Technical Difficulties

Apologies in advance, all. I wrote a review this week but it's appearing incorrectly when I publish it. I'll try to tinker with it to resolve the issues and will post on social media when they are.

Fresco Sauce Chipotle & Habanero Hot Sauce

Hello again chiliheads! I hope that everyone is well and making it through the doldrums of winter. I myself am counting the minutes until some respite from the cold and dreariness. Perhaps we can all warm ourselves in the interim with some delicious hot sauce. To ring in that hope, lets look at another addition to our ever-growing archives, shall we?
I want to examine the Chipotle & Habanero Hot Sauce by the kind folks at Fresco Sauce today. Fresco Sauce evidently started out by making a sauce to be served alongside dishes at the restaurant Rosemary Grill in 2012. This was with their seminal hot sauce but the company started bottling that sauce and some new ones (including the Chipotle & Habanero Hot Sauce) in 2018 due to customer demand.
The label is simple but one I find appealing. I like the cursive-like quality of the company name as well as the color scheme. I also really enjoy the cubist portrayal of a hot sauce bottle with a drop escaping from the mouth. The sauce color is interesting in that it isn't quite yellow and isn't quite orange but some offspring of the two. It's also dotted with black pepper flakes (presumably). I approve of the initial visual impression given to me.
The pour surprised me somewhat: a relatively slow and controlled pour. This is due to its fairly thick consistency. I thought that it might be a thinner sauce due to it's color (a developed assumption that is obviously unwarranted). It was a pleasant revelation.
The taste is not terribly complex, though by no means unpleasant. The generous amount of garlic comes through as well as a nice pepper flavor, but not a lot past this. It's nice and the addition of carrots to the mix does add a certain undefinable something, but nothing to rent a billboard about. I think it might benefit for the addition of a little more salt.
The heat crept up on me. At first I was disappointed in the apparent lack of burn but, upon further tasting, I discovered that a decent heat is actually present. It hits the tip of the tongue first and provides a pleasant sear there and as it travels to the back of the tongue/entrance to the throat it creates a hot tingling. Also, upon said repeated tastings, expect a lip burn to catch up with you.
Though not a particularly intricate taste, it's still pleasant with a good amount of heat packed within. The $5.99 price tag reveals not a bad deal at all. Plus I like supporting our independent hot sauce-making friends out there and showing a little solidarity. Happy tastings all and I'll see you next week!

Tabanero Extra Hot Hot Sauce

Happy Valentine's Day all! I hope that you're keeping warm today, whether it be via special someone or a special spicy condiment that I know you share my passion for. I know that this day isn't up everyone's alley but even if it is not, I hope that you're enjoying today.
I want to run Tabanero Extra Hot Hot Sauce through its paces (known simply as Tabanero from here on). Made by Tabanero company,  it's a nice sauce to have on standby for many uses. They state on their site in the Vision section that they seek to provide a sauce that's a more pleasurable and sensational option rather than one that's just hot for the sake of hotness. On another note, this evidently is the official hot sauce of AMC's The Walking Dead.
The label is nothing to mark a red letter day in one's calendar about. Simple rather than particularly memorable, it is to the point. I like the unobtrusive royalty hat logo but I could leave the font reading "Flavor & Fire" at the door. The color of the sauce is a little too pale for my tastes. It almost resembles a dark yellow or light orange, leaving an almost sickly impression.
 The consistency is fairly runny but, coupled with the dripper insert included on the bottle, the pour is quite controllable if one uses a shake pour or a bottom tap pour. Also it contains sediment from the ingredients forming the makeup of the contents. Bits of (presumably) seed and pepper flakes can be discerned within.
The flavor of the sauce is quite well done. The garlic is plentiful and enough to add depth without evoking a tiresome amount of richness, leading to a fresher taste. There are subtle fruit notes present with an emphasis on citrus. I also detected a bit of salt; it's not too much but rather acts as an enhancer.
The heat took me by surprise a bit. They may not have intended to make it hot for heat's sake but it does pack somewhat of a punch. It may not seem so upon first entering the palette but as it travels across the tongue, it begins to act. It has more of a back and sides of the tongue burn, the back burn jolting me a bit. This fire will grow considerably upon repeated tastings and for me led to a fairly substantial lip tingle. This isn't a "burn the house down" heat but it's not something to underestimate either.
This sauce will go well as an enhancer to existing heat while adding a well rounded flavor to a dish or snack. I plan on adding just a taste to some vindaloo I made for dinner. For the affordability factor, this works well. At the time of this writing, a 5 ounce bottle is running at $5.99 (on sale from $6.99). This sauce will be a decent yet not 100% necessary, addition to anyone's collection.

The Pepper Plant

I picked up a hot sauce last week called The Pepper Plant Hot Pepper Sauce by Blossom Valley Foods. For full transparency, I got my tax refund back and spent a kind of obscene amount of money on sauces. The good news for you, friend of this review site, is that I should be fairly dependable on my posting of reviews for the next month or so.
The label has a drawing that I can call "quaint". It's a fairly simple drawing of a presumably Latinx couple near a cauldron. The cauldron is steaming and one of the two people is adding ingredients or stirring, I can't really tell which. The color immediately grabbed my attention in a positive way. It is a bold maroon hinting at tomato or just a red pepper mix.
The consistency is really nice. A good and thick pour without being hard to get out of the bottle's spout. A dripper insert isn't really needed, but be careful not to pour too recklessly. It's a nice rich red that is dotted with bits of ingredients. As I've mentioned before, I have a soft spot for sauces with bit of their makeup visible.
The taste may be one of my favorites in my sauce exploration thus far! It's rich and hearty. It also has a good bit of garlic added to it. I can tell that onion was placed into the mix liberally but without the effect of overpowering the concoction. Jalapenos are obvious to me as the main pepper in this but upon looking at the ingredient list I saw no tomato, leading me to assume that other peppers of the red variety are included.
While this sauce may taste amazingly, the heat may disappoint. In fact, I had to sample it a few times to even really find the heat. With that said, it does build up upon repeated samplings, leaving a tingle on the side of the tongue, but no real lip burn.
I plan on using this sauce pretty extensively in my cooking for its flavor. I predict that it will go well with eggs (I like mine scrambled) and as a condiment on burgers. I'm a little hesitant to put it on tacos as I like to turn up the heat with tacos. At just over $8 on Amazon I think that this was a good purchase for taste experimentation alone. Also, I tried it on tortilla chips and that was a very pleasurable snack!