Brother Bru-Bru's Very Hot Hot Sauce Review

Brother Bru-Bru's Very Hot African Hot Pepper Sauce

It took me a while to get to this, since re-starting the heat train, but I finally ran into that dreaded thing: the sauce I had to toss. I think I made it as far down as the neck before it opens up into the bottle proper, but it got the old heave-ho, away it goes tonight.


Why? The starter is the flavor. The first two ingredients are apple cider vinegar and water. Nothing wrong with apple cider vinegar, but having that as the dominant flavor, with the next more prominent flavor be that of an unnamed African spice (the name of which I no longer remember) is not really the way to win my affection. It might be the Japones pepper providing the somewhat distinctive taste here; it definitely is not the habaneros listed. If you were to want a taste that could be charitably described as an entire spice closet floating in apple cider vinegar, this would be the sauce you'd want to grab.

The flavor is not entirely unpalatable, just not especially good by itself and frequently jarring with food. I didn't find it offensive to the point of spitting it out, but I had great difficulty in getting it to play nice with anything and by that I mean adding to the taste experience and elevating the food. I'm imaging it might go ok with Southern food, such as collard greens and maybe some ribs, but even that is somewhat in debate and I didn't spend the time to try to find that out. I just couldn't see where it would be worth it to take the time and drive on down and plunk down the money at the rib joint, much as I love those two foods (in winter, I make me the shit out of some greens) just for a test. There was also the chance I would wreck the flavor, which would be a damn shame and I'd have to kick my own ass for that.

The flavor, unfortunately, is the best part. The worst part has to be the texture. If you're banging around in your kitchen, trying to make up a sauce and you decide to go with powdered ingredients, for whatever reason, as the main base of your sauce, chances are you will get some grittiness. Fortunately for you, now you need not bother. You could just buy this instead. It's not like taking a spoonful of the glass beads they use for sandblasting or anything, but it's definitely noticeable and draws attention to this rather irritating aspect and away from the food. If there is a single thing (and it wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world to peg) that rendered this to the trash bin, it's this aspect. Amusingly, there is a dripper cap on this. I discarded it and still the sauce came out by the drop. lovely. It also separated in the bottle, which is not a big deal, but adds to the unappealing aspects.

Finally, we get to the heat or rather lack of it. A friend of mine feels that if there is a hot sauce and the first word in the ingredient list is not a pepper of some kind, then the product is not worth having. I don't necessarily subscribe to it, but this sauce would give substantial credence to that theory. Calling something a hot sauce should indicate that there is some heat present. Labeling it as Very Hot and the hottest of the offerings should mean that there should be some charge there. I suppose this makes things hotter than eating them with no sauce at all, but the heat level is barely detectable.


Bottom line: Easily the leading contender for disappointment of the year. Brother Bru-Bru was a musician and tried hard to create an all-natural, sodium-free sauce, both of which he did. I wanted to like this sauce, but it fails on nearly every level a sauce can fail. This is very pedestrian, somewhat bland and boring, not hot and not very tasty, grainy liquid that simply does not work. At $3.59 for a 5 oz. bottle, I got screwed, no two ways about it. There are plenty of other sauces that deserve your patronage. This is not one of them.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 0

Zakk Wylde Stronger Than Death Berzerker Hot Sauce Review

Blair Presents: Zakk Wylde's Stronger Than Death Berserker Hot Sauce

This is the second to hottest of the four Zakk Wylde signature sauces. My first impression was that it was far different than the Original Berzerker sauce, which I was partially nervous about. While the Original Berzerker is not a bad tasting sauce, the garlic can get a bit overbearing. This one is both far more graceful and considerably more punchy at once.

The sauce is somewhat deceptive, starting out with a sort of mild and muted habanero flavor with the more flowery and bittery aspect of the ghost chilis. The garlic is there as a very minor grace note, but after the first five to ten seconds or so, the ghost chilis kick in and the heat becomes progressively more pronounced. Once that begins, the chipotles also assert themselves in the nose and palate, lending a very nice smokiness to the proceedings. This is a sauce that can become overpowering in heat, but not especially so in flavor and Blair has done a phenomenal job of masking the tinny aspect of the extract here. This one is much more flexible than the Original Berzerker and I'd rate the flavor as good to very good but not great.

As noted on the bottle, this did and does go very well with seafood and pizza and smoked ribs and spiking barbeque sauce and frozen tv dinners and cheeseburgers almost everything I tried it with. I presume it would also, as noted on the label, also go fantastically with beer. I'm struggling to think of anything I didn't like it on...Hot Pockets, I guess, but we're not talking any sort of culinary treat there, of course. Using it on them is a waste of this sauce and better reserved for something like Red Devil.

It is also not a sauce I enjoying having by itself. At ~59K SHU (literally stronger than Death, as in the original Death sauce also, cleverly ticking in a literal meaning as well as the borrowing of a Black Label Society album title), putting sauce on top of sauce tends to ratchet the heat level up to a level a bit beyond what is comfortable at work, which is where I keep this one, but not so much that it causes an immediate trot to to the can. The heat will dissipate nicely in about 10 minutes or so. With that nice level of warmth, this can be used sparingly and indeed, treating it more as an accent accompanies food very well and rises the taste experience, especially on McDonald's cheeseburgers, up very nicely.

UPDATE 12.26.12

I noted in another later post, but as I got towards the end of the bottle, the extract really came to the fore, to the point where it was obnoxious. I always shake the sauces well before using, so it wasn't a matter of agitation. Possibly it was due to the age of the sauce, but it got to the point where I didn't find the experience enjoyable and disposed of the remainder of the bottle and alternately vowed not to again engage any of the extract sauces. I've sort of hemmed and hawed over down-rating this, but despite the initial good taste, overall, I could not, in good conscience, leave the rating as it was, given that I was unable to enjoy the entire bottle.

Bottom line: It is a very well-flavored sauce but many elements are going to be reserved more for the discerning chilehead. For most of the population, I think they're going to be distracted by the heat, which didn't appear to have a top ceiling on it and miss many of the subtleties of this (again) extremely brilliantly crafted sauce. At $10 for 5 oz. and for how long you can make this stretch, at least by not being stupid, this is a pretty good deal and you still get the keychain and the entertaining label pic of Wylde and one of his famous bullseye guitars as well as the "traveling case" look to the outer box packaging. I'm not so in love with this that I would have to have another bottle when I run out, but this is on my short list of sauces to potentially get again...or was until the update. This, along with all other extract sauces, is forevermore excised from any future purchases.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 7

Re-rate 12.26.12
 
  Heat level: 7
  Flavor: 5
  Flexibility: 7
  Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 6

El Yucateco Green Hot Sauce Review

El Yucateco Green Habanero

UPDATE: Video support now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpA1yKLl-FA

Too often, I think, reviews always start off with a negative. I think reviewers do this so they come across as a "hard sell" or cynical or neutral, any of which is viewed as being better than a pimp or cheerleader. I'm no coward and I've been waiting on writing this for a while while I relentlessly tested it, so let me just say it up front: this sauce is utterly fantastic. This is another first: the first sauce I've had directly recommended to me from a friend.

Now, with that out of the way, despite all the overwhelming (and other less so) positives, there is one gigantic detraction and that is the color. The bright pea-green color is very disconcerting and putting it on food tends to make it look less appetizing. Even as I type this, it sounds borderline remarkably stupid and petty, but it is nonetheless true. I wish they would have ticked over for an orange sauce if they wanted to differentiate. I get they were going for a green sauce echoing throes of tomatillo sauce, but that color is seriously distracting and it's taken me a while to get over that, to a degree, which is a shame, as this is a quite remarkable sauce.

At 9, 000 SHU, like the red, it's not particularly hot, but it is at least noticeable. What is less noticeable is that "bright" taste that habanero sauces seem to frequently have. That is very muted and subdued and the burn, when it comes, is delayed, as I expect from habaneros in general. The flavor is fantastic and despite it not working well on pizza, nearly everything I tried it on was better for having it there.That is the function of sauces after all, to improve the eating experience. I could use more heat,  but as far as blending and having lovely flavor, this is a very difficult sauce to beat. Even when eaten directly, it doesn't taste overpowering and while the flavor is not good enough for me to want to have by itself in great amounts, quite a lot of this can be used. At $2.59 for a 4 oz. bottle and a dollar more to double it up to an 8 oz. bottle, the value per cost ratio may just be the highest of any sauce I've reviewed so far.

As noted, the heat amount is not great or particularly significant, but enough to be moderately respectable. The mild burn hangs in there for a good little bit and I would be endlessly pleased if they dropped something out with a higher boost, but all in all, I'm very pleased and this is the current heavy leader for my standby Mexican sauce.

 Bottom line: There's still more to test, of course, slated upcoming, but I have reservations that anything will overtake this for my standby Mexican sauce. Like the Red Devil, the taste is wonderful and like the Red Devil, while it tastes acceptable on almost everything, it definitely excels on specific things more considerably. The most ringing endorsement I can ever make about a sauce is that I intend to buy it again and as soon as the last remnants of what's in the current bottle are gone, I'm going out to secure one of those larger bottles immediately. Standby or not, this one is necessary to have on hand.

Breakdown:

 Heat level: 1
 Flavor: 9
 Flexibility: 8
 Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Zakk Wylde Original Berzerker Hot Sauce Review

Blair Presents: Zakk Wylde's Original Berserker Hot Sauce

 This is the first product of the other of the two who are probably the major "small batch" hot sauce producers in the Chilehead world, Blair's Hot Sauce. The other one is CAJohn and the offering I had there was spectacular. This one was less spectacular, but overall quite tasty.

This is the mildest of the Zakk Wylde signature sauces and my first impression was this was an extremely skillfully crafted sauce. The habanero and garlic were initially very well balanced, with a hint of lime cutting through. As noted on the bottle, this did and does go very well with seafood and pizza and any other offering that would be paired well with beer. It does not, however, go particularly well with cheeseburgers.

It is also not a sauce I enjoying having by itself and there have been times that I thought the garlic was a bit overpowering, being reminiscent more of a garlic-type sauce than an actual hot sauce. There is some minor heat here, but I'd be surprised if the SHU rating was over 10K. Happily, none of the brightness I'm coming to strongly associate with habanero sauces was not present and for the most part, I found this enjoyable.

Bottom line: It is far from a polarizing sauce, but it won't work well with everything. What it does go with, it does spectacularly. What it doesn't go with isn't terrible, but does leave you wishing you had a different sauce. At $10 for 5 oz., this is not a particularly great deal, even with the keychain and the entertaining label pic of Wylde and one of his famous bullseye guitars as well as the "traveling case" look to the outer box packaging. I wouldn't be averse to using it again, but I can't foresee any future repeat purchase.

Breakdown:

 Heat level: 4
 Flavor: 6
 Flexibility: 5
 Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 5

Valentina Black Label "Extra Hot" Salsa Picante Hot Sauce Review

Valentina Black Label Extra Hot

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

UPDATE: Support video now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmQFL0N77xk

Along with Cholula and Tapatio, this is the third leg of the triumvirate of large-scale Mexican-oriented hot sauces. It is probably the oldest of the three and easily the least popular (at least in Salt Lake). Cholula, in the United States, is far and away the king there, running away with a strong nationwide distribution and near-ubiquitous presence in so many places I've not lost count. They are also the only one, to my knowledge, to make the transition into sauce packets, which is a much bigger deal than it sounds. It's also probably the mildest of the three, though to my mind, it is also the best-tasting. So, to get to the point, if you've tried either of the others, you've basically tried this, though I think Valentina and Tapatio are closer to each other than to Cholula.

For $.99, I got a 12.5 oz. bottle and was very excited about it. This possibly could have been the prime standby Mexican sauce for which I've been searching, but sadly, oh so sadly, not to be. While it does have moderately more heat than either of the other two (Tapatio has an SHU of 3000, so I'd say this is maybe 3500 - 4000 somewhere), it is comparably less than a good jalapeno. The taste isn't good or bad; it's that same sort of "standard" Mexican sauce taste, which I've understood is malleable enough to use on almost everything.

So, while this is ok for what it is, which is for those people who want hotter versions of one of those sauce variations, I think my taste has moved on. It's very difficult eating this sauce on Mexican food when I have some El Yucateco left. It's doesn't even compare favorably to Texas Pete in several instances and despite it not being at all a bad-tasting sauce, it's a flavor that I find incredibly easy to tire of. The value is almost incomparable, except for it being almost entirely unpalatable to me. I can't imagine an instance in which I would intentionally choose it and unless my wife likes it (she likes the other two in the triumvirate), I may wind up having to pitch a mostly full bottle to make room for other and better sauces.


Bottom line: This is one of those sauces I call a "desert isle" sauce, not meaning that I would take it with me to a deserted island, but if I was cast adrift with nothing else (ignoring the more obvious larger concerns), this would do in a pinch. If I still ate ramen noodles, this is probably what I would use it for, assuming I was out of Red Devil or any other better-tasting sauce or if whatever Mexican restaurant I was at didn't have some good homemade sauce and was out of either of the other two in their table bottles.


Breakdown (Original):

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

Overall: 2
  
** Update 04/17/13 **

As I am wont to do ever so often, I've decided, after spending a lot more unexpected time with the Valentina lately -- for all its faults, it was one of the few palatable during my recent bout with food poisoning -- that I probably did it a bit of a disservice rating it as low as I did. I stand by most of my comments. This will never be mistaken for an actual good sauce and it remains mostly one of those "better than nothing" sauces, yet it does have its uses and in the interests of fairness, I'm giving it a re-rate. This should not be taken to mean I'm going to rush right out and buy more, but you could have worse things in the fridge.

 Breakdown (Re-rate):

 Heat level: 2
 Flavor: 4
 Flexibility: 6
 Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 4

Video/Audio vs. Written Reviews

UPDATE 03/15/20: I came across this when updating the blog and largely forgotten I'd written it. I seem somewhat upset about video reviews. Part of the reason is that a lot of YouTube, then and now, comes across as eating challenges. With any kind of challenge, it's always a game of one-ups-manship. You got hot, someone else goes hotter, you eat 57 hot dogs, someone eats 70, etc., and that sort of thing remains of limited interest to me. It took me a while to think of a way to do the videos (at the time of writing, I was very against doing a YouTube channel at all) in a way that would add on to the written reviews (which I still consider a lot more important), and cover things that the written review could not, such as the motional viscosity and to a degree, the reaction with the sauces. I'm leaving this as I wrote it, as sort of a capsule, though some of the elements in it have obviously "evolved" over time.

Scott Roberts (go to his website if you haven't already) recently did his usual fantastic job of wrapping up the Weekend Of Fire 2012 and put up a post about a Bloggers roundtable he and some others did. I have not taken the time to go through the video (more on that in a bit), but in his blurb about the episode, he mentions the discussion of video/audio vs. written reviews.

I wrote on this briefly earlier when I mentioned there would be no pictures, etc. but while I may, at some point, add pictures of the bottle, at least, I won't be adding pictures of the sauce on food or videos of my reaction, etc. The reason for this is that I view the reviews for posterity and after doing literally thousands of them on other subjects, I think I've got them more or less nailed down, in terms of what I want to see.

What I don't want to see if having to pore through three and a half minutes or 45 seconds or whatever length of video to get to the information I want. If someone wants to be a star and be on camera or whatever, good on them. Go for it, do it up, go crazy, but if there's a review in there, it's worthless to me. Take a look at any of my written-only reviews and you can find the information (the most important of which is should you spend your money on whatever the thing being reviewed is) in seconds and if you decide you're tired of reading the strings of letters some asshole has cobbled together, then you can skip out and no real harm done. If you're like me and you sit through a few minutes of video, it had damn better be worth your while or you're going to be disappointed or possibly pissed that someone just wasted your time. If you want to go back to it, are you really going to remember the time stamp of when some cutesy fucker said just the right pithy thing that kinda sorta stuck in your mind? I don't think most people have the time to sit through those and if they're like me, they also lack the inclination.

Perhaps equally important is the idea that something written, by nature, is inherently more considered than off-the-cuff remarks, even if they're as practiced and well (perhaps over) rehearsed as those of any given politician. Take a look at literally any random YouTube sauce review (and I say this having seen exactly zero of them) and tell me if they seem polished or outlined or scripted out at all. There might be some general framework and continuity and may even border on cohesive, but are they useful, other than possibly as (light) entertainment? If you're looking for some guidance before you plonk down your dancing-for-tip money for a bottle of magic elixir you haven't tried yet, do you want to see some schnook prancing and dancing around trying to get to whatever point there is to be made or do you want to see something organized or at least static, so you can stare at it to glean whatever useful knowledge there is to be had?

Even if this blog somehow takes off and people stream here by the droves, you won't see video reviews (*ahem* see update) or audio reviews and probably not much in the way of pictures. What you will get is hard, truthful information. Just the facts, kids. Just the facts.

Orange Krush Hot Sauce Review

Orange Krush

My first impression, on peeling back the plastic, was that this was an older bottle. After cleaning out the neck carefully of some discolored sauce, I shook it up and went for the straight test. It immediately reminded me on the El Yucateco red, though noticeably more initial heat. At 9,400 SHU, it's not quite double the El Yucateco, but most of the heat here is what I call the "flash" variety, meaning it hits immediately but has little to no staying power.

Despite having a laundry list of ingredients, the main star here is the "bright" taste of the sauce, again, very similar to El Yucateco. You won't be marveling at being able to flush out the celery seed taste or pondering how nicely the mace is integrated or how well the cardamom shines through, but that complexity does a nice job of smoothing and mellowing the flavor, which adds greatly to the flexibility here, unlike the El Yucateco, which is somewhat of a one-trick pony. Unfortunately, this sauce does not taste as good as the El Yucateco, so it's decidedly advantageous that it is not as overpowering and backs off a bit in intensity there.

I ran this through the usual suspects, up to and including a Subway sandwich and at times it would blend well enough to blunt and mask the initial taste and blend and accent in a way to add a nice degree of heat to whatever it was, from microwaved macaroni & cheese on to stepping up a few other more mundane sauces. Also like the El Yucateco, this did not do well with flavors not prominent enough to hold their own and this is not a good enough tasting sauce to either keep around or ever buy again, ultimately. At $5.99 for a 5 oz. bottle (they have since changed the bottle size), the cost to enjoyment ratio is not staggeringly low, but low nonetheless. There are simply better and more enjoyable sauces out there.

Of course, no review of this particular product would be complete without mentioning the absurd disclaimer on the bottle label about Experienced Chileheads Only! As if 9K SHU would be anything any self-respecting chilehead would ever bat an eye about...it does do a nice job of frightening off several people I work with, since I've moved the bottle to work instead of home. I guess there's that...

Bottom line: This is one of those products that's been out a while, that has generated some noise for itself, but is not in any way what I would consider a high-end product. The taste is not bad, certainly, but not good enough to make me want to use it frequently. It doesn't really fit into any particular area of sauces I would keep on hand nor go especially well with dishes I would normally cook/eat and it's not particularly available easily. I'm not unhappy I tried it, but this is a one-and-done sauce.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 4

Brick & Mortar Hot Sauce Locations in Salt Lake

Circa 09.27.12

Well, not actually, in the lake, per se, but in the area, specifically in the city proper. There are, precisely, two and another about an hour away. Before I get to talking about them, I should back up. Long, long ago, back when I was first doing the Chilehead ride before the thing had a proper name, there were two places in Salt Lake that pushed the heat end. One of them was Grove Market and the other was a shop in Fashion Place Mall where we'd buy a bottle of Dave's Insanity every 6 months or so for drunken party bravery challenges.

The place in Fashion Place, whatever the name, is now long gone, but Grove Market is still around, doing their damn thing. Mostly, that means making gigantic (and tasty) deli sandwiches. They also have a couple floor to ceiling shelves (and an area behind the register) featuring nothing but hot to superhot sauces. Some of them are probably more keepsakes, such as John McCain campaign bottle of something and possibly that bottle of Orange Krush I got a couple weeks ago, than actually usable, but the range is overall pretty good, even discounting the bullshit like Melinda's and Marie Sharp's and other assorted sauces that use the dreaded ass-onions as part of their makeup. I've decided to make this my go-to store, for a variety of reasons and have put in some tags for the Original Death and a couple others to pick up sometime in the next month (backlog and all). They even have Danny Cash stuff, which I frankly never expected to see on a shelf. One major caveat, to go back to the keepsake thing for a second, is that anything on the very top shelf of the north shelf must be inspected closely. Several of the bottles are apparently just for collectible purposes and several of them have discolored sauce remnants up the necks of the bottles.

By way of update to Grove's, as of today, 11/03/12, I've bought 6 bottles of hot sauce there. Three of them have been out of date and the sauce has been discolored. Accordingly, I must recommend that you check the date and color carefully before making an actual purchase.

The other Satl Lake store is called Chili & Max and is in the top area of the detestable outdoor Gateway Mall, down the street from the more useless outdoor City Creek Mall. In the age of the internet, for a brick & mortar anything to succeed, they need to do one of two things: offer something unique and that people really want and can only get there OR offer a great enough selection to offset the higher price for convenience vs. ordering whatever it is online for probably (maybe) cheaper and having to wait a week or so. What Chili & Max has done is neither. This is evidently an outlet for a sauce company unfortunately named "Its F'n Hot." Loads of that on the shelves, along with a few things from CaJohn's and Dave's, but the selection seems almost haphazard. There are a few of the superhots and the store, with its hundreds and hundreds of bottles, seems to run the gamut, but where is the Blair's and where is the rest of the CaJohn's? Again, with the Melinda's and Marie Sharp's, several of which are in grocery stores, but when you're putting a storefront in a mall, where patrons have to validate their fucking parking, your ass better bring it and this store was a resounding and solid disappointment. I may go back again someday, but damn if it's worth a special trip. I seriously can't see how you can cater to that narrow of an audience, most of the shoppers from there can be counted on to be knowledgeable, and then have that skimpy of a selection.

An hour north, in another mall and nestled in a Quilted Bear storefront (I couldn't make up something that delicious if I wanted), is a third, called Burn Your Tongue. Now, it's a waste of my time and money to drive to that town merely to peruse the wares on display, even if I buy something, but if I'm in the area, I'll definitely drop in. The selection they have listed on their website is intriguing and by names alone, world better than either of the two I already mentioned.

Grocers are carrying more sauces now. Smith's (part of Kroger), goes about as far as El Yucateco, but Harmon's carries several of the charged habanero sauces and Fresh Market has several more. Whole Foods is supposed to have a good selection (I couldn't find any on my last visit) and some of the more boutique stores also advertise their supposed prowess here. I can't canvass them all, obviously, but I always check the shelves for something recently added. A Trader Joe's is supposed to open downtown and that has some possibilities, but in a town this size -- and even including Ogden an hour north -- 3 shops that specialize (sorta) in hot sauce is piss poor pathetic. Salt Lake is not a "dead" food town-- there are a lot of great and flavorful eateries and we have the Kobe Sushi restaurant, with its infamous 7 levels of heat (working my way up to that one) -- it's not like it's Fargo, where nobody knows anything about food or flavor, after all. It is, somewhat, a "safe" town, though and the Chilehead movement, while gaining some ground, is not storming the castles here just yet...

CaJohn's Bourbon Infused Chipotle-Habanero Hot Sauce Review

CaJohn's Bourbon Infused Chipotle-Habanero (15th Anniversary Limited Edition)

UPDATE: Video support now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZYKJn4_LQg

Part of me is tempted to greatly simplify this and call it Tiger Sauce Amplified and On Steroids, which, while somewhat accurate, is also woefully inadequate. My initial impression on tasting it plain was that it was a similar sort of sweet/hot sauce and the immediate reminiscence was of that, but 2 seconds later, the similarity ended. Whereas Tiger can be quickly cloying and has a feel and taste of "cheap" to it, requiring it to be used very judiciously, BICH is on a level where it could be poured into a shot glass and slugged. Very few sauces tasted good enough to consider drinking (not that I would), but this is one where I found myself thinking..."yes, but I could." Sweet-hot is always high on my list and this one fills the bill magnificently!

The heat is almost perfectly orchestrated. It is a slight delay, then a steady build into an overall crescendo of notes that is not too bracing, but at a pleasant enough level to let you know that it's there and you may commence with the happiness over that fact. The grace notes of vinegar and the chipotle overtones are fantastically well done, but the real skill, for me, came in the use of the Jim Beam Black. It is hard to imagine a better choice of bourbon for use here. While Jim Beam Black is a bit too sweet for me to keep on hand for drinking (I much prefer Eagle Rare as my on-hand bottle for bourbon), it is still an excellent bourbon and that exact sweetness really shines here. The choice is sheer brilliance and it shines through very nicely in the sauce.

While I have tested this extensively on nearly everything I can think of -- including eggs -- along with the standards of pizza and chicken strips, I found it interesting on tacos, but not something I would choose again. The taste is so delicious that I don't think there is a way that adding it to anything would be necessarily bad, however, it borderline clashes, which makes for the taste to be curious and a nice change of pace, but not anything that would be necessarily used regularly. I think where it really shines is on the grill. While slightly thin, it sticks well enough to food  and it has a somewhat heavier, darker taste that it can easily be used for anything from hamburgers to chicken to steak to pork. This is another marked difference from Tiger, which works well on fish, chicken, rice and mashed potatoes and very little else. The BICH also caramelizes incredibly well and the very slight astringency from the vinegar would make this a fantastic mop or finishing sauce for ribs.

Bottom line: I still have a great many sauces in line for testing before I add another one to my standbys, but I have a sneaking suspicion that when I run out of this bottle, I will be buying another couple next time I hit the store or order online, presuming I can find it. At $10 for a 6.8 oz. bottle, the enjoyment per dollar level is the highest I've found this year, excepting maybe the Red Devil. The only thing that gives me some degree of pause is the availability of it, which may be an issue at some future point.


Breakdown:

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

Overall: 7

El Yucateco Red Habanero Hot Sauce Review

El Yucateco Red Habanero

UPDATE: Video support now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZPp3PGf28

NOTE: This sauce appeared in Season Two and Season Three of The Hot Ones.

Since my newest pressing sauce "need" is still for a new "Mexican"-type sauce, I picked up a bottle of this I happened across during the course of my normal grocery shopping. At 5, 800 SHU, it's not particularly hot, but a significant step up from Pico Pica or the random sauce packets I had from whatever Mexican type food place I was at last or from the usual suspects of Tapatio/Cholula. If it did turn out to be good, the $2.59 I spent on the 4 oz. bottle would be well worth it.

The initial taste is a very vivid and lively one,  something I would best describe as "bright", nearly as bright, in fact, as the red coloration of this sauce. It's a very peppery, very chile-tasting sauce, though it happily does not have a lot of the obnoxious overtones of habanero that makes the pepper itself one that I use sparingly. The taste is something I would rate as palatable, but not too strong one way or the other and the heat flush, something else atypical of habaneros for me, is immediate, though it tends to be a mouth heat only, failing to radiate into an overall internal burn, such as Thai peppers have a happy habit of doing.

All is not rosy, however. My main contention with this sauce is that it can quickly and easily overpower everything else. This is not a negative if the flavor of the sauce is enjoyable. To me, this one, as noted, is not. It is what I say is average.  I found it to be best when mixed and being, as it is, intended for the Mexican market, it excels at those foods, when mixed in thoroughly with something else. Just slapping the sauce on something generally means a big hit of sauce that doesn't always play nice with other things in the mouth and becomes the focal point. This distraction is what really limits its overall flexibility for me. Despite the burst of initial mouth heat, I could stand for this to contain more of the usual habanero element of building heat.

I tried this on a wide variety of the usual suspects, such as pizza & chicken strips and while it wasn't totally dissatisfying, I was happy when the small sections that I used it on were consumed. It worked far better on mole' chicken, tacos, burritos, pinto beans, pork & beans and eggs.

Bottom line: This is a significant upgrade from what I was using normally as a Mexican sauce and I'm in no way dissatisfied at all. It is not on a level, however, that I will give up my search and frankly not really good enough in terms of what I'm wanting to make it a standby. By far the most redeeming thing about it is the under $1/oz. price and the near-ubiquitous availability, which makes it an outstanding value. Unfortunately, the other factors are just not there as much as I need them to be. This is what I would call a very solid mid-range sauce.

Breakdown:

Heat level:1
Flavor: 5
Flexibility: 4
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 4