Ass Kickin' Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce

I just started growing Carolina Reaper and Ghost Pepper plants so my tastes have sided in that direction as of late. This next sample is no exception to this trend. I bring you the Ass Kickin' Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce. This is brought to our taste organs by Southwest Specialty Foods out of Goodyear, Arizona. They grow their own hot peppers for use in their products, which include the very obvious hot sauces, a few chili mixes, hot and spicy snacks, and a product line that interests me greatly: ready-to-grow hot pepper plants.
The label is very lighthearted. It consists primarily of an illustration of a donkey kicking its hind legs up with gap teeth in its maw and a sour expression on its face. It's in the middle of a desert and features a proclamation of "Kick Yo' Ass Hot!" below our donkey friend. Enjoyably it has a scythe resting behind the word "Carolina". The illustration style is cartoon-ish in style and remind me of drawings found in satire illustrated publications.
The consistency is actually pretty thick. To the point that, while the bottle includes a drip spout, I wonder it's true necessity as the sauce is robust in texture enough that said spout provides an obstacle in retrieving the contents from the bottle. The sediment upon pour adhering the the inside of the bottle is significant and, as usual, gives me positive inklings that the sauce is not liquefied to the point of losing flavor complexity.
The taste is not as layered as I would have hoped. I pick up my garlic  lurking in the front and, looking at the ingredients list, the makers of this included the term "fresh garlic" to assure us that it wasn't processed too heavily in the production of our discussion today. Also, the list assures me that salt and carrots are in this but I really don't pick up their flavors. Upon reflection, I can indeed taste a hint of carrot but it's quite faint.
This is a very hot sauce, giving credence to it containing Carolina Reapers. It hits the center of the tongue upon initial taste and it produces a relentless burn. The sear lasted an unusually (and painfully) long time and had to be quenched with water. And be assured that this is not a creeping heat. Rather it is an immediate assault to the tongue and mouth (and, yes, lips too). This actually burned the roof of my mouth! Formidable and "Kick Yo' Ass Hot" indeed.
While the heat of this condiment is impressive, the lack of any real and tangible flavor doesn't usher the bottle to the front of the class. Still, with the fire level in our friend Ass Kickin' Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce you might be remiss to not at least have it lying around. Also, with the price of $9.95, one might be persuaded to at least have it hanging around for the sake of conversation.

Tropical Pepper Company Ghost Pepper Sauce

This week's hot sauce that I'll be diving into is called Ghost Pepper Naga Jolakia Hot Sauce by Tropical Pepper Company. Their website doesn't appear to have any contect but a "Contact Us" link and a background so I'll include their a link to their Facebook page here. According to that they have a comprehensive line of sauces, coconut milk, and seasonings. They don't appear to have their products on their page but I include some of their fare distributed by Amazon.com here.
The label is cute. Their normal logo is an illustration of a toucan holding peppers in its beak. In this iteration, the toucan and peppers are present but the toucan is a skeleton. There is a warning on the bottom left side of the label stating "Caution: extremely hot" as well as a pepper level marker ranging from "mild' to "deadly", the latter of which the sauce purports itself to be. Elsewhere another warning claims that "this sauce will haunt your dreams". We shall see how accurate these foreboding words are.
The pour is fairly thick and slow. A perusal of the ingredients list confirms a suspicion I had that there were thickening agents present (corn starch and xanthan gun). This isn't a bad thing at all to me as I like my sauces to be thick and pour slowly. The color is pleasing as well, presenting as a fairly rich orange-red. There isn't a noticeable amount of sediment at play.
The flavor is not bad at all but with a distinct lack of complexity. Quite a bit of salt is present, possibly too much for my palate, but healthy amounts of garlic greets my tongue as well. The sauce finishes with a very slight metallic taste but this is quite faint. The takeaway is that it's not going to be a bastion of flavor in my collection.
I have to say here that, for once, stark claims of super heat are justified in this sauce. It hits the center of the tongue like lava and lingers for a long time. It bit the back of my throat like a predatory insect that had me scrambling for the water bottle. Tears were shed. The lip burn is also intense with a comparable temporal stay to the initial roasting. I burst into sweat at initial tasting and it only got worse as I layered my mouth with additional samples.
Ghost Pepper Naga Jolakia Hot Sauce may not be a flavor dynamo but it offers a substantial scorch for you fire-chasers out there. Plus, for $6.41, it's kind of hard to pass up for your collection. I am left to wonder where the real online presence of Tropical Pepper Company is, though.

Time's Up Mustard Blend Reaper Hot Sauce

Today brings us to a round 2 tasting of The Pepper Palace's fare. This time, their own creation: Time's Up Mustard Blend Reaper Hot Sauce! Being that the Carolina Reaper is currently the hottest pepper in the world (until Pepper X has been around long enough to get Scoville rated), I expect hot hot things from Time's Up,
While Pepper Palace has stores all over the US and in Canada, this one was given to me as a gift from Dr. Aerin Welch. During a trip with her fiancee, they visited the Pepper Palace's brick and mortar store in New Orleans, LA. She brought back some sauces for me, this one included, and I can't thank her enough. Thank you little sister and congratulations again for earning your PhD!
I dig the label. It has a stylized illustration of death (get it? Grim Reaper?) with scythe in hand. Surrounding the drawing of death is the depiction of a Roman numeral-framed clock to complete the pun. The first thing I noticed, though, was the muted colors of fill next to death. A nice yellow, dull on one side blending into a slightly sharper yellow on the other. This is probably made more complementary with the yellow color of the sauce. Even the red of the flames and letters is a subordinate color.
The pour is quite rapid so apply slowly and with caution. There is no drip spout on this one either, like the Pepper Palace sauce last week. The sediment is nice and noticeable upon swirl and pour. While the consistency is thinner, is still has more visual body than your Louisiana-style sauce.
The flavor is surprisingly nice. I say this because I'm not usually a mustard fan. In this case, however, the mustard adds a richness without the normal acidity of tomato. The garlic is up front and present, though I was surprised to see garlic powder rather than fresh garlic upon examining the ingredient list. There is salt in the condiment but it's not, thankfully, overpowering. At the end of the day I'd describe the flavor as rich yet fresh.
The heat is quite stark and immediate. It hits, quite literally, wherever the liquid touches. What makes it even more severe is that it spreads very rapidly and lingers for an exceptionally long period of time. The lip burn is quite noticeable too and lingers for a similar period as the mouth burn. Also a warning: the back of the throat fire is fairly instant and severe. It took my by surprise and had me reaching for the water bottle. This takes a title in the royalty of my hottest sauces.
With another high price tag of $17.95, this may seem outside of reason to purchase. However the balance of flavor and head-of-the-class heat, I suggest this to any chili-head out there. Also, like last week, this is a small-batch and hand-crafted sauce. I like to support those that make quality products for folks like us. I hope that you do too.

Jean Lafitte Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce

My lovely sister Dr. Aerin Welch gave me the wonderful gift of a couple of craft hot sauces on a recent visit to her abode in Indiana! She had picked them up from a hot sauce shop called Pepper Palace in New Orleans, LA. I was later to find out that said shop has over 30 retail locations as well as a strong online presence. I am slightly disappointed in myself that I hadn't stumbled upon them before.
In 1989 Pepper Palace began as a kiosk in a mall in Wisconsin. After moving to Gatlinburg, Tennessee they began expanding, first in South Carolina ans eventually onto many other US locations and even one in Canada! In 2010 they opened a commercial kitchen and began producing their own hot sauces. They now offer a wide array of products such as salsa, seasonings and rubs, and BBQ and wings sauces.
The label shows a well done illustration of the pirate Jean Lafitte. A silhouette of a pirate ship in the background is a nice touch. As well, the skull and crossbones on the lower side of the label is a cute addition too. The background colors are a muted yellow and green. I found that an interesting contrast to to contents of the bottle.
The pour is surprisingly slow as the consistency is not super thick. I must warn you that this bottle doesn't come with a drip spout so it's quite possible to accidentally over pour. Some sediment is visible upon swirling the sauce in the bottle but there is not a considerable amount of it. More of it is visible upon pour indicating, to me at least, that the ingredients were more finely blended.
The taste is bright. I tasted citrus and, upon looking at the ingredient list, found that this was due to the inclusion of lemon in the mix. My beloved garlic is very present here as well as vinegar. The vinegar is not applied too thoroughly as to distract from the overall taste however. There is a salt flavor present but it, like the vinegar, is not overpowering.
This has a very substantial bite to it. The heat is enough to make my nose immediately start running slightly and it seared the roof of my mouth. This was an interesting effect that I've not experienced much in sauce tasting. The lip burn is quite present upon multiple tastings and the serious tongue blaze was more focused in the back of my lip smacker.
This sauce is a definite keeper. The serious heat paired with the attention given to making a flavorful product meet to produce a satisfying hot sauce. At $16.95 this may seem a high price to pay but this is a small batch condiment with some obvious love and care put in it. It should be noted that, at the time of this writing, the Jean Lafitte Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce was out of stock from the site. It assures us that this status is temporary so check back and take the leap folks!

Paddy O's Potion

 

Greetings! With the onset of blessedly warmer weather of the Spring season, I thought that it was time to go down a more refreshing hot sauce route. That brought me to Paddy O's Potion.I actually just ran into it during my online sweep of hot sauces that we had not tried. I didn't realize that it was one of the sauces used on the newer episodes of Hot Ones by First We Feast, a favorite show of mine (I embarrassingly admit that I had not caught up on the show at the time of purchase. As of this writing, I have).
This hot sauce was invented by Patrick O'Shea, once the singer for the band SOJA, who started making his own hot sauce while on break from tour. The sauce quickly became popular with other touring musicians as he brought some of his new creation on the road with himself and the band. The sauce was then passed around to other musicians and touring artists and began to pick up a following. Patrick decided to professionally bottle his sauce, which had previously been hand bottled and labeled, to meet said demand. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The label, while not offensive, is a bit busy. Ingredients, the name of the creation, the logo, and a small illustration assuring us that the product is "The perfect balance of heat and flavor. The logo itself is nice, as a simplistic approximation of a beaker with bubble coming from its liquid contents, all crowd the label. As whole I'd have to say that the bottle does not appeal to me. It should be noted that in all of this the bottle proclaims the sauce to be gluten free.
The color is rather towards the orange side of the color scale. This shouldn't be surprising as, according to the busy label that I alluded to, it contains grapefruit and carrots. It is pleasantly full of sediment that clings to the inner bottle upon pouring or swirling its contents. I think that the general appearance of the sauce fits into my spring explorations nicely.
The pour is a fast one. The drip spout on this one is the standard one which necessitates a shake-pour method of extracting the prize hot sauce. As a thinner sauce I wouldn't normally like it but the heavy ingredient sediment warms me to it (no pun intended). As with all shake-pour sauces, use care when applying the condiment.
The flavor is one that I'll just call zesty. It lights up the mouth with sweetness, but not of the saccharine kind. More of an earthy sweetness that definitely comes from the interplay of grapefruit, carrots, and tomatoes. As you might infer from the previous sentence, the taste is layered and, while not too complex, full.
The heat surprised me. At first it was minimal at best and I poured it directly into my mouth. the one thing I noted there was that the burn sneaked its way into my nasal passages causing me quite a start. My mouth didn't burn but my sinuses tingled! After repeated tastings the lip burn became palpable and the tongue hotness, mostly located on the front, lasted a suprising length of time.
Overall, I am pleased with the sauce. It balances a natural sweetness with a pepper richness while delivering, in its own unique way, the heat. It should be said that http://potionsauce.com does not sell the sauce directly. The site suggests purchasing from Amazon (which I did) or Heatonist. Either way, get some and come enjoy the Spring!