviews, but this is 200 overall.

Finally, and this is really related to nothing, but if I were this company, I'd move more towards calling the company BRB, as the "Bottling" part of the name almost makes it sound like a microbrewery.

All that out of the way, we can now get into things a bit. Longtime readers know that Cayenne is probably my overall favorite pepper and Louisiana-style one of my favorite sauces, but I almost never buy Buffalo, despite a certain unmistakable resemblance in flavor profiles. The reason for this is that I don't eat hot wings a lot, combined with my preference for wings, when I do have them, with a bit more of a creamy sauce. A lot of the Buffalo sauces are pretty hardcore vinegary, which is useful in a Louisiana-style sauce, but quite a bit less so in a Buffalo sauce.

This particular one leans a bit more into the Louisiana-style territory, but herein a bit of a conundrum. Should I view it as a Louisiana, it is way too busy in the ingredient panel for my suiting. There is not a great degree of heat here, either, but I don't need a ton of heat as much as I want a purity of flavor for the Louisiana-style. So, we'll look at this more as a Buffalo sauce.

Flavor-wise, it's fine. I wouldn't have too many complaints if I came across this in a restaurant. Again, it is a touch more astringent than I normally like, but I assure you, that would not deter me. The bottle is a larger size and it is pours quite well. The blend is such that I can't pick out overall elements particularly well, but there is a unique composite with overtones of garlic, vinegar and what I would characterize as a blend of the peppers, without one taking dominance over another.

Bottom line: This is not, at the end of the day, a sauce I would seek out, nor will I be replacing it. It occupies such a weird middle ground for me that there is not really a place it would fit nicely. If your taste runs more towards the vinegary side of things for wings, this is definitely one well worth a look.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8


Overall: 5