Like some chileheads (this IS the correct spelling, despite what some may say) out there, there is seldom a substitute for good chicken wings when you’re in the mood for them. Sometimes you don’t even need a good excuse…football game, family get-togethers, Bar Mitzvahs, etc.

Needless to say, we’ve patronized Buffalo Wild Wings (BW3) for quite a while. They are a national chain, so it’s fairly easy to find a local wing-ery (yes, it’s a new word) near where you live. Since moving to Ohio a few months ago, we must have crossed some imaginary line where their wings went from being fairly decent to total suck-age. We usually don’t bitch & moan too much like this, but lately it’s been bad. One one recent visit, Joe picked up a take out order of wings for dinner…Wild for Joe and Medium for Linda. Don’t know how they managed it, but the Mild was hotter and better-tasting than the Wild. In fact, our 3 year-old could have eaten the so-called Wild wings. On another visit, we opted to get the Blazin’. Finally, some heat…but this one tasted like they had added extract to it.

WTF? Are there teams of monkeys working in their kitchens or what??!

That, plus the fact that they have occasionally “forgotten” to include parts of our order has sent BW3 to the bottom of our list for wings. Redemption will be slow in coming, since there are way too many places here in Columbus (dare we say Quaker Stake & Lube?) to try before giving BW3 a chance again.

Freedom of Choice. Devo had it right a long time ago.

We had a great foray into downtown Columbus yesterday which landed us right at the North Market in time for the end of the Farmer’s Market. We didn’t pick up any produce, but there’s far more interesting stuff inside anyway.

After enjoying some fine Vietnamese food for our afternoon repast, we wandered by Jeni’s Fresh Ice Creams for some dessert. Amidst various sweet flavors was one which stood out from the rest:

Thai Chile Ice Cream

If memory serves, the ingredients included peanut butter, toasted coconut, coconut milk, cream and cayenne pepper. We plopped some cash on the countertop and asked for a cone. The girl behind the counter asked,

Don’t you want to try it first?

Nah. If it has any spiciness to it at all, we’ll love it.

Okaaaayyyyy.

From the first lick, it was pure heaven. The cayenne was fairly subtle (without really any burn), and was offset just nicely by the peanut buttery taste. My only complaint was that it seemed to be melting faster than we could eat it.

Our nearly three year-old, who loves spicy food also, ate at least half of it himself.

If you want to make some of this yourself, or at least something vaguely like it, try:

Chile Ice Cream Recipe

Hey, it ain’t Rocky Road…but if you’re reading this here, you will probably like this better. We hope.

Brian Moon is definitely loco. In the world of hot sauce, a little insanity seems to do a world of good (see Dave’s Insanity if you don’t believe us) for the creative process. In a moment of lucidity, Brian signed the agreement through the folds of his straightjacket to send us some of his great hot sauces. For that, we are truly grateful. Thanks, Brian!!

We’re proud to feature Loco Luna Gourmet Foods, who offer yet another great set of hot sauces out of the Lone Star State. Brian Moon has established a foothold in the hot sauce biz with his Loco Luna hot sauces. We’ve seen the ads previously in Chile Pepper Magazine, so we were thrilled when Brian asked us to give his humble creations a run through our kitchen and palates. Here’s a few words from the crazy man himself….

Tell us a little about the moment that you just KNEW that the sauce you created was one that would be enjoyed by scores of adoring fans?

It was really an interesting process in arriving at the right “secret formula” (i.e. flavor and heat level) for Lava Gourmet Hot Sauce. From the beginning I realized that anyone could make a sauce with heat, but to be special we needed to have a delicious taste to go with it. Thus we set out with the goal of having a hot sauce with great flavor and satisfying heat. To get it right, I would play mad scientist, tweaking the flavors and spices along the way, and then try the new batch out on my family and friends. This went on for a while as I experimented. I felt confident that I had found the right combination when we had a pool party and made the latest version of Lava Hot Sauce available. The sauce disappeared very quickly with chips, hamburgers and BBQ and everyone started asking if they could get some to take home. Soon after that, some of their co-workers started calling to ask where they could buy Lava Sauce (some of the guests had taken a bit of the sauce to work the next week). These were hardcore chile heads as well as those with less of a tolerance for heat. I was pleased that we had come up with an original sauce that appeals to a wide variety of tastes from both a flavor and heat perspective. I was also pleased that the Lava Sauce didn’t melt through the containers I had it in!

When you were playing with your formula for what is now your Lava sauces, did you have a model you went by or was it all your invention?

The model I had to go by in formulating Lava Gourmet Hot sauce was my wife. Now that’s hot! Seriously, I have been something of a salsa chef at home for a long time, but hot sauce was a new arena. In addition to sampling a lot of different hot sauces, I did my research on the basics of hot sauce manufacturing. After doing my homework, it was really a matter of experimentation. I started with a basic recipe and added unique ingredients, experimented with preparation methods and techniques and eventually created a flavor profile that I was truly proud of. I figured if I could create a unique a taste with the perfect blend of heat that I was so good that I would crave it every day, I was on to something.

What has been the most challenging aspect of being in the hot sauce business? The most enjoyable?

The most challenging aspect to the hot sauce business has been not eating all of the inventory myself. Lava Sauce is just so good! Actually, I’ve also found it challenging to create a well known brand. Loco Luna Gourmet Foods is a new company. We came on the scene at Christmas of 2004 and in that time we have found successful retail placement with some wonderful stores like Grapevine Market, Central Markets and Market Street supermarkets. We also can be found in various spots in Florida, the Carolinas, Canada and specialty and gift shops in a number of cities in the south and southwest. This is a nice achievement for a small company in a short amount of time. This branding also includes a broad internet presence for distribution purposes. I’m always looking to increase distribution and I’d love to see more traffic and direct sales from www.locoluna.net. We have what I think is an exciting website with plenty of humor, great information, links and some interesting pictures of what I call ‘Lava Sauce on Tour’. This consists of sets of pictures of Lava Gourmet Hot Sauce in famous and not so famous locations around the world. Come visit us online today!

If someone asked you why they would like the LAVA sauces more than any others, what would you tell them?

In my experience, most hot sauces are in one of two varieties: abusively hot or flavored with little more than vinegar and chile powder. For me, neither of these is a recipe for a satisfying eating experience. There are some really good hot sauces out there, but I’ve found them to be in the minority given the huge number of choices available to the consumer. We aim to be different from the normal hot sauce by providing the perfect blend of great taste and satisfying heat. With that in mind, I believe that the best way to convince someone that they will like Lava Gourmet Hot Sauce more than others is simply to let them try it. When you look at Lava Sauce, you can see that it is richer than most, with flecks of fire roasted chiles and fresh herbs evident in the ‘meaty’ sauce. Then there is the taste. You first taste the subtle natural sweetness, then you will taste the flavors of fresh herbs and finally you will notice the heat! We’ve found that when people try Lava Gourmet Hot Sauce, they like it and they want more. Pretty soon the addiction is complete! I like to think that everyone from the most deranged hot sauce junkie to your ninety-eight-year-old grandmother can enjoy Lava Sauce’s surprisingly rich and complex character whether it is the mild, medium or hot Lava Sauce variety that you prefer. So why will people like Lava Gourmet Hot Sauce more than other hot sauces? Simple: the unique combination of great flavor and satisfying heat. Go with the flow!

We saw that plans are in place for an Extreme Lava hot sauce. Anything else that’s new on the drawing board there at Loco Luna?

Lava Gourmet Hot Sauce comes in three heat varieties currently: mild, medium and hot. We will be releasing the Extreme version before long. This is for those who really like it hot! It will have the same great flavor of Lava Sauce, but it is not for the faint of heart! Additionally, we are working on a new line of hot sauces that I think will be unlike anything out on the market currently. I’m pretty excited about this one. And finally, we have a snack item flavored with Lava Gourmet Hot Sauce that should be available for Christmas. If you’ve been to any of our tastings in Austin, then you will know what I’m talking about. We are always working on new ways to heat up your taste buds so visit us often online and ask for our products at your local stores!

So what’s in all this stuff? An Ingredient List!

Lava Mild, Lava Medium, and Lava Hot: habanero and other chili peppers, garlic, worcestershire sauce (water, vinegar, corn syrup, molasses, salt, hydrolyzed corn, soy, and wheat protein, chili pepper, caramel color, dehydrated onion and garlic, sugar, spices, anchovies, tamarind, natural flavors, sodium benzoate (a preservative)), cane juice, lime juice, salt, vinegar, tomato sauce (tomato puree(water, tomato paste), water, less than 2% salt, citric acid, spices, tomato fiber, natural flavor), and other herbs and spices.

Joe’s $0.02 Listen up…

Lava Mild: The bottle may say mild, but I thought this was a little spicier than the word “mild” might indicate. The key word for this sauce is “versatility.” It’s tasty and mild enough to use with a wide variety of foods. If I had my druthers, it would be a little thicker…but you simply can’t go wrong with its taste.

Lava Medium: After trying the Mild sauce, this one gave me the clue that the sauces got better with increasing heat level. This one worked well when mixed with a marinade for London Broil, although we nearly overcooked it out on the grill (fire, good…too much fire, bad). I liked it more than the Mild but less than the Hot, but don’t let that dissuade you. It’s still the first one of the three that I grab to try on or in food.

Lava Hot: Now this is more my speed, and makes me really look forward to the release of the Extreme Lava hot sauce. More habanero and less worcestershire makes this sauce delightfully and tastily good on many kinds of food, but I liked it best on meat…chicken, steak, ribs, ostrich, emu, whatever. Animal flesh, meet Lava sauce. Lava sauce, meet animal flesh. Bon appetit!

Linda’s $0.02 I’m brilliant…

Lava Mild: There is hardly any of this left. It’s just so multipurpose. I like all three sauces with red meat, but if any were to be appropriate for chicken, it would be this one. Also, this sauce seems to be great both in AND on stuff. The mild makes some great burgers when mixed in the meat.

Lava Medium: This is the first of the three I tried, and I tried it the next day after receiving it, though other sauces needed trying. I remember telling Joe that it was a bit spicier than medium, but had great flavor. I found this to be a great addition to soups, stews and chili. It was the perfect one to start with.

Lava Hot: Just like the medium, with great flavor, but hotter. It has the right combination of flavors, especially a nice balance of salt. This sauce is better on stuff than in stuff because the flavor almost gets lost. But, if you’re looking for the perfect burger sensation, use the mild in the meat mixture and the hot on top. Yuuuuummmmmy!

Don’t just take our word for it! Here are some online reviews of these sauces:

Hot Sauce Blog review

Give these reviewers a shout and ask them to review Loco Luna’s products as well.

Alien Zombie
Feeling Saucy
Sauce Rater
Hot Sauce Guide

Want to review Loco Luna’s products for yourself? Go here and leave your own opinion:

www.rateitall.com
www.thehotpepper.com/viewforum.php?f=3

Recipes

Honestly, we didn’t create any unique recipes with these sauces..at least not yet. If you have found a way to use these sauces in a cool new way (with food, people…get your mind out of the gutter), then give Brian a shour through www.locoluna.net.

Many people have the perception that the world of hot sauce is filled solely by the ones that dominate the grocery store shelves.

Names such as Tabasco, Frank’s Red Hot, Cholula, and Tapatio are ubiquitous (had to find a use for that word) in restaurants and food markets virtually worldwide. Many of these are combinations of a few types of peppers, vinegar, and salt. Nothing too extreme. To get an idea of what some of the basics of hot sauce are, see this article courtesy of www.wisegeek.com:

“Hot sauce” as a specific term refers to liquids used as food flavoring which are made using a chile pepper and vinegar. More generally, the term is used to refer to any flavoring for food that adds spice to the meal.

There are thousands of brands of hot sauce, made from a wide array of chiles, spanning a range of hotness. In recent years it has become trendy for companies specializing in hot sauce to advertise their product as virtually “too hot to eat,” playing on a desire by many to consume the hottest possible hot sauces.

The spiciness of a hot sauce is determined by the Scoville scale, measuring the levels of capsaicin, the chemical that lends chile peppers their hotness. This scale measures how many times an extract of the pepper must be diluted in sugar water before it is undetectable to a neutral taster. The pure chemical of capsaicin has a rating of 16,000,000, while sweet bell peppers are listed at zero.

Tabasco sauce is one of the world’s most popular hot sauces. It is a relatively mild hot sauce, with the original variety having a rating of 2,500-5,000 on the Scoville scale. Tabasco also puts out a number of other hot sauces, including a mild green version which has a rating of 600-1,200 Scovilles. Tabasco sauce has been produced since 1868, and has since become a world-wide phenomenon.

While the most popular hot sauces in North America are primarily of Mexican origin, including Cholula, Tabasco and Tapatio, a number of Asian hot sauces have a strong following. Thai peppers, the most common pepper in extremely spicy Asian hot sauces, have a Scoville rating of 50,000-100,000, or ten to twenty times that of Tabasco sauce. Even the spiciest of Tabasco sauces, made from habanero peppers, is only 7,000-8,000 on the Scoville scale.

Many people also use horseradish to add spiciness to dishes. Wasabi is the most popular hot sauce made from horseradish. While the active ingredient in wasabi is not capsaicin, as in chile-based hot sauces, the sensation is very similar in many ways. The heat can be very intense, and often localizes in the nasal cavities, but in general it fades much more quickly than the heat from chile peppers.

The flavors found in hot sauces vary as greatly as the spiciness, dependent on the variety of pepper used, but also influenced by how the peppers are prepared beforehand. A common example of this is the chipotle flavor found in many hot sauces, which is created by smoking the jalapeno peppers first. The addition of other vegetables, such as tomatoes or onions, also affects the flavor in hot sauces, and is a technique used in many Mexican salsas.

In the past ten years a large number of small manufacturers have begun producing extremely spicy hot sauces. Their names reflect their incredible heat. These hot sauces can range from the very spicy–90,000 Scovilles in one case–to far beyond what should be consumed in an undiluted form. One such sauce has a Scoville rating of over 7,000,000 or nearly one-half the strength of pure capsaicin. To put this in perspective, the defensive weapon, pepper spray, is made from capsaicin, with a common Scoville rating of about 2,000,000.

Commonly, the above-mentioned sauces leads one to discover that there is much more out there to try. This article by Dave DeWitt is one such journey:

Romancing The Sauce

Enjoy…and go out and eat some hot sauce!

Jewish cowboys and simian tushies, oh my! Ron Levi proved just what a mensch he is by sending some hot sauces to a couple of meshugganah hot sauce collectors like ourselves. We put ‘em to good use. Thanks, Ron!

Self-titled The Tastiest Place in Cyberspace, RoJo’s Gourmet Foods offers a wide selection of products to please the discerning hot & spicy palate. Included are hot sauce staples like Dave’s Gourmet and MyHotSauces.com and such yum-yums as the BBQ-ish goodness of Smokin’ Joe Jones BBQ Company. For our peek into Rojo’s world, we chose the Innuendo Enterprise’s offerings, Baboon Ass Brand Hot Sauces and Bucky Goldstien’s Hot Sauce…creations of half of the RoJo’s duo, being Ron Levi. Ron was kind enough to graces us with some info about the sauces we have been experimenting with for the past few weeks….

Are the products we’re featuring all your creation? If so, how involved are you with creation of these and other of your hot sauces & products?

The products you are featuring are my creations. I came up with the formula for Baboon Ass Brand Habanero Hot Sauce in 1998. I was working as a manager in the Tech industry. The hot sauce helped make the “roach coach” food more bearable. I made the mistake of sharing it with some people at work one day. From that day on I was commissioned to make hot sauce for the masses. It started slow, a case a month and I only charged for the bottles and ingredients. Once it got around the building I was no longer able to keep up with the demand. Rather than try to increase my batch size, I had no intention of doing this for profit, I just made the same amount every month on a first come basis. Once I went legit Bucky Goldstien’s Hot Sauce came around and eventually Baboon Ass Gone Rabid! Of all the items featured on rojosgourmet.com those are the one I make at Innuendo Enterprises LLC.

How important is it for you to use the Internet for promotion of your products? This includes overt advertising, discussion forums, etc.

About three years ago we started our website http://www.chile-heads.com. The web designer crapped out on us twice during the first two years and finally stopped working on it all together the third year. So there it sits in it’s unfinished state. We always felt that an Internet presence is needed to survive this high tech market place. Buyers are web savvy and you need to be there in some form. That’s where Rojo came in. We struck a deal where all of our items are featured on http://www.rojosgourmet.com and we provide fulfillment for those orders. This give us a significant web presence without competing with our wholesale clients, after all Innuendo Enterprises LLC is in the wholesale food business. We try to maintain a web presence by being involved with related forums and blogs on the net and regularly contribute to the forum at RoJo’s Gourmet Foods.

Have you ever Google’d yourself to see what comes up? Apparently, you are out there as a professional trumpet player, chef, and even a porn star. How do you manage to stay so busy?

I have Google’d myself. I gave up the trumpet, it made my lips go numb. The Chef is actually me. I used to own a few restaurants and got some press during that time. Porn star was the most lucrative of my career changes until I got sued for overcharging peoples credit cards on my websites. Once I paid them all back there was only enough money left to make hot sauce again. So here were are. It’s not glamorous but it is tasty. I think I am also a murder victim that was found on a beach somewhere. Ahh Google~

Are you working on anything new for your line of products? If so, what?

We have so many things going it’s amazing! Any day now our line of pasta sauce hits the stores. Two Goombaz Gourmet Italian Gravy is sweeping the area here with orders piling up quickly. It will be available in five flavors. Tony’s Basil & Garlic, Carmela’s Cacciatorra, Meadows Marinara, Paulie’s Puttanesca, and Silvio’s Siccilaina. Once those flavors are well seated in the market place we will release a few more flavors that are wine based. I am also working on a Wing Sauce, the most flavorful wing sauce you’ve ever tasted. There is a set of spices and dry rubs that come in a very unique packaging and some dip mixes that will be both spicy and savory. At Innuendo we are always working to bring new and creative products to the consumers. At any given time we have at least 10-15 items that we are developing. Items that customers have requested or that food trends guide us to develop.

So what’s in all this stuff? An Ingredient List!

Bucky Goldstien’s Hot Sauce: Water, Onion, Vinegar, Habanero Mash, Jalapeno Mash, Habanero Pepper, Red Savina Habanero Pepper, Carrot, Lime Juice, Tomato Paste, Garlic & Spices

Baboon Ass Habanero Hot Sauce: Water, Onion, Vinegar, Habanero Mash, Jalapeno Mash, Habanero Pepper, Fresno Pepper, Red Savina Habanero Pepper, Carrot, Lime Juice, Tomato Paste, Garlic & Spices

Baboon Ass Gone Rabid Hot Sauce: Water, Onion, Vinegar, Habanero Mash, Jalapeno Mash, Habanero Pepper, Red Pepper, Red Savina Habanero Pepper, Carrot, Lime Juice, Tomato Paste, Garlic & Spices, Chile Extract

Joe’s $0.02 Listen up…

Bucky Goldstien’s Hot Sauce: All hail the habanero, slayer of tastebuds worldwide! I was initially expecting the mix of habaneros and Red Savinas to really lay a hurtin’ on my palate, but the taste is outstanding. It seems a little thicker than the Baboon Ass sauces, so it won’t drip off your food as readily. The taste of the peppers themselves make this quite an addicting sauce, which I can’t seem to stop looking for ways to work this into different foods here in the house. Tasty!

Baboon Ass Habanero Hot Sauce: I adore this sauce, if only because it uses fresno peppers, which you hardly ever see listed as an ingredient in hot sauce. It has a certain green taste to it, one that I find adds versatility to this sauce compared to others which are equally as hot. My best experience was adding this liberally to a little marinara sauce. Pasta never tasted so good.

Baboon Ass Gone Rabid Hot Sauce: It’s funny, but only word sets this sauce apart from its less spicy sister sauce: chile extract. Yowza! For those of you who like it hot, blistering spicy-hot, this sauce is for you. You can taste the yumminess of the underlying Baboon Ass sauce briefly before the sweat really begins to pour off your skull. A little dab goes along way, so add this to your home batches of chili with care. Hot!

Linda’s $0.02 I’m brilliant…

Bucky Goldstien’s Hot Sauce: If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, I LOVE sauces that are thick! It’s the stick factor. I always think they taste better and certainly fresher than their counterparts. This sauce is no exception. And, while there’s a lot of heat to be had, there is no loss of taste. Again, the thickness allows you taste the individual ingredients and savor each one.

Baboon Ass Habanero Hot Sauce: While being a little less thick, this sauce is certainly big on flavor but with more tang. I think it would be excellent on or in egg dishes of all sorts. It just has the capacity to offer a bit more acidity to things that need it.

Baboon Ass Gone Rabid Hot Sauce: I have to be honest, I’m very pregnant and just couldn’t bring myself to try this at this time. I’m sure it’s wonderful and I’ll stand by everything Joe had to say about it…but there just aren’t enough Tums to get me through that right now.

Don’t just take our word for it! Here are some online reviews of these sauces:

Feeling Saucy
Hot Sauce Blog

Give these reviewers a shout and ask them to review RoJo’s Gourmet Foods’ products as well.

Alien Zombie
Saucerater

Want to review RoJo’s Gourmet Foods’ products for yourself? Go here and leave your own opinion:

www.rateitall.com/t-1125-hot-sauces.aspx
TheHotPepper.com forums

Recipes

Ron has a select few recipes listed on their website, which you may find HERE. Enjoy!

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