Pallotta Hot Habanero Fire Hot Sauce Review

Pallotta Hot Habanero Fire Hot Sauce

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

I get some degree of amusement at the naming conventions of this company and sauces. It is not Pallotta; it is Pallotta Hot. The sauce is not simply mere Habanero. No, no. It is instead Habanero Fire Hot. The overuse of the descriptor hot in everything tends to make this a bit confusing, though, and a bit unnecessary. I had to go to their website to get it sorted and discovered those things I mentioned as well as their backstory, which I enjoyed reading quite a lot. I like it when companies do that and wish more of them did. 

I also enjoyed this sauce quite a lot. There is a freshness that is palpable from the word go. I'm not sure chileheads are going to find it "fire hot," but this pushes to the border of where "normies" will be interested, and then past it with a very nice low key lingering burn, exactly the type Habaneros are known for. I greatly enjoyed that part. 

Flavor-wise...the brightness of the sauce was a pretty welcome change of pace. Somehow I've gotten myself back on the Mexican sauce trail search, which winds up with me slogging through a lot of disappointing stuff, at least in terms of filling the vacancy in my Standby sauce list. Happily, it is also leading me to really hone in on some aspects I really want to have and those are: either a smokiness and/or fire-roasted something. This one, alas, has neither, but one can really taste both the genius and thought that went into making this. 

It is very heavy on Habanero, using that as the main base, and then it filters in some Jalapenos, which adds that brightness I mentioned, without stepping on the flavor. A bit of garlic and tomatoes also have glimmers here and there, to help smooth things out, but really, you are dealing with Habanero at one of its finest moments, in one of its better settings. This massive demonstration of skill has me interested in their entire line and I foresee me going through all of the sauces that do not have unfortunate ingredients. 

Bottom line: While it's not quite what I have in mind for my Standby list, this is a somewhat surprising and very enjoyable sauce that works astoundingly well on a variety of Mexican/Southwest dishes. May be a bit scorchy for non-chileheads, however.

Breakdown:

Heat level: 3
Flavor: 8
Flexibility: 6
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 7

Angry Irishman Olive It! Jalapeno + Olive It! Habanero Hot Sauce Reviews

Angry Irishman Olive It! Jalapeno Hot Sauce
Angry Irishman Olive It! Habanero Hot Sauce

NOTE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbfnpruxEs8

I have decided to do another double review for these, as there is very little different in anything, except for a slight coloration difference (more towards beige for the Habanero and more towards olive green for the Jalapeno) and the Habanero being the only one that has even a slight edging towards piquancy.

At first, these looked to me to be basically pureed green olives, which seemed an intriguing base to start a hot sauce. I love green olives dearly, but it had never occurred to me that they might make a good sauce component, though I've eaten more than my fair share stuffed with everything imaginable, bleu cheese, garlic, Jalapeno, Habanero, Jolokias, and so on, even once, memorably, with a stab at bacon cheddar, which went about exactly as well as you might expect. For all that, my money is still with the pimento-stuffed, which is where this sauce is at, as well. So, all to the good there.

My expectation of it being pureed olives basically, was bolstered by the label, which listed Spanish olives as the first ingredient. I checked out the website a bit for where such a sauce might have some recommended usage and saw pizza. I've long been an adherent of green olives and pepperoni as my go-to pizza of choice at a certain local pizza eatery, so it seemed we might be kindred spirits in thought. They also mentioned dirty martinis (I'm off drinking for the time being, so no test there) and egg salad, which I did test, among other things. I was, I should say, a bit apprehensive also, though, as green olives have a pretty strong flavor and I've found most people seem to reside snugly in the "love" or "hate" categories, with little room between. Making a sauce with that ingredient, without also having it be overpowering, seemed like a nifty trick, if it could be pulled off.

As it is, though, they do not appear to have tried. These "sauces" are basically pureed Spanish olives, with some minor additional components added, the flavors of which very little show up. Certainly not the Jalapeno at all, the garlic slightly, the olive oil not at all (I assume this to be meant as an emulsifier, which didn't work great - both sauces need to have constant agitation and both not only separated, but clotted up the bottle neck), and the Habanero very little, though it did impart a slight degree of heat. This also makes a very thick sauce, quite sludgy, and nearly impossible to pour, as one might expect. 

Now, obviously I'm a fan of the flavor, but I will also say that part of my enjoyment of eating those olives comes from the bit of firmness and mouth feel when eating them. There is none of that here, just the flavor, but it was a flavor I did not find particularly enjoyable in egg salad, without the accompanying mouth feel. There, you just have a mouth of mush, though a tasty mush. On pizza, it was slightly better, but, again, I was missing the mouth feel. I suspect this would probably work better in a drink, but one of my favorite bits, again, is eating the olives after downing the martini (and I prefer mine extra dirty).

Where all this is going is that this is an interesting idea, though how much you will want to throw in on it depends on how much you like the flavor of green olives. If you're like me, and you also like the heft, the mouth feel, the bit of chew to the olives, that aspect is missing here and will feel missing as well with usage. If you are a dirty martini drinker (and I might save these, for if I happen to resume drinking at some future point), these might be of use, assuming you just want the flavor (and with the Habanero, maybe a slight spark of heat). Other than that, it's hard to see getting these when you can easily make this yourself with a jar of high quality Spanish olives and a Magic Bullet.

Bottom line: Not sure of the target audience, but this seems to me to be sauces of both limited appeal and usage. I definitely will eat them both entirely, as I'm fond of the flavor of green olives, but also won't be replacing either of these.

Breakdown (Jalapeno):

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 5

 Breakdown (Habanero):

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

Overall: 5

Hell's Kitchen Tacocat Hot Sauce Review

 Hell's Kitchen Taco Cat Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4-TBLH2W-s

When I first read on the Burn Your Tongue Facebook feed (be sure to check that out) that Roger was bringing in this sauce in both left-to-right reading and also right-to-left reading labels, I was intrigued. It's been a while since I've seen collector's edition sauces and maybe that's just what 2020 needs...a little fun and frivolity as a respite from the otherwise Hellish nature of the year. I marked it down mentally and when I got there, I managed to score a major win and snag the last bottle of the ambidextrous-reading label, which reads both left-to-right AND right-to-left (picture attached). 

In amidst some of my other thoughts, I did find it also curious that the sauce company had seemingly taken the name of a fairly well-known tv show from Gordon Ramsay, so I thought possibly he was involved, despite his seeming disinterest in hot sauce and chilehead-type stuff. The name seems more a reference to a specific area of New York City, where the company is based, however. The sauce itself is an exclusive to some sort of video game bar/restaurant there called Barcade, as well...or maybe was an exclusive or was created exclusively for them at one time or something along those lines.

It probably doesn't matter, and you can look into it more, if that particular backstory interests you, but for me, I'm STILL on the search for a Mexican-style sauce, something that I've been trying to track down for years and that has been the sort of quest that is taking on a hallowed nature, almost along the lines of a sacred search for a particular grail cup...I'm happy to say that I'm narrowing down the things I want, but it is almost more an elimination of things I don't want. Obviously, onions and excessive heat are things I don't particularly want in that kind of sauce, but heavy garlic and citrus I also find myself disliking as well. 

For this one, heat is about right, fairly moderate, not enough to punish, but definitely enough of a presence to let you know it's there. This one has a bit more citrus than I would prefer and the taste of both Habanero (ok) and cumin (much less ok) are fairly prominent, so the end effect is something I found to be just ok. Obviously, flexibility with most Mexican-style sauces is out the window, as they don't really lend themselves to application too far removed from that style of cuisine and that is definitely the case here as well. My overriding thought when using this was that I really really would have preferred some smokiness here and throwing in some chipotle would have gone a long way. Smokiness is one of the factors I do strongly desire in a Mexican-style sauce and here would have been a stunning grace note. 

Bottom line: Pretty solid, relatively inoffensive Mexican-style sauce. Definitely enjoyed the bottle, but also definitely will not be replacing it or adding it to my lineup.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 4

Ass-Kickin’ Mini Dozen Mini-Review(s)

 Ass-Kickin’ Mini Dozen Hot Sauce(s) - Various Flavors

 UPDATE: Video Support, Part 1 (Sauce Tasting) available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmHrZOA4sps

UPDATE: Video Support, Part 2 (Sauced Wings) available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjxi6wwXOg8

Coming from Southwest Specialty, but not mentioned specifically during the actual content of either of the videos (links coming soon), we cover the entire run of the Hot Sauce Challenge Book of Pleasure & Pain novelty set, plus the Scorpion Pepper, which I suppose you could say substituted for the Original in the actual set. I did not find out about the challenge components until after the video was shot. It would someday be interesting to see if the sauces were designed to actually be good or just meant for the gimmicky challenge spinner or dice games that they do a lot of.

I do like this idea a lot, though, that of the miniature bottles, and wish other companies would follow suit. There is not really enough room in the bottle for a lot of agitation, so it won’t work with all sauces, but the idea of a nice traveler or sample size is a very appealing one, even despite their shrink packaging mostly failing (it worked appropriately on exactly 2 bottles). I started off with 13, but immediately blew out the Original, as it had Fresh Onions as a listed ingredient, which is an auto-rejection.

Since there are a lot of sauces, let’s get to the blow by blow. I will not be doing an actual rating on all of these, just a lot of tasting notes. In the case of the 2 sauces where there are full reviews, I will link to those.

Ass Kickin’ Bacon - this was a lot more fakin’ than actual bacon and was not a very good sauce overall. I wish the fascination with bacon was over, as I’ve yet to have a single sauce where I thought that component worked well. Here, it ruins the presence of the Cayenne pepper in there and was rather dreckish on the wing. It is also a fairly thick and gloppy sauce. Heat was moderate, give it a 1. I would say I never want to consume this again, but don't want to single it out, since that aversion applies to nearly all the sauces here, including this.

Ass Kickin’ Chile Lime - How various companies handle lime is always of interest to me. Used sparingly, it can be of some utility. Here, solo, it was pretty deft and an interesting sauce, the only one, in fact, I may be tempted into buying again. On the wing, it was awful, but I can’t think of any Mexican-style sauces I like in that setting. Heat is again around a 1.

Ass Kickin’ Sriracha - Very, very thick, to the point where this tiny bottle was probably a mistake. Once I got the sauce out, I discovered one of the worst things I’ve ever had in my mouth. It was also pretty far from an actual sriracha sauce. Absolutely no good at all and this one got binned in advance of the wings. Just utterly dreadful. Heat is around a 1.

Ass Kickin’ Cajun - Full review here: http://d-dubtsaaf.blogspot.com/2014/12/ass-kickin-cajun-hot-sauce-review.html

Ass Kickin’ Wasabi - A component I never expected to see in a hot sauce, given the rarity and expensiveness of the ingredient, but I should have expected a fake one, like the green toothpaste wasabi paste frequently served in sushi restaurants, particularly the low grade ones. The presence of wasabi was largely academic, though, as it did not show up in flavor profile. More or less the same as the Cajun sauce, albeit somewhat less hot, maybe a 1.

Ass Kickin’ Roasted Garlic - Very harsh and bitter, quite abrasive. Heat was probably hovering around a 1 again, but this sauce was overall vile, just not the point of excrescence, as the Sriracha was.

Habanero Hot Sauce From Hell - Full review here: http://d-dubtsaaf.blogspot.com/2013/07/habanero-hot-sauce-from-hell-review.html

Habanero Hot Sauce From Hell Devil’s Revenge - Taking a poor-tasting sauce and then spiking it with extract definitely ratchets the heat up notably, think maybe around a 4 here, but does no favors for flavor. Not great, but not nearly as bad as I was expecting, either.

Ass Kickin’ Ghost Pepper - Very pale, oddly colored sauce. I like Ghosts more and more these days, but solo, this was not a good tasting sauce, reading as mostly salty ghost carrots. On the wing, though, this was much better. All around, in that context, probably the best sauce I had. Heat is notable as well, again, probably another 4.

Ass Kickin’ Scorpion - The very flowery nature of these peppers is starting to be less and less palatable and of interest to me, I find, and here, it is quite dominating. This is easily a 5, maybe pushing 6 in the heat department. It was unpleasant solo, but overall ok on the wing.

Ass Blaster - One would not exactly expect subtlety from a sauce so named, but this was actually a lot more mellow than the Devil’s Revenge, though they both share a fairly similar profile. I think this is probably the least stepped on of the extract sauces I tried, though the flavor here left something to be desired. This one I’d also probably call a 4, though just barely.

Spontaneous Combustion - The big baddie of the lot, full of warnings and admonishments and making no secret it was chock full of extract. The flavor is exactly that, a sauce chock full of extract. Indeed, in this sauce, that ingredient component is most notable. It was also the hottest, though I think I’d put it probably around a 6.

I had hopes that this would be more of a fun experience, along the lines of the Hot Ones quarterly homages I do for FOH, but to be honest, this was a bit of an exercise in perseverance to get through. The heat was certainly significant, but it was honestly more the woeful flavors of most of these sauces that made it such a chore, particularly towards the end. That said, I would not hesitate, if I found more sample bottles from another company, but I believe this is mostly going to put the Ass Kickin’ products to bed, this now being over two dozen I’ve done of them, both with this dual FOH/TSAAF review along with all the extraneous stuff on FOH. Overall, they do better with snacks and if you’re interested in which they do somewhat well, please check out those videos (the nuts can be found in the Head to Head Battle Of The Hot Nuts videos).

CaJohn's BICH BCV Hot Sauce Review

 CaJohn's Bourbon-Infused Chipotle-Habanero Black Cherry Vanilla Hot Sauce

Add caption

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

I was not aware this particular variation on my favorite grilling sauce existed until a recent trip to Burn YourTongue up in Ogden, whereby I saw them side-by-side on the shelf. The original is not only one of my most used (during grilling months, anyway), but also probably the sauce I have given away the most of, as it makes for a very handy gift for people who like heat or claim to like heat, but are probably neither chileheads not desirous of becoming one. Also, given that I did not wind up doing any accompanying grilling video for the first sauce, I wanted to also bring that about as well (video is in process as I type this).

The flavor of the original has a fairly prominent cherry aspect to begin with, so I was a bit curious how much more this would have (or if I got a mislabeled bottle of the other one). Vanilla seemed to me something fairly easy to get lost in this kind of sauce, so I was curious there as well. Tasting it, I could not detect much, if any, of a difference between this and the original. Side by side, the only difference is an infusion to the bourbon, which honestly translates very little, if at all. 

So, definitely check out the other review for the Original Bourbon-Infused, as most, if not all of it will also apply here. There is no practical difference as to heat or flavor, so the ratings will be the same.

Bottom line: While I was nervous about this iteration, as Cherry is not among my favorite flavors, this proved to be a near clone of the original, which is handy information if I run out of the other and can't find another bottle and this happens to be in stock. 

 Breakdown:

Heat level: 2
Flavor: 9
Flexibility: 7
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Pex Peppers Wildberry Whoop Ass Hot Sauce Review

Pex Peppers Wildberry Whoop Ass Hot Sauce

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

My favorite episode of The Hot Ones is the one with Neil deGrasse Tyson, mainly because of the guest, but he also had an excellent comment regarding Mad Dog .357 having little regard for pretense, but just an all-encompassing heat. I thought of that with this sauce somewhat, though it is nowhere near that kind of heat. The label is pretty clear this a sauce that has no intention of playing. I don't always talk about the heat first, but more the flavor, which tends to be dominant in many other sauces. That is not, however, the case here.

I'm admittedly somewhat unfamiliar with 7 Pots, as I run across those in sauces somewhat rarely, but I believe they hover somewhere around the mighty Jolokia. There is a certain bitterness, a piercing odor as well, that is a commonality with everything above 1 million SHU and this one is no exception. It is that smell that alerts you to the idea that you may be in for more than bargained for. It's interesting the burn that different superhots will yield. This one was a bit reminiscent with me of extract, in that it was a somewhat sustained lingering burn all the way down to my stomach.

What we have here is an interesting idea: strawberry and blackberry, aka "wildberry," two ingredients I almost never see being used and then standing up to a super hot. Both blackberry and strawberry are somewhat subtle tastes, unless artificial, I suppose, but naturally, are both a bit on the delicate side, along with another ingredient in that vein, honey. And that's what we have here...a bit of this, depending on what you put it on, will yield either a strawberry or blackberry (sometimes both) note, along with here and there a bit of honey, which is enjoyable for a good flash, maybe up to a full second, before the heat and the bitterness of the 7 Pot comes roaring in. There is no question this is a quite punchy sauce and the label admonishment to use sparingly is definitely a sound strategy.

Because it is a fruit-based sweet hot, meats are a natural fit here for the lighter ones. Despite it being sweet, it does not make a very good grill sauce, but is probably best used as a dipping sauce. I did also attempt it on pizza, but didn't find that overall especially enjoyable. The more you can choose a food that will let its somewhat delicate flavor nature shine, the better.

Bottom line: Very interesting idea and a somewhat enjoyable sauce, but this is more for chileheads only. Without caution, this can quickly turn towards being punishing.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 6
            Flavor: 5
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 5

Dr. Scoville's Tropical Citrus Surprise Hot Sauce Review

Bear River Bottling Dr. Scoville's Tropical Citrus Surprise Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA1Y_pxLGzk

Pineapple and Habanero works in a sauce. Mango and Habanero works in a sauce, or, rather, I should say it CAN work in a sauce...numerous examples of it not being exactly a sure thing, but it definitely can work. No reason that pineapple and mango and Habanero can't be a sauce, though the milder flavor profile of the mango can get lost there. Going tropical with those two fruits and Habanero is definitely a winning combination, but, one that we've seen a few times, so how to differentiate one's sauce...

You could toss in some red bell peppers and take a stab towards the sauce profile of sweet & sour chicken, as I think this sauce sort of does. I don't know what the actual surprise is meant to be here, but I get the feeling it's the citrus component and here, we have a touch of lemon and orange zest, the latter of which tends to cut through notably. I'm not especially fond of that part, truth be told. Conversely, the pineapple is dialed back somewhat, which lets the Habanero shine. That part I think works well and is a bit different than a lot of other sauces I've had, which aim for a much more composite flavor.

Orange is not a flavor typical for hot sauces. It's been used before, but more in a juice context and not so much with the zest providing a lot of nose and shoving it way forward in the mix. It is a jolt when it hits, so perhaps that's the surprise. Other than that, it's a pretty straightforward sauce, with a pretty dense consistency that you might find closer to a jelly. It sticks reasonably well on foods and functions well as a dipping sauce. If you want to take a stab at a Kahuna-esque burger but don't want to be bothered grilling pineapple, you could substitute this, but better to do both, grill that pineapple, then use this sauce. Despite it's relatively high sugar content, I did not find it worked particularly well as a grilling sauce, so this one is probably better to use with meats after the fact.

Heat-wise, even though the label, as companies tend to do, overrates vastly the heat here, this is pretty moderate. Even non-chileheads shouldn't be troubled by this too much. I personally find the orange aspect limits how much I want to use this sauce, except for on that burger creation I mentioned, even in the areas where it does best. It is far too sweet for overall usage, but if you don't mind the orange as much as I do, can make a refreshing addition, used sparingly.

Bottom line: Solid entry into the sweet-hot category, though on the lower side of the heat scale there. Tropical citrus works better as a drink than a sauce, to my mind, but depending on how much you enjoy orange, your mileage may vary.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 5
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3

CaJohn's Black Garlic Chipotle Hot Sauce Review

CaJohn's Black Garlic Chipotle Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58C45GkDM8Y

By now, regular readers should know that I'm all about the bold spirit of experimentalism here, particularly in food and so, if a sauce comes along with a new ingredient, especially an established ingredient in other cuisines, as its new darling boutique ingredient, naturally, I'm interested, particularly if it puts it in a position I had not previously thought of before and probably would never have considered directly. Exceedingly long sentences aside, another result is that sometimes you get culinary marvels, those wonders of flavor that redeem that lust for experimentation. Other times, you get a sauce like this.

It took me a very long time to get a read on this sauce. I wound up filming the video for it, in fact, something I almost never do, before writing this, because I had used up so much during testing and was afraid that I wouldn't have enough to put on camera otherwise. This is a somewhat pricey sauce and I do not care to buy another bottle, but it is good enough that I wanted to do a video support for it.

Part of the trouble is that it treads in two very different, and ultimately dissimilar, worlds. On one hand, you have a sweet soy sauce and the black garlic itself, both two fairly typical ingredients in a number of Asian cuisine styles. But, there is also that Chipotle, which tends to be much more prominent in Mexican dishes. There is a reason that the most you will restaurants doing is using Mexican words to describe Asian dishes, such as a sushi burrito for oversized futomaki. I have never seen the inverse, Asian words to describe Mexican dishes in a restaurant, incidentally, but maybe someday we'll see frijoles y huevos foo yung or something. I digress, but anyway, those styles do not mesh much, aside from specific ingredients, such as Jalapenos or Habaneros being used as a sushi topping.

So, here we have a sauce with very strong and bipolar influences competing. The early part of this bottle was heavy Chipotle, to the point where the far more subtle flavors of sweet soy and the black garlic were largely nullified. No guidance, oddly, was given on its usage, hence the endless experimenting. I found it worked best on ramen, was moderately interesting as a grill sauce and as a standalone condiment, was something I disliked using. It really need to be cooked in or otherwise combined with something, to meld. Forced to stand on its own and it gets either lost or impacts the food negatively (it is not a great-tasting solo sauce). Heat is very moderate, as you might expect with Chipotle being the hottest pepper used. 

Bottom line: This is, for me, a rare misfire from a usually reliable sauce company. I don't really understand what they were going for, despite the words "Umami Bomb" plastered everywhere, and this is ultimately a somewhat expensive sauce without an identity, that is both forgettable and skippable.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 2

Blair's Original Death Hot Sauce Review

Blair's Original Death Sauce

NOTE: This sauce appeared in Season 1 of The Hot Ones.

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REaH37rO9_g

I had thought, for quite some time, that I had reviewed this sauce. It was a recurring thought, as I had gone on a pretty good tear of Blair's sauces for a bit, but I checked the list exhaustively and was never able to find it. Then I forgot about it until the resurgence last year, of the blog and with the FOH video series, and then forgot that I'd already checked and re-checked again, but still no review. Once I decided to move forward with trying to sift my way through the sauces of The Hot Ones, it came up again in the list, so I then tracked down a bottle and here we are.

Once I opened it, it was pretty clear to me that I hadn't worked my way through this sauce yet, for reasons that are now unclear to me, but I'm guessing it was due to a few Habanero sauces I'd recently had and my general innate sort of disinterest in that pepper. The Habanero is the the hottest pepper of the crew here, which also has Cayenne and Chipotle. The Chipotle reads more as an accent and the Cayenne is somewhat lost. The predominant taste is that of the smashed garlic, which is prominent and was clearly fresh, as there is no processed taste at all to it. For me, though, garlic reading that strongly precludes this sauce from a lot of applications, as I'm not fond of strong garlic addition in my sauces, for most foods, unless there is already a garlic component (Mexican food, pizza, etc.). This rules it out as a dipping sauce, but does extend it nicely to things like fish tacos, particularly with the additional accent of the lime in there.

Like all of the Blair's sauces I've had, this is very smooth and well-blended. It's not a surprise to me that it took off as well as it did and put the "Death" name on the map, though it's not anywhere near the awesomeness that is Pure Death. Heat-wise, it's on the lower scale of things, perhaps slightly past what I call the dividing line where things become too hot for non-chileheads. I'm not sure what happened with Blair's, but their sauces have been increasingly challenging to come by. This one I'm definitely not sorry I sought out, but I don't believe I'll be replacing it once the bottle is done.

Bottom line: Blair Lazar is a legend of the industry and this sauce provides several aspects of why. Solidly versatile, with a moderate heat level, worth a go if you haven't had it before, but this one is really reliant on individual taste.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6


Overall: 6

Tonguespank Scotch Whiskey Trinidad Scorpion Hot Sauce Review

Tonguespank Scotch Whiskey Trinidad Scorpion Hot Sauce

Note: I'm not clear exactly on what transpired with this company and its ownership, but this sauce no longer appears to be made.

Note: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNIKT6kIKZM

I had this one on the shelf for a while, quite a while, expecting it to come across as a superhot, open bottles of which do not tend to rotate super quickly through my open fridge door sauces. I think it was one of the first ones I picked up after learning that Burn Your Tongue was back in action, which has been for some time now. Adding to that is that 2020 (and 2019, to a degree) has seen me having the opportunity and thus eating a lot more sauce than in previous years, there is the fact that I am finding the flowery notes of the various Scorpion peppers less and less attractive to my palate.

It reminds me a lot of IPAs, actually. When I first got into home brewing was the first time I'd ever had one, now well over a couple decades ago, and like most people when they first encounter it, I went hog wild with IPAs, seeking, finding, trying, and slugging down all of them I could find. Somewhere along the lines, the microbreweries latched onto this and a trend I call the "hop wars" ensued. Around that time, I was also well sick of the flavoring, had my fill and then some, and drifted away into less flowery beer flavors. So, too, is what is going to be happening with the Scorpion sauces, I imagine, in 2021. I have a few left, as I write this now, but once those are concluded, I don't foresee those being very high on the list of sauces I will want to acquire, much like the Habanero sauces. Those, however, I have somewhat come to terms with, but the superhot I find most favorable lately is the venerable ghost, the Jolokias.

That aside, it took me a while to get a handle on this sauce. It is very runny, as in Louisiana-style runny, but with some very nice flecks of pepper in there, which I always appreciate. I don't know why boozy sauces aren't more of a thing, since I can't think of any sauce with booze in it I haven't found favorable, but here, even though Scotch is not my hard liquor of choice, it works to great effect here, creating a nice unami effect in the aftertaste. The flavor is a bit subtle, kind of like CaJohn's Dread, though, despite the label warning, unlike the Dread, you won't get blasted too much consuming a lot of it to chase the flavor down. The addition of the Habaneros, Jolokias and Scotch whiskey also do a very nice job of rounding this sauce, and taking down that flowery edge of the Scorpions somewhat.

There is not a definitely flavor to this, however. For most sauces, this would seem like it was lacking an identity, but here, it lends itself to a wide variety of applications. The flavor profiles of Scorpion peppers and Mexican foods strike me as clashy, and that applies here also, but it did work, to a degree, on some of the foods that could be considered of that style. Heat is definitely present, and should appease most chileheads. It is more of a flash heat and doesn't really build up to what I was expecting, both from the label and from the presence of a superhot as the main pepper, but does have a very nice linger to it. I'd call it overall pretty pleasant, as far as mouth heat and the burn goes. Definitely will not appeal to non-chileheads, though.

Even if this was still available, I probably wouldn't keep a bottle around, as it does not fit into categories particularly well, but is a very good all-around superhot sauce, so if you didn't want a fridge door full of sauces, but did want to have some hotter than normal sauces, this would be a good choice. I'm a bit disappointed I missed it when it was still produced, even still, and will be checking out whatever sauces I can still find from the company. I also note, once again, my list of SOTY candidates has increased for 2020 with this entry.

Bottom line: Another SOTY candidate for 2020 and one of the most curious and unique sauces I've had. Well worth picking up for any chilehead who has not yet experienced it and can still find a bottle.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 9
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10


Overall: 8