I got a surprise care package in from our body Lars at Csigi. Contained within was two of his newest product. Today, I’ll be reviewing his Honey Habanero Barbecue Sauce.

Ingredients: tomato puree, tomato paste, unsulphered black strap molasses, vinegar, honey, onions, extra virgin olive oil, light brown sugar, spices, extra coarse sea salt, Habanero chilies, coarse black pepper.

Reading directly off his ingredients list makes my heart flutter with anticipation. Not only does he not use sulphers (which I have an allergy to), but also there’s no artificial colors or corn syrup. Just all natural ingredients, something so rare now a days.

Opening up the bottle I find that this one’s thick. I mean super thick. I wasn’t really surprised after all, with the top three ingredients being tomato puree, tomato paste, AND molasses. Throw the honey on top of all those and you get yourself a sauce that’s guaranteed to stick to whatever you slather it on.

The taste directly out of the bottle is very tomatoey mixed with a big burst of sweet ad topping off with a nice bite of black pepper. There is a slight hint of the fruity Habanero taste but that’s played down a bit by the sweetness of the various sugars involved. A nice bonus is that the olive oil doesn’t leave you with that slick, film coating on your tongue that I so passionately complain about in most other sauces.

Since this is a barbecue sauce, I went out and bought some Buffalo tri-tip for the official taste test. On a side note for the grillers out there, always cook your Buffalo rare to medium. Any more and you loose the beautiful, elegant taste that Buffalo gives you.

After banging the bottle on the cutting board for a few minutes, I finally got some of the sauce to splooch out of the bottle. Did I mention this sauce is thick? I thoroughly coated the meat and threw it on the grill (searing both sides before leaving it to the fire). A little bit later it was done and boy was it good! All the flavors blend so well and the sweet factor jumped up by a factor of 2. The whole sauce basically caramelized and seeped into the meat a bit making the tri-tip even more supple that it was before.

I’m a little disappointed by the heat though. I understand it’s a gourmet sauce and isn’t supposed to blow the top of your head off but I barely got a tingle from the Habaneros. Other than that small little nit pick, this is just phenomenal. So good, the whole family will want to know your secret. You get a gold star, Lars!

Taste: 9, Heat: 1.4

Popularity: 27% [?]

There are chileheads and there are those we call the haters. This literate gastronomically-challenged dunderhead wrote the following article for the South Bend Tribune about his opinion of some of the hot sauce world we all know and love. Maybe some ought to smack him upside the ass with a bottle of “Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally“….

Spice is nice, but too hot is not

TIM CARRIGAN

Whenever I’ve traveled, I’ve noticed there is always a convenience store or liquor store with a wall of different hot sauces.

Not that I spend most of my time in liquor stores when I’m on vacation, but I do seem to find myself in one now and again.

I am always drawn to the hot sauce display because it has some of the most disgusting names imaginable: Everything from TNT to Vicious Viper to, one of my favorites, Heine Hurtin’ Hot Sauce and Jelly.

These are just a few of the thousands of different kinds I have seen. Most of them have a really sexual name or a disturbing visual that I cannot mention here. Nevertheless, they make me laugh.

Click here to read the rest of the source article from the South Bend Tribune

Popularity: 28% [?]

Our buddy Ron Levi, of Innuendo Foods, sent us a little note to let us know of some goings on with him…not to mention the fact that RoJo’s Gourmet will be coming out with a new website soon as well:

How do you celebrate your birthday? Some of us will throw a party, or be the victim of a surprise party. Some will go out for a nice meal with friends, and others simply take the day off work and do nothing.

Innuendo Enterprises LLC is celebrating their seventh anniversary by sporting some new duds on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go to Ron’s blog to read the rest of the story!

Popularity: 32% [?]

Well, the results are in! See the winners from this most recent edition of the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival for 2007:

17th Annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Contest Winners

Restaurant Category
Red Sauce
1st Place — Sazon
2nd Place — Curra’s
3rd Place — Rio Grande

Green Sauce
1st Place — El Rincon
2nd Place –The Gage Hotel (Marathon, TX)
3rd Place — Curra’s

Special Variety
1st Place — Curra’s
2nd Place — Serrano’s
3rd Place — El Rey Mexican Food

Individual Category
Red Sauce
1st Place — Logan Kunitz
2nd Place — Paul Peterson (Alpine, TX)
3rd Place — Jaime Simon (Pflugerville)

Green Sauce
1st Place — Ted Valmassei (Round Rock)
2nd Place — Arty Passes
3rd Place — Barry Hoelscher

Special Variety
1st Place — John W. Purser (Round Rock)
2nd Place — Kevar Hedtke
3rd Place — Jason & Angie Volk

Pico de Gallo
1st Place — Kala Uprety
2nd Place — Valery Caselli-Dubov
3rd Place — Scott Willis

Commercial Bottler’s People’s Choice
Red Sauce
1st Place — Texapenos Gourmet Red
2nd Place — Two Hot Mamas Mambo Combo
3rd Place — Classy Delites Aztec Salsa

Green Sauce
1st Place — Two Hot Mamas Roasted Almond Chimichurri Mint
2nd Place — Classy Delites Pistachio Roasted Pepper Dip
3rd Place — Taco Deli Verde Salsa

Special Variety
1st Place — Two Hot Mamas Creamy Cilantro Salsa Dip
2nd Place — Classy Delites Chunky Pineapple Dip
3rd Place — Texapenos Orange Flame

Pepper Sauce
1st Place — Aztexan Habanero Supreme
2nd Place — Two Hot Mamas Amaretto Pepper Sauce
3rd Place — Winston’s Hot Pepper Sauce

Commercial Bottler’s - JUDGED by celebrity judges
Red Sauce
1st Place — Rancho Bravo Salsa Picante
2nd Place — El Gringo Loco - Hot
3rd Place — ———

Green Sauce
1st Place — Two Hot Mamas Roasted Almond Chimichurri Mint
2nd Place — Austin Slow Burn
3rd Place — ———

Special Variety
1st Place — Vern’s Raspberry Chipotle Jelly
2nd Place — Vern’s Habanero Jelly
3rd Place — Dig Dawg Salsa Chunkin’ The Device Hot Sauce

Pepper Sauce
1st Place — Big Daddy’s Ass Burn Hot Sauce
2nd Place — Texapenos Red Flame
3rd Place — Sgt. Pepper’s Tejas Tears

Kudos especially to Hot Zone faves such as Big Dawg Salsa, Two Hot Mamas, and Big Daddy’s Ass Burn!

Popularity: 35% [?]

After a bit of a hiatus, we return to our Featured Product cybercolumn with our focus set upon Scorpion Bay Hot Sauce. We were contacted by Rob Burns, who is the president, CEO, and grand poobah of Scorpion Bay Hot Sauces and was asked to give his sauces a try. After seeing the products in person and tasting them for ourselves, we thought that he & Scorpion Bay would be good to focus a little more attention upon so we could find out more about Rob and his outstanding products.

The three sauces we tried are listed below for their component parts:

Chocopotle: tomatoes, water, apple cider vinegar, jalapeno peppers, chipotle chiles, red onions, brown sugar, serrano peppers, cocoa powder, garlic, kosher salt, canola oil, mexican oregano, orange juice, lime juice, xanthan gum, spices

Hotacado: tomatillos, jalapeno peppers, water, avocado, serrano peppers, apple cider vinegar, garlic, cilantro, kosher salt, orange juice, canola oil, mexican oregano, jalapeno powder, xanthan gum, lime juice, spices

De Arbol: tomatillos, diced tomatoes, chile de arbol, apple cider vinegar, onions, garlic, canola oil, orange juice, kosher salt, mexican oregano, cilantro, cumin, lime juice, xanthan gum, spices

One of the great things about the hot sauce business is that there are a bunch of devoted, passionate people in it who are totally in to what they do. Rob Burns is one of those people. Rob was kind enough to answer some questions for us about his business and his love for hot sauces. Here is our interview with Rob:

Tell us a little about how you got into the hot sauce business and the evolution of your enjoyment of hot & spicy food.

Well, I got into the hot sauce business like a lot of other folks. I started out making hot sauces for friends and the demand just grew and grew. Pretty soon I was devoting a good portion of my time just keeping up with the requests from friends.

I would say the inspiration for creating my hot sauce comes from my love of travel. Especially places like Mexico—and Baja in particular. In many places Baja is still reasonably pristine and untouched by American tourism. There are some great secret surf spots and it’s one of the few places left in the world that can give you that spirit of adventure when traveling.

Down there you never know what’s around that next corner. It could be bandits, Federales, a new secret surf spot. Or a remote fishing village where families invite you in for dinner and, if you’re lucky, will show you a few family cooking secrets.

These places have some great original authentic recipes for hot sauce and would definitely be my inspiration for creating my particular style of hot sauce.

As far as my development and enjoyment of spicy foods, I think it was genetics combined with living in a great region for spicy foods. I can remember being a child, sitting on my grandfather’s lap watching him eat dried red chili peppers. Also, my mom pretty much can hang with the best—I still have not seen her eat something that is too hot for her liking. That includes some of the pure cap extracts!

» Continue Reading

Popularity: 43% [?]

Wow. What an odd little bit of synchronicity we have ourselves here. Two chili-heads, one from Ohio, and one living in Ohio. Both can’t stop eating chili peppers, and both write about it at the same place. On top of that, they are both celebrating their birthday today!

Who would I be talking about you might ask? You also might ask how “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” can be a good example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs, but I’m only going to answer one of those questions. I’m talking about our very own Joe Levinson and Jonathan Passow…wait…that’s me!

Let’s also not forget Linda, who’s birthday was on the 24th (sorry Linda, I’m late on that posting) and their two sons, Ari and Joshua, will be celebrating this week as well. So let’s all sit back with a nice warm Naga Morich and wish these lucky Virgos a happy day of birthing celebration!

Popularity: 33% [?]

Oops! Look what got lost in the shuffle since the Fiery Foods show, Gringo Banditio Hot Sauce. Dave Reece was extremely gracious to explain so many things about the sauce, to give me a sampler to review and I went and misplaced it until now. Bad hot sauce reviewer, bad! I was fishing through my suitcase when I pulled out the bottle as if it was the lost ark. So, better late than never I always say. Well, that and never get involved in a land war in Asia.

Ingredients: Vinegar, Water, Habanero Peppers, Jalapeño Peppers, Red Japanese Chili Peppers, More Peppers, Salt, Mojo, Spices, and Xanthan Gum.

Being a fan of the band Offspring (my neck still hurts from all those years in various mosh pits, head banging away my youth in Cleveland, Ohio), I was quite pleased when their lead singer, Dexter Holland, came out with his own hot sauce. Now, unlike most celebrities that come out with their own hot sauce, Dexter is actually involved in every batch that is produced (according to rep, Dave). Pair that with the fact that this sauce isn’t just your run of the mill Tabasco rip off, I will say that I am quite pleased with the product. Plus, as an added bonus, this sauce is made in Huntington Beach, California, only 30 or so miles from my house! I wonder if they give tours to chili-heads like me?

I noticed on their website that a link appears on their links page for my favorite restaurant, El Coyote!!! So, what better place to sample this sauce than there? So I trundled on down, ordered a margarita (some of the best in town) and started tasting.

At first glance, you can confuse this for Tabasco, what with it’s vinegary appearance. But that’s about where the comparisons stop because it is in fact slightly thicker (due to the addition of xanthan gum)! No, no! Put that bottle of Tabasco down. No more comparing will be done. Besides, what are you doing with a bottle of Tabasco? There are so many better sauces out there? Haven’t you been reading our reviews?

This has a really sweet and fruity taste to it but not to the point of it being a “sugar” taste. The fruitiness of the Habaneros pairs excellently with the sweet flavor of ripe Jalapenos and that’s what hits home first. Next comes the slightly sharp bite of the Japanese Chili Pepper, which is very similar in taste to a Cayenne. I also taste a hint of Piquins and Tepins which give it a comparable flavor to Cholula hot sauce.

Up next on the palate is the vinegar. It’s not overwhelming but what I find to be my only complaint is this and the salt. The salt is a tinsy bit too much and when combined with the vinegar comes off a bit strong. But you are quickly led elsewhere by the blend of various spices one of which is black pepper.

I ordered a few dishes up and found myself using copious amount of this sauce. It went perfect on the stake, the rice, the beans, even the free chips that the restaurant gives you. As a cooking suggestion, I would say that this would be an excellent marinade for fish. Also, there isn’t too much heat to this so it makes it generally friendly for your non chili-head friends but enough heat to satisfy those Habanero eaters out there.

I love the label for the bottle as well. With it’s depiction of a bandit version of Dexter and the funny comments (such as “Hot sauce really doesn’t have nutritional value. It’s vinegar and peppers, for God’s sake. What did you expect? Why are you even trying to determine the nutritional value of Hot Sauce? Just enjoy it!) makes it quite eye catching and amusing. I did find a mistake however. Upon showing the label to one of El Coyote’s awesome waiters, Renoldo, he pointed out that they spelled the name wrong. The label says “Bandito” when in fact it’s actually spelled “Bandido”. But then again, when you’re a “Gringo” like me, you tend to misspell things like that.

This is a most impressive all purpose hot sauce. It complements everything, has a nice little bite to it, humorous comments on the label, and beautiful taste. Like the label says, “The flavor most beautiful” (El Sabor Mos Sabrosa)!

Taste: 8, Heat: 3

Popularity: 27% [?]

After waiting for this moment for a few months, we’re going to be hitting the road for a well-deserved vacation this morning. We’ll be hopping in the car and making the big road trip from Ohio to Bradenton, Florida with a stopover in Atlanta to see some friends. After visiting with Joe’s family for a few days in his hometown of Bradenton and spending a day or two at the beach, we’ll be making the trek to Orlando to do Disneyworld for three whole days. Our kids are turning 5 and 2 over the next week, and Ari will even be celebrating his 5th birthday at the Magic Kingdom with good ol’ Mickey Mouse himself.

While we’ll be offline for some of this time, we’ll check in with some “hot” reviews and posts when we have the chance. In the meantime, we hope Passow cranks his writing into overdrive to cover us a bit while we relax and recreate. Stay tuned!

Popularity: 32% [?]

We picked up a lot of products at this past Weekend of Fire show, and a fair amount of hot sauce in the process. One of the gems of the bunch turned out to be this beauty from our buddy Huvason, the so-called “Fat Kid” from Fat Kid Sauces.

Now, the goodies from Fat Kid Sauces are not an unknown quantity to our readers here at The Hot Zone Online. Our ace writer, Passow, did a good summary review on these sauces several months ago. Now while I may ultimately review more sauces than this one, the Extreme Habanero Hot Sauce seemed like a good enough place to start.

For one thing, the label graphics had an awfully familiar look to it. Our original logo creator Ryan Davis of Angry Pepper Graphix (whose website and business may be down now) obviously created the artwork, which has its own unique look to it. With a clean, glossy label, the sauce has a very professional look and appeal all its own.

Scanning the bottle for the ingredients, I found:

Ingredients: Red Savina (C) habanero, tomato, bell pepper, red wine vinegar, onion, garlic, salt, herbs & spices

A fairly straightforward list featuring the ever-popular Red Savina habanero. With the tomato, it is vaguely reminiscent of CaJohn’s Ignite sauce, of which I enjoy a great deal. Suffice to say, without even trying the sauce I had a premonition that I was going to like it. Pouring some out to get a better look:

Now that’s a beautiful-looking hot sauce. It seemed so wasteful to have dumped it out on my plate, so I poured it back onto a spoon. This was one sauce that I was determined not waste even a single drop of it, so I made it ready for easy tasting. Here’s what it looked like right before it met my palate:

Smelling strongly of habanero and vinegar, it was thick enough to cling to food and had a wonderfully well-blended consistency. It poured easily from the bottle.

Taste: For a sauce that has this level of heat (and I’d call it 9.5/10 for most mere mortals), it has some amazing taste. You can really get an appreciate for all the components of the sauce…tomato, bell pepper, garlic, and spices. Then, the Red Savina heat kicks in and, depending on your heat tolerance, you may begin to suck a little wind. With pain, comes a little pleasure, though. You gotta love those uber-hot natural sauces that actually taste good.

For uses, I found it to be pretty utilitarian…if only in measured amounts. My heat capacity isn’t the same from day to day, so I’d use or more or less to taste depending on the dish. My fave uses included with scrambled eggs & omelets (an absolute must), with chili (any chili will do), and with any other cream-based sauce or meal to give it that extra kick. Quite honestly, though, I liked it almost as well with everything else…particularly since the vinegar aspect of the sauce was not too overbearing.

Overall recommendation: Despite some similarities to some other sauces I really like, this sauce is its own entity. Seriously tasty, but with some serious heat if you eat enough, this sauce will provide a good combination of flavor and heat to those who really enjoy Red Savina habanero sauces. The best thing I can say is that my bottle has been completely polished off, and I have nary a drop remaining of which to use. Any sauce I kill off in such quick fashion is usually a compliment and endorsement all its own. My only complaint, if you can call it that, is with the Fat Kid Sauces website. I dislike having to create a login ID to view all the products…but this sauce is good enough to motivate me to do so. John, you did good!! Try it for yourself and see what you think. Enjoy!!!

Popularity: 33% [?]

Up until now, we’ve merely watched good ol’ Bobby Flay on the TV. but now he’s got some new products coming out. Check out this press release from PRNewswire:

Bobby Flay Launches New Signature Line of Sauces and Rubs
Chef, Restaurateur and Food Network Favorite Bottles his Formulas for Grilling Success

NEW YORK, Aug. 22 /PRNewswire/ — Nothing conjures up a better image of bold flavors and a fiery grill than the mention of chef, restaurateur, cookbook author and television host Bobby Flay. More than 15 years after awakening palates across the country and changing the way America thinks about southwestern food, Bobby Flay launches a new line of trademark sauces and rubs.

The Mesa Grill and Bobby Flay Signature Collections — each based on Flay’s favorite ingredients and spice blends — were created to punch up the flavor of meats, seafood and poultry with ease. These unique combinations of sweet and savory — each with just enough heat — are also ideal for salads, side dishes and salsas, bringing out the master chef in every home cook.

Click here to read the source press release and see what Bobby Flay has that’s new!

Popularity: 39% [?]

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