Got this interesting bottle of salsa directly from Mt. Adams Trading Company at the Weekend of Fire. Bill Hyslop, owner, tells me that this salsa recipe has been in the family for five generations and they “try to deseed every chipotle pepper in the salsa. By doing this, you get as much flavor as possible”. So let’s crack this bottle open and dive right in.

Mt. Adams Trading Company: O’ So Bueno! Chipotle Salsa Ingredients: Tomato, Chipotle peppers, salt, brown sugar, garlic, spices and canola oil.

Great design on the label. The muted colors match the color and taste of this sauce so well. I open the lid to discover the brown chunky treat staring back at me. Light to medium consistency with the occasional seed or two floating by. This is as brown as brown can get. And oddly enough, that’s how I would describe this taste, brown.

That is, if brown had a taste (and it does), this would be it. The tomatoes hit first but they are not quite the usual slightly acidic flavor, they have very much been muted while marinating in this concoction. Flowing over the tongue next is the brown sugar which lends it’s unique sweetness to help tie the following flavors together.

The Chipotles follows the sugar and tomatoes and is so incredibly smoky! Definitely enough to give Chuck Evans of Montezuma Brand a run for his money. Up next is the garlic which is also very muted. I’m happy that both the tomato and garlic are not at their full strength because as this is right now, it’s in perfect balance with the emphasis on the smoky flavors. There is a very minute slickness left on your tongue from the canola oil but nothing distracting.

I would have to initially list this as a high end mild burn. It’s consistency causes the burn to be more in the middle of the tongue to back of the throat with the garlic burn hitting the sides of the tongue. I mixed this up with tomato paste and used that a base for my Famous Passow Pizza but the real kicker was scrambling it in with eggs for the morning feast.

I am thoroughly impressed and flabbergasted with this product. Very few items have me gobbling them up with a spoon straight out of the bottle. I guess handing a recipe down through 5 generations gives it enough time to mature to perfection. This is getting a rarely seen 10 for taste. Congrats Mt. Adams Trading Company, you deserve it.

Taste: 10, Heat: 3.8747