We were given this snazzy-looking bottle of BBQ sauce at the same time as the Baby Doll hot sauce, and it’s a good thing, too, since they share the same fantastic theme.

Ingredients: ketchup, brown sugar, water, vinegar, soy sauce, onion, Chuck Evans’ MONTEZUMA Brand Smokey Chipotle (R) pepper sauce, chile peppers, Red Savina (R) and chile habanero chile peppers, worcestershire sauce, natural smoke flavor

First impression: Dark, thick, and with a smoky-sweet aroma. I like my BBQ sauces on the thick side, and this one doesn’t disappoint. It poured from the bottle thicker than ketchup. Dark brown, almost black in color, this one has a definite aesthetic appeal to it. If you include the same ultra-hip label graphics as the Baby Doll sauce, you’ll enjoy seeing this one on your shelf for a bit right before you want to open & use it.

Taste: Before I even cooked with it, this sauce was already damn tasty. As a condiment and dipping sauce, this sauce set land-speed records for great taste. Like most BBQ sauces, it has a hint of sweetness…but the habanero in this one stands out. Not too hot, but with enough flavor so that you can also delight in the smokiness of the chipotle as well. For heat, we’d call this about a 6-7/10, which is pretty respectable for a BBQ sauce.

The strength of a BBQ sauce is generally how it performs in grilling/cooking, and not just how it does right out of the jar. We suspected that this sauce would do both well, but after the initial taste we went straight to the grill and let the sauce show us how good it could be.

We had two different ‘meats’ that we wanted to try this sauce with: shrimp and chicken. Snagging one of those Sam’s Club mega-packs of shrimp, we set out to turn about half of them into Taboo BBQ shrimp. Loading up our skewers for the grill, we took out a few stacks of these to our BBQ grill (yes, in 35-degree weather) to grill ‘em up. Here’s our grillin’ shrimp action:

A light coating of sauce per side was really all they needed. Done in less than 10 minutes, grilling doesn’t get much easier than this.

One of the main reasons we wanted to make these in this way is because BBQ and shrimp don’t get paired up all that often, but this taste might make us (and others) change our mind. The grilling really brings out the chipotle smokiness in the sauce, and each bite has just a hint of habanero flavor and heat. A delectable, yet addicting, flavor. One great thing was that you didn’t need to drown these in sauce for good flavor. A little went a long way.

The next step was some boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Now these don’t sit on the grill quite as long as whole chicken parts that might grill longer and at a lower temperature, so it’s really a matter of how a typical BBQ chicken might work as you grill the chicken until it’s almost done, then coat the chicken with sauce for long enough so that it doesn’t burn or caramelize the sauce. Another easy cooking idea, simply coat your nearly-done chicken breasts on both sides with BBQ and cook for a few extra minutes. As with the shrimp, the smoky flavor of the sauce tastes incredible after a short period of time on the grill. The chicken had more surface area for more sauce, and more was definitely better. The more BBQ sauce you taste, the more you appreciate the habanero elements within the sauce.

A closer look at the chicken. Yikes, my mouth is watering just looking at it…and it tastes better than it looks. Yummy!

Overall recommendation: For a household that doesn’t use a lot of BBQ sauce, we’ve put a serious dent in this bottle in a short period of time…which is our strongest indication of how much we like it. From a burger condiment to dipping sauce to grilling sauce extraordinaire, this medium-to-hot BBQ sauce is sure to please. Thick enough to cling to most stuff you grill and tasty enough for you to want it to stay there, try it on any meat you decide to char at home. Speculation ran rampant here that it could help make a meatloaf truly fit for a chilehead. No matter how you use it, you are not likely to be disappointed. Just try it for yourself and see. Enjoy!

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