It’s a nice sunny day here in Northern California and I must say it’s nice to be writing about killer hot sauce again! With so many food shows, festivals, iconic foodies, and personal choices…how does one begin to sort through the haze of products and informative media to determine what is “truly” good and satisfying to our ever-changing pallets? In my humble opinion, you don’t. You just have to TRY THEM ALL!

Yesterday I was sharing a tasty Friday night celebration meal with my family at a local burger joint that has been declared our county’s “best” burger.” I am not sure who determined that, but because it was displayed on such a big fancy sign out front…it must be true! Right? Not sure… Fortunately, the food was great, so I picked up the menu and counted how many different burgers there were. The list totaled 9 mouthwatering sandwiches. Needless to say, I told my wife we needed to come back at least 9 more times to determine the truth of the sign declaring the grandeur of this burger joint… “It’s the ONLY way!” I told her with a smile. And if that wasn’t enough, they make homemade pie as well!

Hot sauce and spicy products I treat the same. It’s all about exploration. I call hot sauce the lazy man’s mountain.  Every man, when he see’s that unconquerable peak soaring into the sky, says to him self, “One day I must conquer those heights!” Why? Just because us guys always need a challenge. Well my days of climbing mountains are coming to an end and for me, looking inside a bottle that is filled with the hottest Pepper products in the world is where my one of my favorite hobbies today is found.

California has many different industries, business, and personalities.  One of them is Dave’s Gourmet–the producer of many fine local products, one of which being his very personal, Private Reserve Insanity Sauce. Ever since his first appearance years ago at the Fiery Foods Show in New Mexico, Dave has been producing products like spices, drink mixes, pasta sauces and my passion…hot sauce!

The new 20-year anniversary Insanity Reserve is truly a sauce that is living up to its name!  I was really excited when the new limited edition signed and numbered version was released just a couple weeks ago. I had to try it! Unwrapping it, I was surprised to see that this year’s edition has a new and improved label with a clever and artistic scorpion on the front. Such a cute little bug, but if you know anything about the Scorpion Pepper, you know that there is nothing cute about it! This pepper packs some serious heat! Over a million and a half scovilles! Imagine walking up to a local law enforcement officer with your freshly made taco stand treat and say, “Excuse me sir, May I have a shot of your pepper spray?” YES! This has the same heat as the pepper spray guns that police officer’s uses as well as hunters use for bear repellant!

This Gourmet Reserve comes shipped in a nice wooden coffin wrapped in bright yellow warning tape. Dave signs each bottle personally. The label has a clear warning (That I did not read) that reads, “One drop at a time, and keep away from children. Not for people with heart or respiratory problems! Not for use of minors.” Believe it folks, he means it! I pulled the bottle out and inside the bottle is a swirling of red and black colors with bits of seed. It’s thick, dark and murky…the kind of stuff  that’s made in nightmares… maybe!

Inside the bottle you will find Scorpion, Naga Jolokia, and the Habanero peppers. It also has Chili pepper extract, salt, cane vinegar, passion fruit juice, garlic, onion, acetic acid, and xanthan gum.

I cracked open the bottle and took a strong smell. WHEW!!!! It burned my nostrils all the way back to my throat. It has a sweet smell to it and I can definitely smell the scorpion in it. My favorite pepper being the Jolokia, I could not detect that one in the complex aroma. Now just to qualify myself, I eat hot spicy pepper sauces all the time and this one did not scare me. I have tried the hottest of peppers and even extracts straight so I felt pretty comfortable.  I shook the bottle vigorously and tried to get it to mix. As I poured the bottle, I could see the oil run to the top and then the sauce started moving slowly like a volcanic lava flow heading for the ocean. I poured a liberal amount on the burrito as you see.  (About two tablespoons) and took a bite. Instantly there was a sweet pepper flavor that had a sharp tang to it. I took another bite and the heat appeared and started building. (I had no idea what I was in for!) I then ate the last two bites but before I could accomplish the final swallow the hiccups came FAST AND FURIOUS! Like seizures they racked my body. Sweat poured off my face and chin. I looked at my reflection in the window and I looked like someone who had spent the last 3 days passed out in a tanning bed-I was CRIMSON RED! The heat was swallowing me up. I felt me knees almost buckle, my hands were shaking and I thought, “Uh oh, I might be in trouble!” The heat built and built, the hiccups racked my body giving me repeated bouts of mild whiplash. I grabbed the milk and attempted to pour. As it splashed in the glass and on the counter, my tongue, mouth and throat felt like a thousand demons were scraping the inside lining with glass and salt. It was hot! Milk slowed the heat a tiny bit but there was no getting away from the Scorpions sting! I paced, I sweated, I prayed. It was a “super” chili experience! After about 10 minutes the heat resided a bit, enough for me to realize that I was going to indeed live to see another sunrise. Even though I ate before trying this EXPLOSIVE sauce, my stomach was cramping something fierce. It wasn’t until about three hours later after my stomach had relieved itself of its fiery contents that I felt back to normal.

So in conclusion I just want to say, heat level is a 10! Take the warnings serious. Flavor is an 8 or 9. Good taste and would be something to enjoy if it was possible to eat in normal applications. Label and packaging is always a 10. Great bottle, Dave signs them all. The coffin is a nice bonus and makes a great display piece. The color and view of the sauce from outside the bottle is almost magical and hypnotizing. Beautiful! Do not let children anywhere near this! But this sauce is definitely going to please the most daring chili head! This is one hot spicy “mountain” I may never attempt in such quantity  again.  You can find it at http://store.davesgourmet.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DAIR and when you order tell Dave I said hi!

So for all you out there in the chili world, Keep it hot and keep it spicy.
Most of all,
ENJOY!

© 2013, hotsauceaddict.com. All rights reserved.

Just received a HUGE package from Hell Fire Sauce Company and have opened it to find myself in the possession of a wonderful array of hot sauces. They were all very carefully wrapped and to my amazement each had a top that was hand dipped in brightly colored wax.  Now, I have tried last year’s production and was amazed by the flavor. They were thick, spicy, tangy, and best of all, HOT! So when I was placing my order, I felt like a kid in a candy store. I knew that no matter what I picked…the sauce was going to be good! The titles on the loudly colored labels only gave hints to what you might find inside. Some of these were called Evil Bastard, Devils Revenge, Pure Hell, Extreme Heat and more. The Chili Master even makes “Special Reserves” that are hand sculpted bottles for collectors as well.  One might wonder if this is some dark cult sauce made with just the tinniest essence of the devil himself. Believe it or not, I have actually been emailed and asked if this was the case by several people. Though I was tempted to say YES! And be VERY afraid! I simply responded that this is intelligent chili head marketing in the making. For me, a good “extreme heat sauce” always makes me think twice about consuming…until I taste it and the endorphins start flowing. Flavor always trumps fear when it comes to consuming the “super” hot sauces.
So as I sorted out the bottles and put them away for use later this year I stopped at one that caught my eye. It had a double-waxed top with a blue base coat and a crimson red topcoat. The picture on the label was of the most sinister clown I had ever seen.  Most might assume that all clowns are happy and ready to squirt you in the nose with their little lapel flower. Well, not this one. Yellow teeth with red gums, horns rising out of the top like a demonic warlord. This sauce is called…

Evil Bastard
2012 Special Reserve

Made by www.HELLFIREHOTSAUCE.COM

Well, when it comes to spicy ingredients…this sauce has it! Bhut Jolokia Pepper (Almost 1 million Scoville Units), 7-Pot Peppers (Over a million Scoville Units), Trinidad Scorpion Peppers (Around 1,463,700 Scoville Units), Chocolate Habanero Peppers (100,000–350,000 Scoville Units.), and Japone Peppers (25,000 Scoville Units) are all to be found in this 5 oz bottle of flavored napalm. Looking in from the outside gives me no clue as to how hot it is. The color of the sauce is nice reddish brown and the consistency looks perfect.  The peppers are grown organically on the Chili Masters property. Each batch is small and hand made. You can find him in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin brewing up hotter and more flavorful batches right now, but I shall warn you—The sauces sell out and when they are gone, it’s over until harvest time next year.

So I grip the bottle and twist with all my might…nothing. This cap doesn’t want to open! So out come the machete (no girlie knife for me!) and I make short work of the wax top. As I take a deep breath, inhaling the spicy, fruity, sweet contents of the bottle, I am surprised to find my sinuses instantly tingling with heat. This sauce is going to be hot I think. It smells good. I give it a good shake and pour some out. My first impression is that the sauce doesn’t separate quickly and there are bits of peppers and spices floating in it. The sauce is a bit on the thin side so watch out when you pour it. The heat comes on quick and builds! The flavor is pleasant and has a sweet introduction; then it is all about the heat!! This sauce is an 8 or 9 out of 10 on the heat scale. It has not given me the hiccups that a lot of super hot sauces do but my tongue is definitely seared. Oops, scratch that last statement… hiccups have arrived and I am drooling profusely! The heat is over the top! This is definitely one of the spiciest sauces that I have tried this year. I can’t wait to try this sauce on a plateful of tacos and the other super spicy dishes that I enjoy.

Thank you Chili Master for selling me some great products. For all you Chili Heads out there…If you are looking for a HOT sauce and want something that combines flavor and heat, check out hellfirehotsauces.com for some cool “hot” products. Another one of my favorites that he makes is called Blueberry Hell. Good stuff! So keep it hot and keep it spicy. Most of all…ENJOY!

© 2012, hotsauceaddict.com. All rights reserved.

Over all though, to the unaware mind, this pepper from the outside appears to be relatively benign and harmless.  Don’t be fooled by its subtle appearance if you get lucky enough to find yourself in the presence of this “cute little fruit.” Even today people are still debating just how hot this pepper is. As I bit into my pepper, some of the first thoughts that went into my mind was, “Hmm, nice and crisp, little like a bell pepper and kind of had a sweet flowery flavor….then, OH LORD HELP ME! HERE COMES THE HEAT!”  The heat might have been similar to licking the insides of a 9-volt battery or maybe turning a toaster inside out and then cramming it into my mouth while plugging it in. Okay…I might be exaggerating a little bit. The truth is, “IT WAS HOTTER THAN THAT!” I am not too proud to admit it, but that pepper burned going down, then an hour later, it burned coming up and out, then the next day burned coming out again.  It took my stomach about 3 days to stop cursing me and to recover, but as for my mind, this pepper will always have my respect and a bit of fear.  For those of you that want to try it…be careful! It is NOT to be done without some extreme caution. A good place to purchase these peppers is at Refining Fire Chili’s. Just ask for Jim Duffy. Or you can find his website on line at http://refiningfirechiles.com/.

Now if you are not into torturing your mind and insides with this whole spicy fruit, then I would suggest that you try it in a sauce. Many manufactures are attempting to make a sauce with these peppers. But for me one of my new favorites is called

1498:
The Cauterizer.

Heartbreaking Dawns produces this sauce and it has been available to the public for the last year. I have not tried it previously due to my past experience with the Scorpion Pepper. When I told Johnny McLaughlin about my history he immediately said that I must try his sauce and that it would change my perspective forever!
My traditional fare for hot sauce testing is breakfast. I tried a little in a spoon first and could taste the faint sweetness from the blueberries and the apricot preserves. It was definitely a 9 on the one to ten scale in heat. The heat came on strong and fast. I found that I didn’t really care for it on eggs so I waited a few days before trying it again.

This time I found myself at the local Mexican Restaurant that we frequent. I order a couple street tacos, a shrimp taco, and a fish taco.  I placed my order all while clutching my bottle of hot sauce. Hoping that someone might ask me about it so that I could spark a restaurant wide tasting session. Don’t laugh…sometimes this happens!  So when I received my heaping plate I considered how much sauce to use. I found myself faced with an all or nothing attitude. I poured the sauce on heavy. Squished one end in a desperate attempt to hold it together and crammed one end in my mouth. WOW! The heat came on quick and I let out a cough! Wasn’t expecting that! So as I chewed flavors started mixing together and the heat began to plateau. I took another bite, then another…all of a sudden I was assaulted by a barrage of hiccups. It’s been a while since a sauce has done that to me. The flavor was great. I wiped the sweat off my brow and eat with a taco in one hand and the bottle in the other until they were all gone. At that point I set the bottle of Heartbreaking Dawns Cauterizer down with just a little bit of sadness. What a culinary adventure. As the endorphins were kicking in and I was wallowing in that ever so familiar food buzz, I thought, “Damn! That sauce is good!”

It comes in a standard 5 oz bottle and is wrapped with some amazing artwork. It’s made with all natural ingrediants and I can actually pronounce and recognize every one. I love that!! I am not a big fan of sauces that have more ingredients written in Latin then in English. If you want to find out more about this sauce just go to their site at http://heartbreakingdawns.com/ and find out about all their wonderful products. You can also check them out at Peppers at the Beach Event that is coming up soon. Johnny and Nicole are also releasing a special sauce that is coming out in an 8 oz bottle for the event. Contact them for more info.

So for all you chili heads out there, keep it hot and keep it spicy…Most of all ENJOY!

© 2012, hotsauceaddict.com. All rights reserved.

C’est Bon Cajun Q
Produced by Cajun Heat
“Eat like a freak!”

This sauce is not your super hot variety but one that is described as a typical Louisiana barbeque sauce that has many different styles mixed together. It has great flavor with a slight kick. We shall see! It’s also recommended that if you want to spice it up, you can always add another one of their products to the sauce like their dry rub Voodooo Ash or by adding liquid Napalm to it. (I love the name of that sauce!)

The bbq sauce comes in a generous 16-ounce bottle and has a hilarious label to it. Especially if you like the idea of pigs waiting patiently by the smoker to be axed, cleaned and grilled. The sauce has an inviting red hue that is filled with visible spices galore. I am looking forward to trying it! In reviewing their website at Cajunheat.com I can read that they have won tons of awards for their products and have been in business for about four years. That’s pretty amazing for a relatively new company! They have two different lines of sauces and rubs called the Classic line and a novelty label line of products that look like they would be great for gifts. They also make spicy pralines that make me salivate just looking at the picture. I love spicy sweet goodness and definitely have to try some! You can also follow their exploits and new products on Facebook as well.

This sauce complimented the tri-tip well. The sauce is PACKED with flavor and not only makes a great glaze but also a dipping sauce. My family really enjoyed it. The sauce is thick and a little goes a long way.

The second thing I tried this sauce on was some left over pot roast that I used to make sandwiches. This sauce has a very tangy, spicy smell as it poured out slowly from the bottle. C’est Bon Cajun was good for this use on flavorful, sloppy sandwiches. The sauce definitely spiced up the sandwich and made the meat flavorful and much more desirable even if it was left over’s. It didn’t take much to add flavor to the pot so I was able to use it on barbeque chicken as well.  We were told that this sauce wouldn’t be a heat lover’s favorite but the heat level pleasantly surprised my wife. She found it to be spicy and brought some nice heat to the meal. I would rate this sauce on a heat scale of 1 to 10 at about a four.  I found it to be more flavor then heat. It also can be appreciated better when this sauce is poured out and used as a glaze as well. There are lots of bits of seasoning and pepper visible in the sauce and it stuck nicely to the chicken as I grilled.

So all in all, this sauce surprised me. It had a bold, mild heat flavor that was good with both beef and chicken. This sauce brand new to the market and so I am interested to see how the public receives it. The next thing I am going to try it on is pork. I know it will compliment that well. This sauce should definitely stand out on the shelf. The label is creative and amusing so this not only would make a great addition to anyone’s pantry but would also make a great gift. If you order on Friday April 27th there will be a 35% discount! Just got to the website www.cajunheat.com and enter the coupon code Cajun-Q to receive it. Good luck!

So all of you have a wonderful spring and start cooking. Lets hear about your culinary exploits and your favorite recipes! Most of all, keep it hot and keep it spicy…ENJOY!

© 2012, hotsauceaddict.com. All rights reserved.

Hello Chili Heads,

I wanted to share a hot sauce with you that my family and I really enjoyed. It is full of spicy sweet flavor and packs a surprise heat that will light you up!

The ingredients are as follows:
Honey, Red Cayenne & Habanero Chilies, fresh garlic, onion, vinegar, spices, salt, natural pepper flavor.

The bottle is a 5 oz. bottle and comes equipped with a handy flip top that restricts the sauce from pouring all over your food.

Zane and Zack’s is a family owned and operated Sauce Company that started in 2003. They make many different products and also produce limited numbers of collectable bottles as well.

I hope you enjoy the Video Review. So keep it HOT and keep it Spicy! Most of all ENJOY!

Zane & Zack’s World Famous Honey Co. started in the summer of 2003. Sam had taken up beekeeping the summer before and wanted to come up with new, unique ways to use honey in different recipes. Since we love hot sauce and smoked foods, it seemed only natural to start out smoking jalapeños for chipotle. After creating a recipe that tasted great, we brought some to a friend’s BBQ. Everyone commented on how awesome it was and asked where the hot sauce had come from. When they found out that Sam had made it, we were told repeatedly that we should market it. Over the next year,

© 2012, hotsauceaddict.com. All rights reserved.

• 1 pound or 4 cups of walnut halves
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 6 tablespoons of milk
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla or almond extract
• 2Teaspoons of dry ground Habanero
• ½ teaspoon of ground dry Jolokia

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).  Spread nuts in a single layer over a baking sheet. Roast for aprox. 8 to 10 min. or until nuts turn brown and your kitchen starts smelling great!
2. Stir together your ground peppers, sugar, cinnamon, salt, and milk in a medium sauce pan. Cook over a medium heat for 8 minutes or until mixture reaches the soft ball stage of 236 degrees (113 degrees C) Remove from heat, and stir in favorite extract flavor immediately.
3. Add walnuts to sugar syrup, and stir to coat well. Spoon to coat nuts well and pour out on waxed paper or a well greased cookie pan. Cool then store.

You can add more or less chili’s to this recipe. This was a nice heat that would creep up on me as I ate them. The sugar and salt makes it so that one is never enough. Most of all, ENJOY!

Do be careful of the hot sugar…it will get you if you are not careful!

Sincerely,
Ammond Crawford

© 2012, hotsauceaddict.com. All rights reserved.

Today is a great day and if you’re bummed because you didn’t win $640 million through the Lottery, then I have something to cheer you up. I am not a big gambler due to the fact that I hate to lose and I want to see a return on my money…always! Cooking is one of the things in life that I like to do, and when I begin I want to know that it is going to be awesome when I finish. So today I am going to give you some insight into some new products that I have been trying over the last week. These sauces are different then ones that I normally use because they are designed more to accent and “heat” up food rather then give it an atomic burst of flavor. These sauces are called:

Heartbreaking Dawns Artisan Foods LLC Presents…
The Bell River Brand
(Three New Exciting, tastefully made Pepper Sauces)

The first one I would like to introduce to you is the Bell River Brand Chipotle Hot Sauce. This sauce has some nice chili heat to it. It had been a few weeks since I had spicy food and I found that for me, this sauce would be rated as a medium to hot in heat. Even my wife was surprised at the heat but she could finish it readily enough due to the nice underlying flavor that it gave our food. This sauce gave a pleasant well-rounded smoked chili and pepper accent to our food.  It has Red and Orange Habanero Peppers, Chipotle Peppers, garlic, sugar, salt, onion and pepper. When I opened the bottle I found the smell to be very pleasant, but again was surprised to find that it did not overwhelm my food’s flavor. I think this one was my favorite.

In reviewing this 2nd sauce I can’t help but suddenly get hungry again even though I have just completed breakfast.  This being the most mild of the three sauces, it was a perfect compliment to my California Eggs Benedict. This sauce is called Bell River Brands Jalapeno Sauce.  I found myself using more of this sauce at a time due to mild heat and the nice citrus accent that it gave my food. All the sauces looked very thin in texture, but when I poured them I found that they poured at a nice rate.  This sauce would be very good on chicken and fish as well.

The third and final sauce that Johnny and Nicole have produced for their Heartbreaking Dawns Bell River line is called Caribbean Hot Sauce. I tried this sauce on some homemade macaroni and cheese. Call me strange, but I like to use Defcon wing sauces on my mac ‘n cheese. I love the vinegar flavor. This sauce did the same thing for me. It gave my food a nice subtle vinegar flavor, but I could still taste the cheese. This had a nice mild heat and accented the food well. I have to try this sauce on a few more different varieties of food before I can have an accurate opinion of it. It tasted good, but probably shouldn’t have been used on macaroni and cheese and might be better other dishes.

Over all these sauces were very pleasant and for my friends that like milder gourmet sauces, these are perfect! Heartbreaking Dawns also makes “super hot” no extract sauces, and also distributes spices, rubs and a yearly signed and numbered collectable. They are a family run business and Johnny was even on the TV show “Chopped” recently. He is always creating amazing foods and experimenting in order to dazzle his fans and customers.  You can find them on Facebook or heartbreakingdawns.com. Thank you Hot Sauce Addict for sharing the good news!

So all of you,
Keep it Hot and Keep it Spicy,
Most of all,
ENJOY!

© 2012, hotsauceaddict.com. All rights reserved.

This weeks review is of Sauce Crafters’ “Satan’s Rage”. The label depicts what seems like a particularly peeved Beelzebub bust on an infernal backdrop.  It actually eerily reminds me of a very bad night in college. The obligatory description does its’ best to scare the crap out of you with words like ‘overpowered” and phrases like “evil intrusion”.  The ingredient list is pretty standard with Fire Roasted Habaneros, Vinegar, Ghost Chili’s, salt, and Xanthan Gum…..Xanthan Gum? I don’t really ever see the need for gums and starches in hot sauce. You can usually get the texture and consistency you’re looking for by adjusting the puree and ratio. Anyway, the color is a deep red bordering on brown, with a good amount of seeds and black flecks from the roasted habaneros. The bottle shape is what I call the “flask” shape, which I typically don’t prefer because they take up more room in the fridge and on my wall o’ hot sauce.

One quick question before I crack it open. Wouldn’t the title “Satan’s Ghost” imply that Satan is/was mortal?  I mean, in order to become a ghost, you have to at some point die, right? My brain hurts. Let’s open the bottle.

The odor is that of a classic puree: mash and vinegar, and that’s it. The texture is relatively smooth for a puree, but is also thick like barbeque sauce. I find most sauces with this odor are chunkier, lighter in color, and inconsistent. A half a teaspoon on a baked Tostito gives me an immediate blast of vinegar which quickly gives way to charred pepper flavor which is soon joined by fresh pepper. These flavors hang on for a few beats but eventually give way to a mellow spreading heat. The type of heat is unmistakable. It’s the even, unrelenting, and consistent heat that can’t be achieved through the use of extract. There’s no one hot spot where the sauce hit my tongue, and there’s no spike of heat which hits hard and fades quickly. It’s the kind of heat I feel in my cheeks, across the back of my tongue, and down my throat to my stomach. Several minutes after my last sample and I am still warm. The heat is lingering so long I’ve begun to ponder what life would be like in a state of perpetual burn. I guess it would be a like an old friend who comes to visit and never leaves. You might have a great time for a few days, but eventually you want your house back.

My overall impression of this sauce is certainly positive. The smokiness from the charred peppers limits its’ versatility a bit, but the heat level is absolutely perfect for everyday use by the heat seeker. It’s hot enough to get the endorphins going, but mild enough to use liberally. The flavor is that of a standard puree, but the fire roasted peppers separate it from the crowd. A good ratio of salt and vinegar create a very well balanced and utilitarian sauce.

Heat: 4 Flavor: 4.5 Bottle: 3.5

© 2012, hotsauceaddict.com. All rights reserved.

For my first of what will hopefully be many reviews, I chose “Afterlife Ghost Pepper Sauce”. My entry into the foray of hot sauce reviews comes after a couple decades of igniting my tongue at virtually every meal and enjoying every minute of it. For sake of organization and efficiency, I keep three sauces open in my fridge at all times. No more, no less:

One “Table” sauce”- the red vinegary stuff the wife can put on her eggs and I don’t even taste. (I use this to wean my one year old boy.)
One “Newbie” sauce” – the sauce that my buddies like and think they’re cool eating but isn’t actually very hot. The wife will only try these after a couple glasses of wine.
One “Extreme” sauce – the sauce that only the bravest of guests try, I use on most meals, and the wife stays far, far away from.
Each of the sauces I review will fall into one of these categories as I attempt to describe the flavor, texture, pleasure, and pain I experience upon sampling them.

Afterlife has a medium to thin consistency with a smooth texture. There are small flecks of white which I assume are seeds or garlic and its’ color is a reddish orange. It smells of garlic and vinegar with little to no chili odor. If you eat enough hot sauce, you can tell by the smell how hot the sauce is going to be. I’m not getting the milk handy if that tells you anything..

The label depicts the Grimm Reaper wielding a scythe with a cayenne pepper as a blade, which is interesting considering it’s touted as a “Ghost pepper” sauce. It’s also interesting that this Ghost pepper sauce has five ingredients listed before the ghost pepper, and two of them are other peppers; Cayenne and Bird’s Eye. I guess Ghosts are scarier than Bird’s Eyes. Either way, this appears from first glance to be yet another sauce attempting to capitalize on the Bhut Jalokia craze that will hopefully begin to wane considering the several varieties of peppers that have surpassed the Jalokia on the scoville scale in the last year. There’s even a text box on the label describing how the Ghost Chili is 400 times hotter than the Tabasco, and telling you to “prepare to meet your maker”. Considering vinegar, salt and garlic are all listed before the Ghost; I think I’ll hold off on the preparation.

Ok, let’s taste it…..one teaspoon on a cracker

The first taste is of cumin and garlic, then vinegar and salt, then chili pepper. The elements are actually combined quite nicely. The spices, the acid, and the heat work together without overpowering one another. There is an immediate explosion of flavor from the vinegar, but it smoothes out quickly and relents as the mild wave of heat overlaps the initial zing. The sauce has enough heat that you should keep it away from the baby (or I should so my wife doesn’t kill me), but can be used liberally by any heat seeker.

Five minutes after my initial tasting I still have a little burn in the center of my tongue and a few beads of sweat have lingered on my brow… Actually, let me wipe that real quick….. Ok, I’m good.

This sauce definitely falls into the “Newbie” category from a heat standpoint, but the flavor and balance make Afterlife a successful and well rounded sauce.
I can see this sauce being used on just about any and everything. It would be a fine compliment to meats, pasta, Latin, and Italian cuisine.

If I had one complaint it would be the blatant (yet pervasive) advertisement of life altering and excruciating agony one will experience upon consumption. I just want one sauce to label itself as “pretty hot” or “kinda hot”. Is that too much to ask? All being said, and if my pet peeve will let me look past the label, I will definitely use this sauce again.

Heat: 3/5 Label: 3/5 (for the illustration quality) Flavor: 4.5

© 2012, hotsauceaddict.com. All rights reserved.

It’s the glorious weekend once again and I can’t find one single reason to complain about that!  Work is the farthest thing from my mind. This is the time of the week that my beautiful wife is compelled to make something awesome and tasty for the family dinner. The aromatic smell of a giant, marbled pot roast is wafting through out the house. My two little kids are actually trembling in anticipation as they look forward to the “all you can eat” homemade mashed potatoes and gravy that are in their not-so-distant future. Every time I enter the house from outside my stomach screams “I want it now!” and I am greeted by that smell, small bits of pepper and salt, brown gravy, meat that is so tender that one might consider eating this meal with a ladle or large spoon! Crisp green salad is always available, but for some reason I never seem to have room. My mouth waters in anticipation!

As I endure that wait, I find myself contemplating how I can contribute some heat to this meal.  It come to mind that I recently got a package from Volcanic Peppers.com and Timothy Bader, who is the owner-operator of that company, specializes in dried exotic chili powders. I jump up and grab a container of Volcano Dust for the mashed potatoes.  His products are consistent and hot! I have four different kinds that I use on a regular basis. His Bhut Jolokia Pepper dust shines through any meal with that fruity, searing flavor that us heat seeking chili heads love so much. So I place this innocent little “volcanic” jar by my plate.

Dessert is a huge part of my family’s life as well. Comfort food always makes me smile. Integrating pepper heat with desert sometimes makes people cringe. It’s kind of like the first time I ordered deep fried ice cream. I thought to myself, “This is going to be weird!” but it was awesome! Created in 1998, Crazy Uncle Jester’s makes some hot, spicy products for just this kind of application and others. So for those of you chili heads that want a spicy desert…DON’T QUIT READING YET!

Introducing…
Crazy Uncle Jester’s Afterburner Fudge Sauce
&
Make Me Cough Drops
X X X Hot Candy!

So I decided that we would have ice cream sundaes for dessert. So with the help of some very chilled mint ice cream, we set out on an endeavor to partake in the worlds hottest “HOT” fudge sundae. As I read the label, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw that the fudge sauce is rated “crazy” hot on their heat chart.  It’s loaded with Jalapeño and Habanero peppers! YUM!!!!! We heated up the jar a bit in the microwave and it poured out onto the mint ice cream very easily. It spread across like a blanket of warm gooey happiness.  After a generous application of whipped cream, came a sprinkling of the XXX hot Make Me Cough Drops. I tried a few of these by themselves and found to my surprise that they were very tasty and sweet. We immediately dubbed them “Chili Crack” because one little pinch wasn’t even enough and I just wanted more and more.  Overwhelmed with that desire to eat more and more, my brother-in-law and I found ourselves doing the funky chicken around the kitchen because the  candy just lit us up! Man it got hot! Good stuff. Great flavor. So of course the xxx hot candy had to go on top of the sundae.  It was a tasty combination! Between panting for air, gulping ice cream, and of course that distant thought of, “Oh my God, this is awesome but how hot can it get?”  we survived the world’s hottest sundae.

I went on to later try some more products by Crazy Uncle Jesters Sauce Company, and was very pleased. They have been in business for many years and are family operated. It all started with Jeff Stevenson sharing a batch of his homemade garden salsa with friends and then a few years later a company was born! They have won over 40 medals in international cooking competitions over the last few years! The website boasts of all sorts of products and they have won numerous awards. They also have great combination packs to choose from for those of us that can’t decide which one to buy. Their spicy hot mustard has also become one of my family’s favorites. For those of you that collect fancy Chili Reserves or collectable, they just made a limited signed and numbered batch that has a creative laser inscribed bottle called Terminal Psychosis. This comes in a waxed 5-ounce bottle and limited to 1000 bottles.

I would give his products definitely a 5 out of five. They create all sorts of different products for the chili head in mind. Their product label is AWESOME and scary like every chili product should be. It’s also very easy to recognize on the shelf. The prices are good and shipping is fair. It arrived extremely well packed. When I mentioned to them that I was missing an item, it was immediately shipped without question. Not only that but 10% of the income produced by this company is donated to worthy charities. I really look forward to trying more of their spicy products. They have hot sauces, dipping sauces, pepper jellies, dry rubs, desert sauces, and more! Check them out at www.crazyunclejester.com

So for now,
Keep it hot and keep it spicy!
Most of all,
Enjoy!

© 2012, hotsauceaddict.com. All rights reserved.