Welcome back everyone sorry it’s
been so long since we’ve talked; I know you missed me. I feel terrible having
left you for so long, and ask that you forgive me and please continue to read
these in the future. As a reward for sticking with me I have a special treat
for you this time. It’s time for edition #2 of Appeteasers, and this one is
guaranteed to light a fire in your belly and really make you sweat.
For this edition of Appeteasers we
will be sampling 3 different varieties of hot sauce. For anyone who knows me, they also know that
while I do love flavor filled food, I also love my food to be packed full of
heat. Anything that tastes delicious is made even more so by adding some zing
to it. I know not all of you can
tolerate a lot of heat and that is understandable, it’s also a reasonable
assumption that some of the food that I eat and put on here isn’t for everyone.
I’m sorry if this issue isn’t your favorite and that your delicate palates
can’t handle much heat, short stack herself can’t handle much more heat than a
taco from Jack in the Box. But for the rest of us who dance in the flames this
episode is for you. Ok crusaders, it’s
time we venture forth into the fiery pits that await, we’ll do it together and
I promise you will come out feeling more alive on the other side.
On this
journey we’ll begin on the rough craggy peaks of bitterness then we’ll work our way to the sweet sandy
beaches of deliciousness. So to start things off we begin with “Blair’s AFTER
death sauce, with liquid rage.”
See I wasn’t kidding, it really
does say that. Almost looks like this
bottle belongs on the record cover of an 80’s hair band. Apparently there’s a whole slew of these
sauces ranging from eh, just a sweet sauce to mommy save me from the burny
feeling. It seems Mr. Blair also likes
to make a special reserve that I can only imagine is the hottest thing this
side of the sun. It is convenient though that on the side of the boxes that
they include a handy little guide to help you figure out which one is right for
you.
This is the first way that Blair’s
helps you decide if this is going to be too hot for you or not. It’s also nice to us veterans as it helps us
find the name of the hottest one so we realize how badly we can burn ourselves
and how much worse we can do so.
One thing I’ll say about this hot sauce, it’s nice that they give you a cute little key chain as if to provide a consolation prize to the intense pain that accompanies this sauce. I’m including the nutritional value of these sauces for the health food conscious, even though none of the sauces we’re discussing have any calories they do all three have different sodium levels. What you can’t see on the bottle nutritional value is the nice little warning that comes on the box one; that reads in big letters WARNING: THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS THE HOTTEST KNOWN INGREDIENTS ON THE PLANET. PLEASE USE EXTREME CAUTION. This is the second warning they provide that this might or might not be the sauce for you. One thing is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt, they care about their cliental and want them to be safe when using their death sauce. So now that we’ve discussed everything on the outside let’s get down to what matters most, the inside.
I want to take this opportunity to
explain exactly what I will be providing you in this section of my
reviews. First I will discuss the bottle
design itself as far as the top and how easy the sauce pours to help you
prevent any unfortunate mistakes. Next I will discuss the aroma of the sauce,
as aroma can make or break any good food. Then after enough beating around the
bush, I will discuss the sauce itself. I’ll be showing you what the sauce looks
like outside of the bottle so you get an idea of what we’re dealing with. I’ll
be providing you with an ingredient list and a help deciphering it. I’ll then be finishing with the most important
part, how the sauce actually tastes along with some serving suggestions.
So this bottle has an open mouth,
so be very careful when you pour it as it will come out fast. I personally hate
bottles like this, it kinda reminds me of when some little punk unscrews the
lid on a salt shaker and you go to lightly season your meal and BAM you’ve just
created a little white mountain on your plate effectively ruining any hopes of
enjoying any of it, stupid little punk if I find him I’ll ram a salt shaker up
his nose! Ok enough ranting, like I said these bottles are a hazard so be
careful when you use it.
The aroma of this sauce is
something of an amalgamation of vinegar, capsicum, and sheer pain. You know when
you see someone do a face plant trying to do a sweet jump with their bike and
you just go “Oooohhh that had to hurt” and you do a sharp inhale. It’s almost
like you can smell their pain, ya that’s part of the aroma of this sauce.
So you’re probably wondering what this death
sauce actually looks like.
Now, I’m no expert in Gestalt
psychology but I think I can see a skull in this sauce. It’s almost demonic
looking isn’t it?
Before we delve into what actually
goes into a batch of this culinary magma I want to explain something. Chile
peppers are rated on a scale known as the Scoville Heat Scale. This scale is
named after its creator Wilbur Scoville, an American Chemist who in 1912 developed
a test for measuring the hotness based on the amount of capsaicin (a chemical
that stimulates the nerve endings in skin) contained therein. With that in mind we can further discuss the
ingredients and you’ve learned a new word you can win at scrabble with. So the makings of this sauce of the damned
consist of Habanero Peppers (150,000-577,000 Scoville Units depending on the
variety), Cayenne Peppers (30,000-50,000 SU), Chipotle Peppers (5,000-8,000
SU), Vinegar, Salt, Garlic, Lime Juice Concentrate, Ascorbic Acid, Onion,
Herbs, Spices, and Natural Flavor. Wow, it’s like a medieval dungeon in a
bottle. The moment you crack the seal
you can almost hear a faint scream reverberating off castle walls. The good
thing about this sauce is that it has no preservatives or artificial ingredients,
which essentially makes this the greenest sauce I’ve had (Yes I know the sauce
itself is red).
Now what I’m sure you’ve all been
waiting for, the taste. You know with an ingredient list like this has I fully
expected it to be very tasty and full of flavor; sadly I was mistaken. It wasn’t
very tasty at all in my opinion. It did have great heat I will admit, more so
than the others, though all that heat accompanied a very bitter taste. I think
instead of complimenting one another the peppers over crowded the sauce and
combine that with the lime juice and it was brutal. The company suggests that you can “use this
sauce on wings, meatloaf, seafood, chili, cheeseburgers, sushi, or ANYTHING YOU
DESIRE!” this is a pretty bold statement they’re making that you can put this
on anything. I personally would use it very sparingly, as a background flavor.
I would add it one or two drops at a time to a much bigger mix, definitely not
something you just want put on chips. I agree with the company when they say to
use it in chili and meatloaf, I also think it would go good in a big bowl of
dip or chili to add a great kick. While not the hottest thing I’ve ever tried
it was definitely up there. I advise you to be careful, if you are going to use
it just do so sparingly and with great caution.
Second up is Melinda’s Naga Jolokia
hot sauce. This sauce is made from the “world’s hottest pepper”, the Naga
Jolokia or “Ghost Pepper” to the rest of us. I’ll freely admit it, it’s not for the faint
of heart but I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say it’s the world’s hottest.
I’ve had worse burns before from milder peppers but this one does have a pretty
good heat index. It sounds like a bad Scooby Doo villain and it probably could
be though as it’s not one to mess around with.
To start off the bottle has a very foreign
appearance with its beautiful lady on the front. I personally like to think of Melinda as the
patron saint of searing mouth pain due to her association with this sauce. The nice thing about this bottle is that for
those of us who are unlearned in the world of hot sauces it has a nice little
back story of the pepper to help us get an idea of just how painful of a time
we’re in for.
Isn’t that sweet of them? I think
it’s nice to know just how badly I’ve screwed up and how painful my life is
about to become. Too bad more things in life don’t come with labels like this.
It not only lets you know that you’re about to ingest a liquid form of fire,
but it gives you the story of the pepper itself. It even includes a phone
number where you can contact them and tell them how badly it hurt to eat their
sauce, that’s provided you can still talk with your tongue melted down. I like how it tells you all the other peppers
it beat to become the world’s hottest. I
almost half expected it to say “THIS IS SPARTA, TONIGHT YOU DINE IN HELL!!!” at
the bottom as a final line to warn you. If I ever make my own hot sauce that’s
what I’m going to put on it, and I’ll call it the King Leonidas. It’ll be in
the shape of a Spartan and it’ll have a little lever on the back to make him do
a front snap kick. But I’m getting sidetracked, back to the topic at hand. The
top of this sauce is very pour friendly; it has a decent spout with a hole
about the size of the diameter of a pencil. Be careful though with it being
easy to pour it’s also easy to over pour and god help your poor body if you do
that.
The aroma of this sauce is actually
quite nice, it’s a mixture of hot peppers and almost a hint of citrus. It smells
fresh which is kinda nice, but I have a feeling that if you were to pour it on
something that was hot, it could turn into an aerosol and you’d have a pepper
spray type situation. Although on a small scale and with proper ventilation I
think it could be nice and add a perfume of heat in some foods.
You can see in this picture the hole I mentioned and how easy it could be to over pour with it. You also get a sense of what the sauce looks like out of the bottle. Here, let’s take a closer look at the sauce itself.
You can see in this picture the hole I mentioned and how easy it could be to over pour with it. You also get a sense of what the sauce looks like out of the bottle. Here, let’s take a closer look at the sauce itself.
Once again maybe it’s my eyes or mind playing tricks on me
but doesn’t this one look like a little demon with horns sticking out the top? It almost looks like it belongs in a horror
movie. Yes, you’re not imagining it there are actual bits of the pepper in the sauce.
Like little nuggets of pain, these add to the heat profile tremendously. The ingredients
in this sauce are actually pretty varied: as mentioned in the name it has Naga
Jolokia peppers (our old friend Mr. Scoville rated them at a 1,041,427 SU.
Making this one the hottest peppers of our trio). It also has carrots, onions, garlic, and
passion fruit, papaya, and lime juice in it. The fruit gives a nice fragrance
and a fresh, almost tropical taste to it.
For those of you who are interested here is a list of
ingredients, complete with nutritional information.
Now what I’m sure you’ve been dying to know, how it tastes.
I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the flavor profiles of all those fruits are
just not very strong. They could just be weakened in the light of the fact that
the pepper itself is so hot. It does have a light citrus tang to it on the
finish with the heat following behind it. It’s not definitely not one prominent
flavor in this. The heat definitely moves in like a fog though and blankets
over everything after a short period of time. I know it sounds scary being “world’s
hottest” and plus it has ghost in the title but trust me it’s not to terrible.
For serving suggestions though I recommend using it sparingly as a background
taste. It would be good with chili, or maybe as a way to add some heat to a BBQ
sauce or maybe hot wings. While I do enjoy the heat it brings, I can’t see
myself using this one except on special occasions.
Now
for the Coup de grâce and my personal favorite of all the hot sauces we’ve seen
today. To be honest probably my favorite hot sauce I’ve ever had. Drum roll……………………..
Yes!!! The
three sweetest words ever combined on one bottle. BACON. HOT. SAUCE. Oh my
sweet petunias, it’s like God looked around and asked me “Indiana Joe, what could
you add to every food ever to make it better?” “Well I do like heat, but I also
like bacon. Is there any way to get the best of both?” “Here I made this just for you.” Ooo de lolly it’s
a beautiful thing when two wonderful worlds come together. If Guinness is the
nectar of the gods and bacon is the food of the gods then this surely is the
seasoning of the gods. Ok well if the
sheer awesomeness doesn’t inspire you to go run out and buy a bottle I guess I’ll
stop swooning and get to the reviewing of it for you.
The bottle itself is very basic,
from its short and sweet description to its comical drawing on the front. The
top to this has the easiest pour of all the ones we’ve seen here. There’s an
open top, with the hole being about the circumference of a dime. Yes this is the
easiest one to dump a lot out very easily, but how can too much bacon be a bad
thing? Just be careful with it, if for some reason you don’t like a lot of flavor.
The
scent of this one is like a summer campfire BBQ on the 4th of July
up at the lake with friends. It smells exactly like you would think it should. Faint
notes of mesquite and hickory make it almost smoky but it’s also sweet and
bacony as well. I wish my car smelled
like this, although it might make me try and eat the head rests if I went to
long without food. 
This is
the only one of the 3 that I don’t see the face of death himself staring back
at me from the sauce. Maybe it’s due to the fact that there’s not little bits
of pain floating in this one but all I see is a delicious almost caramel
colored sauce. Here look at it close up.
Mmmm
don’t you just want to pour it over your ice cream? No? It’s just me? Ok well maybe
that’s a bit too far, but you see my point. It looks delicious and not at all
scary like those other two sauces.
As for
ingredients and nutritional value it’s the simplest and least spicy of the
bunch. Containing only cayenne peppers (between 30-50 thousand SU) and New
Mexico (100-1,000 SU) chilies this sauce is mild enough for even the prudish of
palates. I think one ingredient they
forgot to mention on here, is pure liquid awesomeness. Although it is definitely not a sauce for
those on a low sodium diet, as it is pretty salty.
I don’t think I really need to mention taste on this one. It actually does taste of bacon, it’s not just some clever marketing ploy to get you to buy it. So there’s a faint heat but a great taste of bacon throughout on this one. As for serving suggestions, I’d think that would be obvious. Put it on everything! Everything that is made better by bacon is also made better by bacon hot sauce. I could write a whole other article just on this hot sauce and all the wonderful things you could cook with it but it’s just easier to tell you to try it with whatever you think sounds good. There’s so much made better by this delicious treat and not much that isn’t so get out there and explore. Let me know if you find something exceptional and I might try it and write about it.
Well Crusaders, thanks for sticking
with me and coming back to read about my adventures. Sorry again for taking so
long to get this one out to you. I’ll do my best to not let that happen again
in the future. I really appreciate your loyalty and readership. The mountains
of heat may be arduous and for those of you who don’t brave the peaks thanks
for reading anyways. For those of you who do like their food with a little
smack in the face I hope I’ve provided you with an alternative to generic
Tabasco.
I just hope that I’ve inspired you and that
you get the chance to try one of these sometime for yourself. I haven’t got much more to say that wouldn’t
be just repeating myself. Thank you all
again and until next time happy hunting and Bon appetite.
