Evil Cowboy Smokin Ghost

I want to take a look at a sauce I ran across in my online hot sauce explorations. This one is called Smokin Ghost Hot Sauce by Evil Cowboy Hot Sauce. This company is out of Richardson, TX and is a tribute to the sauces the current proprietor's grandfather used to make. They carry their own hot sauces, dipping salsas, and even some queso blanco!
The color did not much to impress me as it appears kind of a murky red-yellow. Although I wasn't entranced by the color, the skull in the cowboy hat appearing on the label made me smirk a bit. Nothing too creative but kind of gets the point across. The simulation of burning wood that borders the bottom of the label is kind of cute too.
In the matter of consistency, this sauce is thin, but I wouldn't call it runny. It seems uniform in mix so that the edge of a pour doesn't seem watery while the main liquid body is more full of tasty ingredients like some sauces I could name. A note on the pour: it leaves some sediment on the glass of the bottle after the pour. Not a negative thing at all. In fact, I like a bit of sediment as it suggests many ingredients that aren't pulverized into standardized liquid.
The taste is surprisingly complex. It has a savory quality that is cut by what tastes like a bit of ocean. Upon looking at the ingredient list, this was explained by the presence of anchovies. There is also a rich tang toward the end of tasting. Pleasant and not jarring. The garlic is palpable which, if I hadn't made clear before, I like a great deal. It also lives up to part of its name with a hint of smoke in the pepper.
If you're looking for the hottest thing in the sauce market, this isn't your guy. There is a bit of residual lip burn after tasting as well as an initial heat in the middle of the tongue. However, this isn't an exceptional hotness.
While the heat may not be as intense as some would like it to be, I think that this sauce has a complex and very flavorful taste profile. I think that this would be a great addition to hamburgers, oddly enough. At $6 + shipping for a 5 ounce bottle, this might be a good investment if you're an avid cook like myself.

Yellowbird Sauce Habanero Condiment

I discovered a sauce via my internet travels that goes by the name of Habanero Condiment made by Yellow Bird Sauce, a company from Texas, that piqued my interest based on public discussion as well as a reasonable price of purchase. This bottle cost me about $8.00 for 19.6 ounces which, considering price of product per ounce, is quite affordable.
The first thing the caught my attention about the sauce once I got it home was the color. While everyone has seen the yellow and orange hot sauces, it doesn't really fit in with that category of those sauces the way I conceive of them. I imagine orange sauces to be more of a lighter red pepper fruit sauce and yellow sauces to have more of a mustard context. Both in flavor and in consistency, this sauce threw me for a loop, but more on those factors later.
The consistency of this hot sauce was much thinner than I had initially predicted. While thicker than, say, a Louisiana red, it was not as heavy as I thought it would be before I put it on my taco, the initial testing vector. While this was mildly disappointing, it made up for it in the addition in contributed to the flavor profile of the dish.
The flavor of the hot sauce is probably my least favorite part of this offering. It is far more one dimensional than I generally prefer in this type of thing. It definitely tastes of citrus, which is a nice departure from the richer sauces that I generally consume. While starting with this leads to a nice and refreshing tang on the tongue, it doesn't really grow on the palate after that. With that said, a richer dish, like tacos, having complex layera of flavors (if done right) is a perfect landing pad for Habanero Condiment. Other potential good uses would be in stews or on a sandwich (one with vegetables and cheese, preferably).
Of course flavor leads to a discussion of heat. The heat found here shocked me. It is surprisingly and genuinely hot! Not a growing heat, mind you, but a heat that hits you immediately and lingers for a good length of time. This heat hit more towards the middle and sides of my tongue, with no real lip burn, even after repeated sampling. No matter where the heat is located, it is a definite and strong heat without being a seemingly pointless and macho heat.
As a take away, the sauce is fine but I wouldn't give it super high marks. I feel as if it had every opportunity to impress me considering the neat experimentation of color and ingredients. At the end of the day, however, I don't think that I'll be leaning on this one heavily in cooking or dipping usage.