Karma Funken Hot Hot Sauce Review

Karma Funken Hot

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vta0MXGFISs

Because this is the base for the Karma Scorpion Disco, much of what I said in that review will apply here as well and I have done the rare thing, for this blog, to directly link to it as that review should be read first to get a more rounded and comprehensive view.

For this sauce, it is a fairly thick, somewhat sludgy sauce, both chunky, though somewhat free-flowing. The main flavors are the Chocolate Habaneros and the Brown 7-Pots, which lends a very distinct peppery vibe. Those, along with sugar, are the main flavor components and there are brief flash bits of bittery superhot in amidst what is otherwise a pretty nice melding with the sugar. Things like the lime, garlic, and vinegar, don't really show up distinctly in the flavor profile, though there are little traces here and there. The applications are generally the same between the two sauces, though this sauce doesn't need to have stronger flavors to play off of, whereas that is where the Scorpion Disco does best.

The main differences with the Scorpion Disco come in color, flavor, and heat level. We'll start in order. Color-wise, this one is a deeper, richer brown tone, slightly reminiscent of a mole by way of a chili jam, whereas the Scorpion Disco is much redder. Flavor-wise, gone entirely is the Scorpion, which leaves a very nice composite of flavors without the flowery notes and of course, with the Scorpions and Ghosties gone, the heat level is definitely considerably lower, probably right around half. Given that the heat is from a couple of building peppers, this can take a little bit to get there as well. This sauce is right on the dividing line of where I think chileheads and non-chileheads separate, with this being more on the chilehead side. 

Bottom line: It's no mean trick to make an excellently flavored-sauce, then scale it up, but they did it and with this strong of a base, it probably made the task somewhat easier. Very nice sweet-hot sauce, with a very nice build to the heat. 

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 7

Cholula Reserva Tequila & Lime Hot Sauce Review

Cholula Reserva Tequila & Lime

Note: Support video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3R2FHbazeU

The temptation is so strong to say something along the lines of "never been a fan of tequila or lime and then I had the sauce and what the Hell? Now I love both," as I believe there is some sort of meme or something along those lines floating around out there to that effect, but I will refrain. Definitely went through my mind, though. To be clear, I don't dislike lime particularly. It can be used to great effect when done correctly, which is sadly somewhat seldom. The fake lime I like even less and good uses are even more seldom, though I think that might be what's in this. To be sure, the lime is fairly subtle, much more an accent than anything, despite being a part of the name.

Another temptation might be to look at this sauce and figure it as basically Cholula Original, with added elements of the Tequila and Lime, though that would not be a correct assessment. The tequila is very forward here and I admittedly am no connoisseur, but I'm not sure I've had the agave tequila before. Agave is yet another hit and miss ingredient for me, but I may have been doing myself a disservice as I quite like the effect they gathered here with the tequila. That sort of "icky" tequila flavor that the brown stuff tends to have is entirely absent and instead is a very light, effervescent, lively sauce...that bears almost no resemblance at all to the Original.

This is both a good and a gutsy thing. Cholula, despite being perhaps the main Mexican style sauce that comes to mind for folks, doesn't need to step out like this. They could just do endless spinoffs of their outstanding Original sauce and call it a day, but both with this and the Sweet Habanero (reviewed elsewhere here), they instead take steps to be bold and refreshing, coming up with new taste concoctions well removed from the flavor of the Original. I'm quite a fan of the experimental and adventurous and I commend them for this.

As for this, we do have a bit of an alcohol hit (don't usually like booze in sauces, again, because it's rarely done well), but it works very nicely with the peppers, the salt, and a backend hint of the lime. One of the suggestions on the website is to use it in drinks and I think that might be the actual intended usage, as it would work extremely well in a variety of drinks where one might be tempted to add a hot sauce. They also suggested enchiladas, which calls to mind, for me, the idea of cheese and lime, which...ummm...not going to be trying.

When paired with foods, it lets off the gas a bit. It definitely wants to be the star, so if you put it with another food that has its own strong flavoring, it tends to clash. Meanwhile, it does need at least somewhat of a foil to play against or results are similarly diminished, just in different fashion. For me, on seafood and chicken was where it worked best. I might play around with it more on pork, as I think it may work there also, but it definitely is nowhere near accessible enough to function as a table sauce, as the Original also does frequently.

Heat-wise, this is pretty low. Because the alcohol is "live" and there is enough in there to be noticed, since alcohol tags the TRPV1 receptors in the same way as does capcaisin, it can be a bit difficult to place an actual heat level attendant to the peppers. I've decided to call it a 1 and leave it at that, but no one is going to be challenged by this, or any other, in the Cholula lineup.

Bottom line: Another entry from Cholula taking a wild leap into the unknown with a new sauce and this one is unexpectedly brilliant and phenomenal. It definitely is not highly flexible, but what it works on, it opens up a whole new flavor world. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 5

Da Bomb Evolution Hot Sauce Review

Da Bomb Evolution

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mifUWX3Ugtc

It's been no secret, in the annals of this blog, that I'm not much of a fan of the Original Juan/Spicin Foods line-up, which tend to overly rely on extracts for heat, which mars otherwise potentially pretty tasty concoctions (though I did notice the Ghost Pepper sauce from Da Bomb does not contain extract, so I may try that at some point, but it's not especially high on my list). One of the more notorious offenders in the line-up is Da Bomb Beyond Insanity (reviewed elsewhere here), confusingly popularized largely due to the insistence of one Sean Evans to put his guests through one of the more awful-tasting sauces available and possibly the worst on the entire show.

Because of the extract being non-natural, Heatonist declined to carry that fabled sauce in their stores. With the main complaint being the noxious flavor, simply removing the extract and maybe adding in a super hot would seem like an easy fix. This is, actually, how this sauce was initially portrayed, but that's not what they did. No, they took the noxious flavoring of extract and replaced it with the nearly overbearing flowery tones of Scorpions. This reminds me quite a bit of the Hot Ones Eye Of The Scorpion hot sauce (also reviewed elsewhere here), which was so overpowering that I could not bear to keep it around long enough to use the entire bottle. That will actually probably be the case with this one. 

I will stop short of saying it's the same sauce as Eye Of The Scorpion, despite sharing a number of ingredients. This one has a much longer ingredient list panel, with things such as paprika, turmeric, minced garlic, sugar, lemon, mint(?!), and cilantro, all of which get drowned out nearly immediately by the floral notes. If you continue on with this sauce, you can sometimes pick out little hints of garlic, since there is also garlic powder as well, but this is overwhelmingly a very Scorpion pepper flavored sauce. So, it falls down to the equation of how much you like those floral notes. I'm not particularly a fan, so this sauce is a pretty hard miss for me.

To compare further, since Heatonist really wants to pretend this sauce is actually on the show (it's not) and they (a bit deceptively, in my opinion) offer it as a 1:1 for the #8 slot, this is a somewhat hotter sauce than the Beyond Insanity and very much for chileheads only. The main issue with Beyond Insanity is the hideous flavor and not so much the heat. With the extract, it ramps up immediately to the heat level and stays there. This one will keep building and chasing through the floral and bitter superhot notes of a not very good-tasting pepper is not really worth the grace notes of the other ingredients for me. I can't say what it pairs well with, as I strongly find it ruins most food I use it on, by overpowering it, of course, and I always wish I had something else. Good on them for subbing an actual pepper in favor of an extract, but I'm still not convinced this company is interested in making good sauces, but rather to rely on stunt or novelty for their base.

Bottom line: Is this better than Beyond Insanity? Yes, but how much directly depends on how much you like the flavor of Scorpion peppers.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 6
            Flavor: 2
            Flexibility: 0
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 2

High Desert Reaper's Fuzzy Navel Hot Sauce Review

High Desert Reaper's Fuzzy Navel

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db9b__rWl5s

Story time, a bit...skip ahead to the third paragraph if you want just the discussion on the sauce and not extraneous elements such as my shopping habits and label design. Ok, for years, like many, many folks first entering the arena of buying hot sauces that are beyond whatever happens to inhabit the shelves of either a grocery store or mass market retailer, I looked at sauces more or less as impulse buys, meaning that I would peruse the labels and whatever grabbed me would be what I'd reach for and start checking it out (I also did this, for a while, with records and CDs) for purchase. However, after having to bin more than a few sauces unopened because they had onions (I formerly had a couple pals who did not have a similar intolerance that would wind up getting those sauces but one I lost track of when my cell crashed and the other has bowed out because he finds it aggravates his stomach too much), which is, at minimum, a waste of money (though this was/is preferable to being sick from ingesting that ingredient). So, I made sure to read the labels before buying, which worked for a while, until my eyesight began to slide a bit with age. Rather than standing in the store with my phone trying to use the onboard camera to blow up the ingredient panel, which only worked some of the time, I started researching hot sauces for a buy list, a list which was safe from that dreaded component, which I would make prior to heading out.

I saw High Desert on the hallowed shelves of Roger's more than a few times, knew they were somewhat local (Arizona, but it's at least regional...the states touch, after all), but the label design is such that all of them looked identical to one another, with the only differentiation being the sauce name on the banner towards the bottom of the bottle. At times, I couldn't quite make out the ingredients entirely, but it seemed that I saw onions a few times too many and backburnered the company to research at some later point. Then, as usual with me, I got excited by other stuff and forgot about returning to that burner entirely. So, this is the long and short of why I'm overdue to the party for this company.

With this my first introduction to their sauces, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. There seemed a bit of chunkiness to the sauce and I could see through the glass of the bottle, quite a few black specks. This could be ground black pepper, I guessed, though that did not appear on the ingredient label. A mystery abounded and once I finally cracked this open, expecting somewhat of the usual peach forward fruit-based sweet-hot style sauce I've had a number of times on this blog (see TOC for more of those), I was quite shocked at the actual flavor profile. It was so profound, in fact, that I hopped online to try to get more information.

The black flecks, as it were, came from the fire-roasted yellow bell peppers (and maybe carrots, hard to tell from the wording), which were leading the charge on the ingredient panel, and which contributed to a very vegetable-forward and utterly delicious end result. The sauce name is somewhat of a misnomer. While there are peaches in this, they appear only as slight grace notes, shouted down by the much more fervent choir of the aforementioned vegetables, the Reapers, and the orange zest also in this. They do contribute a general sweetness, along with the agave, but are not at all prominent. The fuzzy navel drink is equal parts peach schnapps and orange juice and if you're expecting that flavor combination here, with a side of burning Reaper, which you might from the name, you'd be sorely mistaken.

This is quite a unique and dare I say, innovative, flavor for a sauce and it's one that I've quite enjoyed trying to plumb the depths of on different foods. It works extremely well with most meats, but because it is a composite of many different flavors to create a somewhat unified whole, I don't find it meshes well with food generally. The more this sauce can be the star, the better, and when certain flavors are nullified, it gets into diminishing flavor returns a bit, on the sauce side, anyway. 

The company calls the heat level the "mild-ish side of hot" and I think that's about right. It will definitely push non-chileheads and comes on with an intense blast endemic of the Reapers, but it peaks at a fairly low level. It's encased in such a tasty sauce that those who are inclined to become future chileheads may wind up happily continuing on because of the flavor notes and thus find themselves also enmeshed with the burn...and who knows, perhaps may even seek more, bigger and brighter. 

Bottom line: Utterly fantastic sauce, with an outstanding lightness, yet containing a fairly complex flavor. I can think of no other sauce quite like it and this is definitely one which I have no reservation calling a must.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

13 Stars Nuclear Option Hot Sauce Review

13 Stars Nuclear Option

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.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPvEstxiYAs

This is, I believe, the very first sauce I've had from a company where the name started with a number rather than a letter and the first (and maybe only) from this company. I say only not because of a bad experience with this sauce, quite the contrary, but because the other ones I looked at all had onions in them, which is a disqualifier. This company is another in the sort of veteran-owned and supporting (though this one includes first responders also) "patriotic," for lack of better term, companies in the spicy food space, with the name referring, unless I miss my guess, to the original colonies that formed the USA. 

That aside, what we have here is an interesting approach to superhots. Both the Ghost and Reaper appear, but the main flavors are the Habanero and red bell peppers, along with a bit of astringency from the vinegar. That it is the first ingredient, but doesn't interfere with the other flavors reading through, which is a neat bit of sauce sorcery. The bitterness of the superhots, along with some very nice heat, certainly enough to put it in a chilehead-only category, come roaring in hard on the heels, but definitely this showcases that Habaneros can be used to good and tasty effect...at least in the right hands.

This is an interesting consistency in that it seems fairly watery, but there's enough pulp in there to stick reasonably well. It's almost an odd occupation of territory both of sauces like Blair's Pure Death (reviewed elsewhere here) and a Louisiana-style sauce, but is somewhat more flexible than the latter category, while the color and some of the ingredients remind me of the former.Flavor-wise, though, it is unlike either. 

For me, the runniness and the superhot bitter effect is enough that it cuts down somewhat on flexibility, but even if oversaucing and getting a mouthful of heat more than anticipated or desired, it is flavorful enough that it doesn't diminish to the point of something not being edible. It does nicely with heavier cream or cheese-based sauce, excels on nearly any meat you can throw at it, but trips up a bit in places where it needs to blend in. It is pretty adept at meshing with flavors, when it has room to do it, but it generally needs to be a food that can accommodate a looser sauce.

Bottom line: All in all, this is a very solid sauce, chileheads only heat level, and with a couple of minor tweaks, could definitely wind up being one of the better entries from any company in this space.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 8
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 7

Angry Goat Red Armadillo Hot Sauce Review

Angry Goat Red Armadillo

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6750K5bG80

So we have here, as they say, another banger from Angry Goat. This one, along the lines of Sweaty Beaver (reviewed elsewhere here), is in the Mexican-style/Southwestern flavoring vibe. We've got the usual suspects you might find in your favorite taco sauce, with chile powder, cumin, and granulated garlic, but additionally, there's the sweet loving kiss of the pure Vermont maple syrup that Angry Goat likes to use as well. For a heat driver, there's Habanero powder, but it's pretty far back in the mix, which makes this a rather tame sauce.

This is clearly intended to be more of a flavor push and in that regard, it does very nicely, in particular with pork. Pork tends to have a bit of natural saltiness, which lends itself well to sweetness, which this sauce has in abundance, though stopping just short of something like the level of a sweet-hot, so there's a very natural fit with that meat. I rather enjoyed tinkering around with different Mexican dishes and it has a nice robustness to the flavor, a sort of rich depth, along with a mouth feel on the thicker side, reminding me a touch of a mole. It worked extremely well in that setting, but my favorite was probably my vaunted breakfast burritos. I liked it there so well that though I tried it in other places, that was fairly limited as I specifically wanted to reserve it just for that.

While this is an utterly delicious sauce, it is, as noted, tending on the sweet side, which may be off-putting a bit for some people who prefer their Mexican-style sauces to not have that characteristic. I'm probably one of them, but I found this such a refreshing change of pace that I was quite happy to have it there. I do have the very slight and minor complaint that I wish they chose a different vinegar other than apple cider and I could have done with it being somewhat hotter than it was, but certainly not enough to dissuade me from enjoying it immensely.

Bottom line:  Another innovative sauce from Angry Goat, this time in the fairly well-established field of Mexican style sauces. The attention to flavor and the sweetness definitely make this stand out among those.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6

Jersey Barnfire Apples & Spice Hot Sauce Review

Jersey Barnfire Apples & Spice

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHQXI_T0c-8

I don't love the name of this sauce...in fact, despite it having one of my favorite superhots, the vaunted 7-Pot Primo, I consistently passed it over in favor of other sauces because it just didn't strike me. The phrase "apples & spice" reminds me of an air freshener. Or a candle. Maybe a coffee drink of some kind. But not really a hot sauce, per se, dessert sauce, sure, but those are honestly, despite me loving sweet-hot sauces generally, of relatively little interest to me when I'm perusing shelves of sauces. 

After finally rolling around to this sauce, I was pleasantly surprised to see those Primos, as I hadn't noted it before when I was looking at the various sauces. Indeed, when I added this one to the list, it was largely because of an ingredient it didn't have, namely onions. I really like a number of the Jersey Barnfire sauces and when I find a company who makes products that resonate with me, I like to go through their entire catalog. This is, I believe, one of the few I had left from Jersey Barnfire to discover and enjoy (check the TOC for the rest of them, if interested).

Right, with that out of the way not, let's get into this. The very first flavor note I got from this was a sort of toffee/dutch apple pie crumble vibe and this because the brown sugar and apples are very prominent in the flavoring, and in that order. There are quite a few bits and pieces of pepper in here, but the heat is very low. This is quite a tame sauce. It is also slightly runnier than I expected, yet is a very nice medium consistency, which makes it flow smoothly and be distributed evenly. It also sticks extremely well to food. 

It is unquestionably a sweet sauce and a highly enjoyable one. It's yet another in the Jersey Barnfire line that I have to keep trying to throttle myself back, as there are a lot of foods I want to try this on (such as on the grill). I don't find apples and pizza a good mix and this is far too sweet to be of use in cream-sauce dishes, but it is fantastic on the lighter colored meats, easily one of the best sauces I've had ever. I suspect it will make an excellent grill sauce and it is superb as a dessert sauce, which I would say this is more than anything else. 

Bottom line: Yet another outstanding offering from Jersey Barnfire, one of the more exciting companies out there. It is definitely very sweet and clearly a dessert sauce, but never to an overbearing or cloying effect. If you like apples and/or brown sugar at all, you will undoubtedly find this delicious and quite accessible.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Infinity Sauces Ghost Fuck Yourself Hot Sauce Review

Infinity Sauces Ghost Fuck Yourself

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lER_IpsfPnI

Anyone who knows me know that there is no possibility I could resist a sauce with a name like this, at least to check it out. Obviously, I did and finding no onions, I picked up a bottle, to see what this was all about. Often, companies choosing risque or, in this case, perhaps outright profane, names can move things into more of a novelty vibe, but that is definitely not the case here. The name is intended as an homage/call back to some punk rock, which definitely fits, but looking around the site a bit, it seems this company is quite devoted to making high end, delicious, quality sauces.

This particular one is described as a stripped down version of their Ghost Monkey (which I have not had, as of the time of this posting - I don't know if I will get it or not, though, as this website irritatingly does not include ingredients of the various sauces), by which I'm taking it to mean that a lot of the components of the other sauce are absent here. This one seems to be higher in Ghosties, both fresh and dried, than the other. In terms of flavor, this definitely comes across as a sauce based on powder, or at least heavily predicated on it. I don't personally believe this to be a negative, as I think you can craft some fabulous stuff with that. My interest is nearly always in the end result and here, it's pretty excellent.

One of the better parts of using powders for flavoring is that there becomes a more general pepper sense to the sauce. While this might not always result in it being as heavily pepper-flavored as it could be, it nearly always tends to increase the flexibility, which is definitely the case here. This sauce is as at home on strips or pizza or breakfast burritos or burgers or mac & cheese or anywhere you might use a Louisiana-style sauce, for instance, as it is on Mexican food, an attribute that very few sauces can claim. The specific spices used in this are not delineated, but my impression was that they tended a bit more towards the Mexican-style side of things, which it works well on, even if a tad slightly vinegary. 

This is not to say it's a sauce that will demand it be the flavor focus. It definitely works much better accompanying things than being the star and given the heat, which I'd say belongs in the chilehead only rarified air, it's probably not something you'd necessarily want to oversauce with. It rather nicely ascends to a pretty solid heat level and hovers there, sustaining a very nice burn long after the eating is actually done. This is my first sauce from Infinity and I must say, it was quite an impressive debut.

Bottom line: While perhaps a touch too vinegary for a table sauce, and definitely too hot for non-chileheads, this is a very well-done and highly flexible sauce featuring the somewhat overlooked but still fantastic Ghost pepper.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 7

Hot N Saucy Garlic N Pepperoncini Hot Sauce Review

Hot N Saucy Garlic N Pepperoncini

Note: This sauce appears on Season 14 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5sW7vCDQ0Y

Pepperoncinis are another of those peppers that aficionados that prefer the pickled varieties will certainly be familiar with...or anyone who's familiar with a Greek or perhaps an Italian deli...or who has ordered a Papa John's pizza. For me, I've not ever found these to be particularly good and rather overrated, mostly delivering a huge pepper-flavored vinegar hit when bitten into and little else. The thin-walled texture I find unsatisfying, while the flavor is often bitter, but rarely there will be a bit of sweetness and even more rarely, a bit of heat, in that regard a somewhat like the much better Shishitos. So, I came into this expecting this sauce to be a complete throwaway that I planned to do mainly for coverage of the sauces on The Hot Ones show.

There are a few interesting things to note about this sauce. In the first place, this bottle was full right up to the cap, which is something I almost never see. I don't know where the actual 5 oz. mark is, in terms of volume, for the 5 oz. glass bottles, but I've lost count of how many sauces don't fill the bottle into the neck at all, let alone up to the cap. The second is the color of this sauce, which is this kind of pea soup green miasma, though it somehow winds up not unappetizing. The third is that Hot N Saucy appears to be a kind of boutique label with all of the sauces featuring the lone capital N in the middle, which is a sort of unique way of going to market, I guess. Lastly, this is yet another that really pushed the boundaries of whether something can, or more to the point, should be called a hot sauce if there is no heat.

This was the sauce in the 2 slot for Season 14, coming in behind The Hot Ones Classic, which is not a hot sauce, but here, it winds up being a decrease comparatively, even though that sauce uses the rather tame Arbol. There is no heat at all to be had here. More what we have is a very sweet garlicky and very vaguely pepper-ish sauce. Pepperoncinis are not peppers I find to have a particularly strong flavor profile and here, despite them being the lead-off ingredient, the main taste sensations are definitely sweet, followed to a lesser degree (and more in terms of aftertaste) by garlic, which is the last ingredient in the list. There is a Pepperoncini flavor here, to be clear, but it definitely takes a back seat.

One of the reasons I rarely bother with Pepperoncinis is that I rarely know what to do with them. I can't think of any regular recipes where I use them regularly and even as a side with a cold cut sandwich, for instance, it's more of a very infrequent change of pace than anything normal for me. If I got one of those jars of Mezzettas, for instance, it would take me years to finish it. I know that because a person who formerly lived with me bought one and it got to maybe the halfway point over 3 - 4 years, before I finally tossed it a year-ish after she left. I think they're ok in salads, but I'd much rather have Banana peppers...or even Jalapenos. This is the main problem with the pepper, for me, is that in all the places where I think it's ok, I'd also rather have something else. So, too, it is with this sauce. It's acceptable on pizza (as long as you like sweet sauces there) and on chicken strips, for instance, but is pretty far from the first thing I'd reach for. The flavor is fine, as far as that goes, no strong feelings one way or the other, which makes it somewhat forgettable and probably not exactly what one would want in a sauce. I will say there is nothing else out there quite like it, at least that I've had.

Bottom line: One of the more curious sauces from The Hot Ones show, a sauce that literally has no heat at all, but an abundant sweetness. I'm not sure who this sauce is for, but can't imagine too many chileheads who will be satisfied by it.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 2

Food Club Louisiana-Style Hot Sauce Review

Food Club Louisiana-Style Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIp8VqEDP0k

After a really long time of doing the various grocery store sub-lines hot sauces sparingly, and often not at all, we have yet another entry, which is, again, because it's a Louisiana-style and I am in need and both are new entries or at least ones I have not yet seen (the other being Smart Way, reviewed elsewhere here). With store brands, it can be a very mixed bag. You might get get something much worse than a name brand, something that is, more or less, hitting the "good enough" mark, which is where I believe they're generally aiming, or even, occasionally, something better than name brands. For this one, it is definitely a case of the middle description.

By now, we all know, or should know, what a Louisiana-style sauce is, but if not, it is essentially 3 ingredients: Cayenne (or, more rarely, red Jalapeno), vinegar, salt. Most companies with also toss in some xanthan gun, in order to keep things more suspended, and I've seen water here and there as an ingredient also, but generally, this is a fairly stripped down, simple sauce, which relies on the incredibly tasty prowess of the Cayennes. Sometimes companies will throw in additional flavors, such as garlic, which then makes it more of a Cajun sauce, but for a base Louisiana-style, it's those ingredients I mentioned at the start of this paragraph.

Those are the totality of the ingredients here. This one is slightly on the saltier side of things and is more astringent, reminding me more, if I had to pick a brand, of Crystal, but it's not abrasive quite on that level. It's generally fairly middle-of-the-road for this style, aside from those two characteristics I mentioned. I would put this more or less in the middle, of all the other entries out there, but at a buck for 12 oz., this hits that rare target that most store brands are shooting at, which is an excellent value. Heat-wise, like most Louisiana-style sauce, this is fairly minimal.

Bottom line:  A solid representation of this style of sauce. Very low frills, but it comes close enough to hitting all the marks.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6