Swampdragon Bourbon Hot Sauce Review

Swampdragon Bourbon Hot Sauce

If you are a food reviewer, as I am and have been for well over a decade, and even longer, if you count the informal times, or even if you're just an intrepid food adventurer, as I have always largely been, you will, at some point, experience the sensation of putting something truly awful in your mouth. I have had this happen a number of times and, unless I severely curtail my lust for experimentalism, probably will again a number more before I finally check out. This sauce surely ranks among the worst of anything I've ever put in my mouth. 

After seeing it on a local grocery store shelf, I picked this up on a whim. They also had rum and tequila and I think possibly vodka also. I'm no stranger to bourbon and keep a bottle at hand at all times (unless I'm making a drink of some kind, I also prefer it neat, in case anyone is wondering) and naturally went with that, but also considered the rum as well. Vodka I could not see it adding much and tequila I'm closer to the point of avoiding, so they were really not a choice. It was one of the more expensive sauces on that shelf, which I found curious. Another point of curiousity was the ingredient label, which was "Aged Red Peppers," which I assume to be Cayenne (or possibly, but less likely, red Jalapeno) and a non-specified bourbon. Hmmmm.

Those of us who toy around even at the periphery of the culinary world are familiar with the practice of cooking with or using alcohol products in marinades and sauces and so on. Generally, enough heat is used to cook out the "boozy" part, leaving the taste profile behind. Getting too heavy-handed with whatever alcohol you're using can rather quickly and easily ruin whatever dish you're making and it tends to be mostly used as accent. Even in the sauces that do have it - a few from CaJohn's come more immediately to mind - it is used in the manner I've described.  In this specific case, the selling point is that rather than taking a harsh vinegar hit, why not use alcohol as preservative instead? What this means is that the booze part is not cooked off and instead, you take an alcohol hit instead of a vinegar hit. 

I was tempted to say that the company appears to be very careful not to indicate which brand of bourbon is being used, which I find somewhat suspicious. I imagine it is something they are buying in large quantities of and are likely worried more about a price point than smoothness, for instance. Certainly, all bourbons are not created equal. After pondering this some, I don't believe that I could take one of my finer bourbons and craft a hot sauce with that as at least a co-equal flavor driver, so it probably doesn't really matter how harsh the actual alcohol hit may be. This is just something that conceptually is a moderately intriguing idea, but in actual practice...

I tried this on quite a number of things. If I happened to have it on something hot enough or if I let it sit long enough to let some of the alcohol evaporate, it was vaguely approaching a Louisiana-style sauce, though one I would call more middle of the road. There is not really any heat here, but that is not really what most Louisiana-style sauces are after. When this sauce was used right out of the bottle, the best I could hope for was the alcohol being a distraction. At worst, it was vile and often disgusting.  

This sauce never wound up either complementing the food or improving it, but rather universally wrecked everything it touched. There's just no escaping that you're taking a booze hit with this rather dreadful concoction and most of the foods I use with hot sauce do not work in that setting. Maybe someone out there likes mac and cheese or pizza or chicken strips with whiskey dumped on it, or someone who dips fish sticks or chicken wings in the glass of booze, but that person is definitely not only not me, but also no one I'm aware that I either know or know of. 

Bottom line: This is a mess, an absolutely noxious, and somewhat ill-conceived, concoction. Best use for this would be as some sort of novelty gag gift. Definitely not usable on food and my bottle has already been binned.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 0

Karma Huhu Diablo Hot Sauce Review

 Karma Huhu Diablo Hot Sauce

NOTE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9S_jpQd34E

This is the hotter version (big brother?) to the Huhu Pina sauce and I was interested to see if a hotter version would address some of what I felt were the inadequacies of that previously mentioned sauce (also reviewed here). It somehow escaped my attention that it utilized the 7 Pot Primo (I now have 2 open sauces with that pepper, for the first time ever), but once I discovered that, I was well-pleased. I'm impressed more and more with that pepper, lately. 

One of the nicest things was that in switching the pepper, a lot of the prominence of the one ingredient that I found to be highly distracting and detracting, the cumin, was reduced significantly. It also wiped out a few of the others as well, leaving ultimately a much cleaner sauce, which is a sweet sauce, with a mild pineapple presence, along with a very nicely blended heat and slight bitterness from the pepper. 7 Pot Primo seems to meld quite nicely in the sauces I've had it in so far and does not share either the flowery aspect of Scorpions or the slightly cloying nature of the Reapers. Now that I'm discovering it more and more, this is one I will be turning to with more frequency.

This one has a solid burn, much like the Wildberry Whoop-Ass from Pex (also reviewed here), and also like that sauce, is somewhat on a delay. You get a nice refreshing burst of heat and then as you continue to consume, you get a greater and greater burn. Quite pleasant and enjoyable, I must say, though this is not going to be anywhere near among the greater sauces I've had, I don't think. 

While the flexibility is increased to the point where this is workable on things like pizza, there is still enough cumin that I'm a bit leery about the odds of me buying more of this. I would not, for instance, use this on chicken strips. I am definitely going to give Karma a closer look, I think. This one was exactly what the Pina should have been, for me, and in a general and broader Mexican food sense, this is a definitely winner, unlike the other which was definitely solid for the al pastor tacos and that was it.

Bottom line: A very fine sauce to kick off the new year and it improved on every single aspect of the Pina. I still go back and forth on whether I will keep it on hand, but absolutely will enjoy the bottle in its entirety.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 6

Best Hot Sauce 2020 + Recap

Number Nine. Year #9. The ninth year of this blog. For the sauces I had, and for this blog, and the video series, it was a strong year. For almost everything else, it was pretty awful. But you didn’t come here for more of the COVID-19 calamity, I don’t suppose, and I’d rather keep the blog on point, as it has been for all (ok, most) of that time. 

Every year, I like to come around at this time, in usually my lengthiest post of the year, and ruminate a bit. I don’t really do resolutions, but I did want to talk a bit about 2021, which is maybe an unusual way to start a recap of a preceding year, but, given that this one will also include the FOH video series, I hope I can be forgiven for my indulgence. But first...a prelude of sorts to that...also, get a snack and a drink, because this post will be lengthy. 

Before I get into the prelude (you can probably see why this is so long), though, I do want to mention a bit of housekeeping, namely that I have further sorted the FOH videos on YouTube and added a new playlist, this one separating out the Sweet stuff from some of the other snacks (check them all out directly in links to the right). Aside for the sauces, I don’t want to get too many videos piling up in one playlist, so there may be another breakout playlist or two coming in 2021. Speaking of the FOH video series on YouTube... 

When I first started kicking the idea of the video series around, it was because, as I mentioned in the post earlier last year, Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue, had graciously offered me some sauces to kickstart the blog again. I struggled with the idea a bit, as I had not previously accepted product and, to a degree in the beginning, specifically avoided that kind of thing...but, it was a very generous offer, at a time when my motivation was floundering, so I ultimately gratefully accepted. Still, it felt kind of unfair to me that he gave me actual products that had value, as in stock on his shelf, in exchange for me grinding out words in a blog that had seen better days in terms of draw, at least partially because of my lackadaisical posting to it. So, I hatched the video idea, given that I’ve been doing YouTube video content for a while now on some other channels. 

 I wanted it to be different, but still support the ideals of the blog. With the video series, I felt I could open up and expand the spicy items I was consuming, but the idea of food challenges has held little appeal to me and I will never be competitive with the myriad of others already out there doing it. So, the video series, in addition to the other parts I mentioned, was also to do another the blog did not, which was to get up content consistently. I had originally just wanted to post a video for one sauce a week, which I felt was a pretty attainable goal. I almost missed that, shortly after I launched, but once I got on track, it was smooth sailing. Things were clicking along in that I was soon running at least 2 months ahead (it’s probably closer to 3+, as I write this), so I was able coast most of the time... 

This enabled me to plan future stuff, to keep the door fridge sauces to a mostly reasonable and manageable level, as well as keeping my tolerance down somewhat. The idea of this blog is to have it accessible to folks beyond just chileheads, so if I let things just fly too much, the sauces don’t read to me at an appropriate or commensurate level. Activity winds up becoming a flurry of sauces, then a pause while I try to finish off some open ones, then repeat and so on. Unlike some of the other reviewers out there, I don’t just do a review and the immediately bin the sauce. If I like it at all, I will generally finish it out. I really struggle with the idea of waste. 

I have a lot of fun with those videos and really enjoy making them, which hopefully comes through, but chasing down different spicy snacks all the time is a lot more work than I expected. I really mainly was thinking of the sauces for the FOH video series, but figured I would try to do double-postings for all of 2020 to build content. This (and being so far ahead - as I type this, January is in the can and I’m actually working on videos that probably won’t be posted until March 2021 or later) enabled me to do really fun things like some holiday posts and special event videos and whatnot. 

The problem now is that I can’t really record a video of me eating Samyang Hot Chicken noodles or any of those other items again. Those are pretty much one and out and there are a lot less different spicy snacks than there are hot sauces out there. With COVID-19, I largely lost my ability to do Head To Head Chicken Sandwich Battles (or any fast food spicy menu items). I can still do the nut battles, until I run out, I suppose, and even those, I’ve run down the gamut pretty well (as I write this, I have two more to do and that’s it). Trying to come up with content, in fact, is how I arrived at those Head To Head Battles to begin with. Same with the quarterly fridge sauce clean-up hot wings videos, which I will say, has done a great job of not overburdening my open fright door sauce shelf. 

Where this leaves me in 2021, I don’t know exactly, though I do have a bit of time with the backlog, probably pretty close through the end of Q2. I might try to go every other week and see how that goes, but I’m running out of road on non-sauce content, unless I want to open it up to the weird spicy challenges...and I may do a few of those, if they sound like they will be interesting taste-wise and not just the “pour a shitload of extract into things” type. If that becomes a thing, I need to develop my prep a bit more. What I have come up with is helpful, but not quite to the level I want it to be at. My focus has really been, for the most part, even with the experimentalism of the FOH video series, on flavor. 

I have a number of other options I’ve had rattling around the old noggin. I could go replace the non-sauce postings with more sauce postings, once I run out of the non-sauce items. I have the canned content now to support that thought, as I write this, but how long would that continue if I was posting double the sauce content would become a pressing question. I could just go to regular sauce posting and then just do the non-sauce products as I come across things, but I dislike doing that somewhat. I do have some series type “event” videos I kind of have in the back of my mind, which would add a video in per month, but I haven’t formulated it concretely enough mentally, in terms of feasability. 

I might add condiments that often run in the gray area, not quite a hot sauce, but a little too spicy to be just “normal,” which is the hot mustards or possibly some of the hotter BBQ sauces, if I can find any. Those don’t really fit into the blog, which is more specifically hot sauces only, but realistically, how many of those can I do as well will be a question. I really enjoy posting stuff I make, from pizza to barbeque to deviled eggs to hot cider. Those are a blast to do, but that’s not really what I do or what the channel is about, besides the occasional times where it fits in with something else I’m doing. 

The final alternative is just to leave it mostly as a blog/hot sauce support structure. If had to guess, once I run down the backlog, it will probably be weekly sauces every Sunday, the quarterly wing showdown, maybe some Head To Head stuff, if things permit, and any other content opportunistically, as if I find a new kind of snack in the grocery store or something OR if someone wants to see something I haven’t done, then I could do something by request, which would add some nice flexibility, possibly. In any case, while I don’t know how this will look just yet (watch this space, or more relevantly, the YouTube space, I guess), I do know that 2021, at this point, anyway, is less likely to see my video posting at the same pace as 2020. 

 In other changes for 2021, I have decided I’m largely tired of Scorpion peppers and will be drifting away from them once I run out the sauces I already have. I was fairly fond of them for some time, but their overly flowery nature I find somewhat grating now, as I mentioned elsewhere, sort of like the over-hoppy nature of IPA beers. I’m kind of kicking around the idea of doing a post on different peppers and my thoughts on them in sauces, but inevitably, I’m going to leave something out, so going to let that idea gel for a bit. 

 I do need to look into the Reapers more and those are factoring fairly highly in my plans for the coming year. The process, in fact, has already started in the later part of 2020. I have not historically had a lot of interaction with them on the sauce side, with nearly all of my dealings coming from them on the snack side, but with Scorpions going by the wayside, it is probably high time I look into those further. My sporadic interaction with them has been a touch challenging for my internal system. It is somewhat similar to how my body would sometimes react with Habaneros, which has been described throughout this blog. The interaction with Reapers is that, only amplified, but there are some differences as well, such a burn all the way to my stomach, which is something more typical for me with extracts. Reaper presence can also induce burning urine, which is the only thing which has ever reacted this way with me. Extract doesn’t do that. That particular burn seems to be quantity based, without regard to whether it is the pods or powder. 

It was quite a surprise the first time that happened, I can assure you, even with my heat tolerance probably overall higher than at any other point in my life, so it will be intriguing to see how/if that changes with Reaper sauces. I spent most of December with various Reaper products and my takeaway is that Reapers are not something that one consumes casually. This is not the case for any of the other peppers. Reapers are fairly easy to overdo and it is pretty far from enjoyable when that happens. Playing with those can very easily whip you into pretty bad cap cramps, even after the mouth heat has dissipated. It is the only thing I’ve found that I can re-activate into cramps, either with activity or with carbonation post ingestion, even literally a few hours afterwards...definitely not something to toy with. 

Another of my goals for 2021 is to try to have a support video posted for every single sauce I do a written review for within the year. The past sauces from earlier years of the blog I still plan to work on and ideally can get at least one of those per month, but they are a bit less of a priority than my last goal, which is to try to clear out my backlog somewhat (I have space for 18 bottles, as long as they are not irregularly sized, in my usual spot where I keep the unopened ones that are waiting - I overran that a few times this year, including as I write this, which I would strongly prefer not to do in future). I also will be having video support for all of the SOTY titles that are still available and not either reformulated or discontinued in 2021, probably by the end of Q1...at least that’s the plan, currently. 

Another of my big goals is to do more networking and outreach within the community, something I’ve largely not bothered with in the past, aside from chit-chatting a bit over email with Scott Roberts, when he was around. This year I’ve connected a bit with Kendall at Tasting The Heat, submitted to be part of the voting body for the Hot Sauce Hall Of Fame, connected a bit with some sauce manufacturers, added in some major Hot Ones sauce breakdowns and homages, as well as connected with some online YouTube reviewers a bit. Of course, my main man Roger Damptz at BYT is always in the mix as well. I’m not, however, on Facebook and will never be. I have little to no interest in social media, aside from what I’m currently doing now (Yelp, YouTube, this blog), so if you enjoy the content here or at FOH, please spread the word. I noticed Vic Clinco (World’s Largest Hot Sauce Collection) has a good community going, but I don’t really have a way to reach him, that I’ve been able to find, as we don’t inhabit the same online spheres, so if there are people reading or watching and enjoying what I do here or at the FOH series, I’d love a little referral to some of those people out there, especially if you’re part of a chilehead community. 

Speaking of The Hot Ones (be sure to check on the quarterly updates, posted at the END of every calendar quarter, which are NOT in the Table Of Contents post, but you can click to by expanding the months on the right), I’m slowly working my way through the sauces on that show. Season One was done as of last Quarter, with more coming in 2021. As noted earlier, those tend to be more expensive options than some of the other sauces. Unless and until this blog and video channel thing becomes lucrative, it makes more sense for me to be driven by what appeals to me, rather than chasing a completist fever dream...I have broken down the numbers for all of the years (also somewhat in a link on the right) and have added a few more for this year, and continue to keep that page current, but again, overall not really a priority at present. Right now, the plan is to try to do at least one of those a quarter, so I have at least one Hot Ones entry in my quarterly wing fridge clean up homage videos. I have in mind a couple more breakout playlists for FOH, including The Hot Ones sauces specifically, but that particular one is not really worthwhile to do...yet. 

2020 overall was the second highest year for posts and the highest year ever for sauces, again, somewhat driven by the FOH series. This is even with a slow down towards the end of the year, partially so I could do some sauce clean-up and save some for January 2021. 2020 has been easily the highest drawing year for blog viewership historically, which was quite pleasing to see. Additionally, in news that will surely be of no interest to anyone other than me, I am now down to 12 sauces (that are still being produced, of course) for which I need pictures. 

Before October was out, I hit 200 full sauce reviews, on my way to 210, a number which is still kind of wild to me, considering where I started the year. 300, even overall, seems a bit unlikely for 2021, but I imagine I will finish fairly close in the overall total. Also, this time out, before I even got to the end of Quarter 3, I had 5 contenders for SOTY. I finished with 6 contenders, which was a different challenge from previous years, but also kind of a good problem to have. The sauce with the most views changed from the prior leader, the O’Brother Chipotle-Habanero, to a new sauce leader this year as well. We will get into the SOTY discussion more, but first, as we usually do, some numbers... 

As usual, all written reviews for sauces can be clicked to from the Table Of Contents page (see link on right): 

Total posts (including this post): 255
Total views (as of this writing): ~24,928
Total sauces full reviewed: 210
Total mini-sauce reviews: 36
Total sauces reviewed, combined: 246
Total full review sauces with FOH video content: 68
Total unopened sauces waiting on shelf for review: 17
Total open sauces waiting for blog review: 1
Total open sauces waiting for video support: 3
Total open bottles in fridge: 10
Highest viewed review: 1,334 - Private Selection Mango Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce
Highest viewed article, any type: 1,334 - Private Selection Mango Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce

Current standby sauces are: 

*Emeritus Everyday sauce: Trappey's Red Devil
*Emeritus Asian-style sauce: Huy Fong Chili-Garlic Sauce
*Everyday sauce (and current overall favorite): Blair’s Pure Death Sauce
*Grilling sauce: CaJohn's Bourbon-Infused Chipotle Habanero (BICH)
*Mustard-style sauce: Inner Beauty
*Pizza sauce (as in used instead of actual pizza sauce): Boar’s Head Jalapeno Pepper Sauce Mexican-style sauce: ???
*Louisiana-style sauce: Irazu Cayenne
*Sweet-hot sauce: CaJohn's Happy Beaver
*= Not looking for a replacement 

The more things change...a standby Mexican-style sauce seems to have perpetually eluded me and that remains the case today. I’ve given up on it being a focus, despite being caught up in it once a gain a bit this year towards the end. I have decided to try just blending one, as I had some pretty good entries in that category this year, but nothing that scratched the itch quite right. Of course, there will be a FOH video of that process available also (look for it in early 2021). 

I have also added a new category to my Standby list, to replace some of the departing ones, which is the Inner Beauty, an absolute treasure of a sauce. In fact, I wound up doing a special event for that one, I loved it so much. I ate considerably more of that than any other single sauce. In fact, that is probably my favorite sauce this year and it wasn’t even in contention. I ran down the average rating in last quarter’s update, but it really takes some doing to be in contention for Sauce Of The Year, let alone to win it. I specifically wanted this category to be the creme de la creme of the year and designed the rating system so that no one element could score high enough to tamper with the selection. It has to get fairly high marks in at least 3 of those 4 to be in serious contention. So even Inner Beauty, with it getting a perfect 10 in 2 of the 4 categories wasn’t able to be in consideration. To put it in perspective, even with 210 full review sauces on the blog so far, I still have not hit a total score of 1,000 cumulative, with all the sauce scores combined. The average rating of all those sauces sits just about 4.5 (I’m not going to post a full breakdown of where the sauces fall in this post, as it’s already quite lengthy as-is, but if anyone is interested, drop me a line and I’ll get it Q1 of 2021). 

Most of the SOTY contenders came in sort of early this year, at least comparatively to other years. Those sauces specifically were: Private Selection Calabrian Chile, Arthur Wayne Huckleberry Ghost, Arthur Wayne Limitless, Monroy’s Death By Kraken, Tonguespank Scotch Whiskey Trinidad Scorpion & Mikey V’s Sweet Ghost Pepper. Having two sauces from the same manufacturer is pretty rare and had not happened since the first year of the blog. 

We had a very commercial sauce in the Private Selection, a sort of mid-level market penetration with the Mikey V’s, and much smaller scale for the others. I loved them all, but for different reasons. The Calabrian went by far the fastest and was the most universal of all the contenders this year. It was also the least expensive. The Limitless was definitely the hottest. The Death By Kraken sort of became a forgotten sauce and was not able to sustain the kind of appeal it would have needed to actually be the choice. I think I tired of the mango, which is not a flavor I would say I find super beloved. The Tonguespank, sadly no longer produced, was like a fine Manhattan, revealing multiple layers and depths to it. The Mikey V’s was by far the best-tasting, until the very last minute, when the Huckleberry Ghost slid in under the wire. 

We also had some variety of chiles, with various ones being used in the Calabrian, which was decidedly not hot, the Scorpion for both Limitless and the Tonguespank, and Ghost Pepper for the Kraken, Huckleberry Ghost, and Mikey V. entry. Of these, the Limitless and Kraken came courtesy of Roger at Burn Your Tongue. All of them, except for the Tonguespank, which I had well over a year before getting around to trying, were acquired this year. 

While any on this list would rightfully take their place amidst the other great sauces that earned the title, I eliminated the Calabrian almost immediately, due to having stiff competition this year, While it is a legitimately great sauce, particularly for a commercial one, it ultimately just didn’t hit enough buttons. The Kraken, as noted, was one that I tired of, again probably because there were so many other sauces and so much competition as well. The Limitless was one where I enjoyed it a bit less over time because it was fairly easy to oversauce with it, which made it somewhat less usable. 

Really, the main contenders were the Huckleberry Ghost, the Mikey V., and the Tonguespank, which became more clear as time wore on. This is one of the reasons I don’t decide these things until I’m nearly at the end of trying sauces for a given year. I vacillated back and forth for quite some time, as I really enjoyed the combination of Scotch whiskey and Scorpion peppers, oddly, two components I no longer hold the same love and regard for which I formerly did. The Mikey V., as noted, is by far the best Asian-style sweet sauce I’ve ever had and I loved every bite of it. The Huckleberry Ghost was just this tremendously surprising wonderful concoction. It came down to literally the Mikey V. and the Huckleberry Ghost, on account of flavor for both, as they were of similar heat level. 

Now seems like a good spot to announce that, by a hair, and only due to a slightly higher flexibility in that I liked the flavor more and like the sauce itself on more things, the Mikey V’s Sweet Ghost Pepper is the 2020 Sauce Of The Year. It’s the best-seller of the company and small wonder why...it’s just a tremendous, tremendous sauce. I loved it from the start and then on every single thing I used it on, which is not something I could say for the other sauces. In the review, I mentioned it was the frontrunner for SOTY, which was a spot it never really fully relinquished. I’ve had a lot of Asian-style sweet sauces, have a very rich history to compare this to, so when I say this is far and away the best, it is comparing it not only against a wide array of sauces, but also decades of usage. That is not something that can be ignored, especially when you’re coming down to such slim criteria to decide an eventual winner. This was the closest deliberation for SOTY I’ve ever had. 

Previous TSAAF Sauce Of The Year winners (links in Table Of Contents page): 

2012: CaJohn’s Happy Beaver
2013: Blair’s Pure Death 
2014: Born To Hula’s Ghost Of Ancho
2015: Voodoo Chile’s Voo Dew Honey Doo
2016: Pirate O’s Surface Of The Sun Hot Sauce
2017: Z’s Shield Maiden Hot Sauce
2018: Taco Jesus Cayenne Pepper Sauce
2019: Torchbearer Ultimate Annihilation

If you want to read more from me, check out my wine about blog, the Happy Sippin’ Companion (HSC). It has been put on inactive status as of 2019, with no plans to resurrect it, but still remains up for viewing (link also on right). 

I also slug away a bit on Yelp, though, as noted, far, far off the pace for 2020, which you can click to from my widget. My distribution of ratings and further metrics are available on my Yelp profile page. 

As always, I appreciate you dropping by. If there’s any spicy products or sauces you’d like to see me get to or any video ideas you may have, please drop me a line in the comment section of any of the reviews or support videos.

Angry Goat Black Bison Hot Sauce Review

Angry Goat Pepper Co. Black Bison Hot Sauce

UPDATE: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdJb4bac9DE

This is another of a current crop of sweet-hots using berries as a base, this particular one with the addition of cherries, which have also been used on and off. A berry blend is always kind of an intriguing proposition to me in a hot sauce, as we really don't see a ton of use out there in the commercial world, other than in drinks of pancakes syrups, possibly dipping sauces for a dish that has cheese as a heavy component. It is not really a natural fit to things like chicken strips. While it can be interesting in that application, most of the time, it also makes one wish for something else, even in excellent formulations like the Pex Wildberry Whoop-Ass (also reviewed here). 

We are left with, then, the problem of application. This one has suggestions of pizza (not good), chicken (not good), and ice cream (have yet to find a sauce good on that - vinegar and sweet dairy are non-starters for me). The final application from the label here was beef. I don't tend to eat a lot of beef, as a rule, particularly in 2020, when I have, with a handful of exceptions, stopped eating from restaurants at any level (those were either pre-COVID-19 dispersement or takeaway only). Given the year, this has caused me to work on recreating various foods from different restaurants that I miss, sans sushi, which I don't usually want hot sauce on anyway. 

So, having run this through the gauntlet of everything I could think of from the other berry sauces, including cheese and crackers, and having it fail, I finally turned to re-creating the Arby's Triple Cheese Angus sandwich, which has been discontinued. In this application, I finally got a good sense of the read of this sauce. For most, if not all, of the earlier entries, the sauce read extremely bitter, that same bitter heat that can come from superhots. My suspicion is that it is from the Scorpion powder, as the Habanero and Jolokia can be quite flavorful peppers. It wasn't overly flowery, but I got very little of the actual berries, despite them leading off the sauce ingredient panel. 

It is a fairly hefty sauce, in terms of heat, well beyond what non-chileheads would find enjoyable, so it was not one that I could overuse chasing after elusive flavor notes. Once I had it with some beef, though, it paired exceedingly well and I was able to get some nice notes of cherry and what struck me as a touch of pomegranate. This has a veritable laundry list of ingredients, most of them not reading through in the flavor, such as tequila, blackberry, lime, run under by much stronger flavors. Pepper-wise, the combination of peppers does not come through in flavors, but in both build of heat and duration, which can be quite pleasant, if not over done. If overdone, that aspect will be somewhat amplified and also come with a lingering bitterness and harshness, which is pretty far from pleasant.

Bottom line: There are better berry-flavored sweet-hots out there. This one is among the hotter ones, but while somewhat less than Pex overall, manages to trade in the berry flavor for a bitterness in pushing for heat.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 3

Arthur Wayne Huckleberry Ghost Hot Sauce Review

Arthur Wayne Huckleberry Ghost Hot Sauce

Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsnnn7gQvM4

This little gem is an absolute beauty of a sauce. It strikes me as kind of odd, to call a sauce beautiful, and I don't mean visually, though it does have a very cool sort of purplish coloration, with little bits of pepper. It is more in just how incredibly successful this Arthur Wayne chap was in bringing off the huckleberry flavor which reads in just a stunning way. This is one of the better versions of any berry sauce I've ever had, hot sauce or otherwise. I've had a lot of blueberry hot sauces and this one just runs circles around all of them. Pairing this with the mighty Ghost was a stroke of brilliance, as the excellent flavor of the Ghost lends a touch of bitterness and rounds off the sweetness nicely, creating a wonderful marvel. 

I don't personally like the taste of berry on pizza nor on Mexican food or Asian food, but aside from those, this has worked quite well as a dipping sauce, to a lesser but still solid extent on burgers, but most especially, on sweeter breakfast foods, such as pancakes or waffles. It is not quite sweet enough entirely by itself for my suiting, but dropping in a small amount of pure maple syrup fixes things right up and just really takes the whole endeavor up several notches. It also looks amazing on those breakfast delectables, particularly on sweet crepes. 

Heat-wise, it is listed as 8/10, but I find it considerably tamer than that. Like most label ratings, I'd put the heat at half of what's listed, maybe a bit under that, even. This isn't a sauce to sandblast your mouth out in an unholy inferno of superhot pepper scorching. It is definitely far more flavor forward.

Bottom line: If you want a sweet-hot that features berries rather than a tropical fruit, this is the ticket. Probably the best berry sauce I've ever eaten. Unexpectedly, I now have another SOTY candidate in this.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 8

Big Red's Prickly Pear Hot Sauce Review

Big Red's Prickly Pear Sweet & Spicy Hot Sauce

Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQYQ28eBXEk

I have not, if I'm being honest, had a particularly good relationship with the sweet emanations of the prickly pear, or cactus or succulents in general, including agave. I find them frequently to be cloying, and with prickly pear, there seems to be an off-taste, a sort of chemical-y aspect to it, which I find jarring. This has never not been the case, but it has also not prevented me from attempting new concoctions featuring this ingredient. I must be missing something, as often this particular element is listed as a focal point, which I have yet to find appropriate.Then again, I am sort of in the desert, or if not in the desert outright, at least on the edge of it, the fringes, perhaps, and I should probably have a strong familiarity with this type of thing than I do. Perhaps were I to live in the desert proper, it would seem more normal. Alas... 

This entry features a lot of ingredients, which, as I've noted in FOH videos, seems to have somewhat of a commonality with various other products in the line-up. Here, thing like chia seed, don't seem to have a particular impact on things, as this is mostly a very sweet sauce, with the attributes I mentioned. It does have a very nice Habanero element, as well as a nice unami element, but when you get hit with that sweet of the prickly pear. I'm coming to believe that it is a really a love/hate sort of taste element. I like this sauce a lot more when I don't run across it. This requires whatever you're putting this one to really be able to stand up against that sweet and I haven't run across a lot of foods where that has been the case. They call it the "wing sauce," so it definitely will be in one of my quarterly round-ups, but I'm not expecting a lot out of this one. Most things I've tried it with were a one-and-out proposition.

It is not particularly punchy, in terms of heat. The Habanero here is almost used as much for flavor as heat, but heat is very, very moderate. I half wonder how this would do in baking, to replace some of the sugars in various treats, but I don't have other chileheads, or even food adventurers, at hand, especially now, in the age of COVID-19, to try this out with, and I am not a natural baker (more of cook/chef), so that might be a ship that I just let sail.

Bottom line: If you like prickly pear, that particular kind of sweet, as well as sweet-hot sauces, this is well worth your while. Heat is pretty far from overbearing, and this might serve well as an introductory sauce.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 3

Pepper Nectar Original Hot Sauce Review

Pepper Nectar Original

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=oJdc5ctKqbc

I will start off by saying that I find the combination of Habanero and honey to be near magical, and to express my shock every time I encounter it that more hot sauce makers are not utilizing it more. One of my SOTY winners (Z's Shield Maiden), in fact, utilized this very combination to great effect. This sauce initially reminded me of that one a bit but the more I got into it, the more they separated a bit. 

While neither has a great degree of heat, this one is quite a bit more blended and a lot less loose. I find the consistency quite a lot better with this one (and also like the label better, for what that's worth). Ingredient-wise, there's a pretty significant departure as this one is more of an Asian chili-garlic sauce, like Huy Fong or one of those, that comes with the larger green screw-top lids and that you generally see in Chinese restaurants. It is not exactly like that, though, as those sauces do not tend to use Habaneros. It is most reminiscent of that sauce, though, if you blended it much better than those usually are, into the consistency of a sauce, rather than leaving it somewhat chunky, and put garlic way, way ahead of the pepper. And also added honey, of course. This one additionally has carrot, though that doesn't really read particularly here.

When I initially opened the bottle, there was some separation and I really really liked the sauce in the neck and put it on everything I could think of...I thought for a moment that I would be looking at another SOTY contender, but alas...as I got down to the point where I could finally agitate it, though, I liked it a lot less and it stopped working entirely on some foods. The reason for this is that the garlic is way too prominent for me here. Still, one of the great points about this sauce is how well it works on Asian food, which is, for me, one of the more difficult foods to sauce with the majority of hot sauces I have. It is actually quite flexible and does well with meats and on pizzas (though I like other ones better), as well.

Bottom line: This is a very well-done sauce and anyone who likes garlic-forward sweet hots, particularly canting a bit towards the Asian side, would do well to check this one out.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 7

TRUFF (Red) Hotter Hot Sauce Review

 Truff Hotter Blend 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=VgkSRVyai6M

I should start with the obvious, I suppose, and that is that TRUFF is marketing genius. It is never in question what you might be getting. The website is slick, with lots of eye-catching visuals, including very well-done video content. It looks more like that of a diamond importer than sauce purveyor. Indeed, that is probably intention, given the heaviness of the glass, the different shape of the bottle, and the actual diamond cut of the plastic cap. This is all very well coordinated and nicely done. They are clearly trying to leave no doubt as to the impression of something high end, which naturally extends to the price. This is one of the more expensive hot sauces you can find anywhere. There are other sauces in the line-up, including a white truffle, an Arrabbiata pasta sauce (which makes more sense to me), and a regular hot sauce

It contains black truffle, which is an expensive food item, at least partially expensive because of the rarity. Indeed, I often suspect that rich people like certain foods because of that attribute more than anything else, that exclusivity, rather than because they actually like something or because it takes better than something else. In the hot sauce world, we have a sort of pause, while people try to figure out what is going to replace the Reaper as Guinness holder for SHU, so that's some leaning into alternate ingredients, which is why stuff like black garlic is also making its way into the mix. In the case of black truffle, I think this is an exceedingly odd thing to put into a hot sauce conceptually. I've had black truffle numerous times and it really seems like one of those ingredients that's its own thing. I never had something with that in it and wished it also had heat, so this is a really curious choice. It has always, in fact, been one of those things that I can take or leave. I enjoy it when I have it, but have not and will not go out of my way for it. 

In this case, I find that overusing the sauce leads to unpleasant results. With black truffle, a little goes a very long way and they're using black truffle, olive oil infused with black truffle, and black truffle powder, so you can easily have a much stronger concentration than might be suitable. There are emulsifiers in this, so it does stay pretty uniform and consistent, with the consistency more like a commercial maple syrup, maybe slightly faster. I'm not exactly sure how you'd agitate this easily, though...it tends to stick to the sides readily and it's somewhat difficult to tell what's going on within the bottle, due to how the label is positioned. My guess is that this packaging makes it easy to waste sauce, which seems like a really weird thing for the company to do, other than it, like the oversaucing, make one need to acquire it sooner, if one was so inclined.

One of the reasons that black truffle is not something especially sought after by me is that I find it easily overpowers things. If you like the flavor, that's great, but if you're like me and somewhat ambivalent, this can lead to some regret. It won't be that way on the heat regard, as this is very moderate in the piquancy department, and the heat is sort of a general chili, without regard to any specific pepper. The heavy earthiness of this (cumin also shows up) is not always what I'm wanting. The flexibility of this is somewhat wanting, as well, kind of like that of the black garlic, which really kind of needs some sort of umami element. Here, this sauce needs a richness of flavor to complement or it will tend to be overpowering, particularly with how hard it can be to control the flow.

Bottom line: If you're a black truffle fan or just black truffle curious, this is worth a spin. I understand they have smaller bottles, so that may make more sense. Just remember that a little bit goes a long way...

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 4

Karma Huhu Pina Hot Sauce Review

Karma Huhu Pina 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=iMuxyoE3IrY

When I did some compilations in Q3 of 2020, as a point of curiousity, I went through to see which letters of the alphabet had been covered through the years. As mentioned in the Q3 2020 Update post, I found I had not reviewed any sauces with the letters "K," "U," "X," and "Y". This was already on my list, thanks to some fairly glowing praise on Roger's Facebook page feed, wherein I drop from time to time. 

It is another in a very long line of Pineapple-Habanero, a category that is so saturated that folks are resorting to doing things like adding ginger and/or lime to differentiate themselves. This one adds both of those, adds a Korean pepper and stuff like agave and marjoram as well as a host of other ingredients, including cumin. As cumin is another of those flavorings I'm trying to move away from, this was not an especially welcome development, but once I understood the intent of the sauce, it made more sense. 

This is apparently intended for that narrowest of narrow craft categories, not merely a Pineapple-Habanero, but specifically for one dish, that being al pastor tacos. Now, this is a bit of a problem for me, since I do not own a trompo and this is not a time when I find myself having much trust in any restaurants. There are only a select few who I think do a good job with this, as it is, and none of them are particularly close to me. Still, I try to test things as thoroughly as possible and this was no exception, so I used it in every place where I would normally use a Pineapple-Habanero, so things like chicken strips, pizza, etc. Cumin I did not find to be a very welcome addition to any of those and it is somewhat of a challenge to figure out where this sauce should fit, as the one food dish it appears to be meant for, al pastor tacos, it is doubtful I will have in 2020. I dislike sweet sauces generally with Mexican dishes, so I didn't find it enjoyable there, either. Once the video posts, you can see my attempt to build something along the lines of the dish this sauce is wanting.

Heat -wise, this is very moderate, bordering on non-existent. The consistency is somewhere between the Inferno Farms Pineapple XXXpress and one of the thicker sauces, right about the middle between them. There are a lot of good bits of pineapple and pepper in there, which I do like.

Bottom line: Designing a sauce for one specific food is an interesting idea, but one that seems inherently limited. If this sauce did not have cumin, I would find it far more enjoyable, but as it is, I find that ingredient bottlenecks applications. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 1
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 2

 

Legal Hot Sauce (Hot) Review

Legal Hot Sauce Hot Hot Heat

Legal in Brazilian, which is where this sauce hails, means a positive emphatic (as well as lawful), along the lines of cool or awesome. This sauce company has chosen their name somewhat poorly, as the name on the bottle is literally how it reads, similar to Pallotta Hot. Companies need not put the adjective "hot" in their name if they're making hot sauce...it just gets into the awkward hour.

That aside, I had not ever come across the Malagueta pepper before and it's pretty rare that happens these days, so I got excited. Getting into this sauce was a whole lot less pleasant, though. The overall flavor reminds me a lot of Tabasco crossed by way of a Scorpion, in that it has that Tabasco bit of sweetness (possibly the sweetness is the addition of carrots, I should note) and flavor, but also has a very strong flowery and bitter aspect to it, somewhat similar to the Scorpions. It is ultimately not something I find particularly palatable, but it was definitely interesting to try.

Given how heavily vinegary it is, this is probably something that makes a lot more sense in the context of where you would use a Louisiana-style sauce. It is also approximately that consistency, though not quite as water, but comes with a restrictor cap, which is definitely necessary. The flavor profile is very strong though, also reminiscent of Tabasco, and it's also similar to Tabasco in that it comes across as a love/hate sort of proposition. As I don't like Tabasco particularly and grow less fond of Scorpions lately, this is not one that I find especially enjoyable. One of the things I really dislike, though, is that there seems to be a sort of alcohol flavor to it, which I find quite puzzling and jarring. I'm not quite clear if this harshness is part of the intent or not, but it is highly detracting. Oversaucing becomes an immediate problem as this sauce can definitely wreck things. Heat-wise, the sauce is pretty moderate, hotter than the Tabasco and Lousiana-style sauces generally, but not anything approaching blazing. 

Bottom line: I always enjoy experiencing new (to me) peppers for the first time and this was no exception, but I definitely will not be using the entire bottle. Indeed, this one is going to be binned and is on the fence for me keeping it around long enough to film a video for it.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 1
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 2