It’s always a pleasure trying new products from new companies. This time up is two products from Jeff Stevenson over at Crazy Uncle Jester’s. The first is a smoked Jolokia dry rub and the second is what appears to be the first Bhut Jolokia candies available on the market.

Crazy Uncle Jester’s Wholly Smoking Jolokia Ingredients: Brown sugar, salt, Paprika, garlic, onion, sugar, Black Pepper, Cayenne, ground cumin, spices.

Let’s start the review out with the Wholly Smoking Jolokia dry rub which comes in a nice sized 8 ounce container with shaker top. “But if it’s a smoked Jolokia dry rub, why isn’t that listed on the ingredients list?” you might ask. Well I asked Jeff the same thing and he responded, “Because it’s less than 5% so it falls under spices”. Nicely done.

Now the taste run down. First up is the taste of both the brown and regular sugar then a big blast of cumin. After that comes the Paprika, Onion, then the Cayenne hits. After that is the big flavor of smoked Bhut Jolokias. Jolokias have a natural, earthy/smoky flavor and to smoke them is just making the flavor even more pronounced. Pairing that with the cumin was a perfect touch. After that comes the garlic to finish everything off.

For a Jolokia product, there isn’t a ton of heat here. Jeff lists it as a “Hot” I’d put it more along the lines of a “Medium”. The heat starts to hit in the back of the throat then creeps into the center of the tongue and just sits there for a while kind of like that old guy on the park bench quietly feeding the pigeons. You know he’s over there but you don’t want to make eye contact for fear that he’s going to tell you all the names he’s given each pigeon and that the one he calls “Frank” doesn’t like “Steve” over there because he never got invited to the office party three years ago.

Anyways, I love this dry rub for both the flavor and it’s versatility. The sweetness lends itself quite well to pork products. The smoky/cumin flavor makes it great for chili. I found myself using it for my own personal favorite dish; Pizza! This got the majority of it’s work out on my Famous Passow Pizza.

Taste: 9.8, Heat: 4.71

Crazy Uncle Jester’s Make Me Cough Drops Ingredients: Cane sugar, corn syrup, water, flavor extract, Habanero concentrate (”The Jester”), and Bhut Jolokia powder.

Now we come to the Make Me Cough Drops which are tiny, red, inch long candies. These are currently available in his gift sets but he’s planning on ramping up production. Let’s give these guys a whirl!

Ok, instant burn, center of the tongue extract type burn with an intense back of the throat tingle. Then the flavor hit. It’s sugary at first then flavors of strawberry come in. After that there’s a hint of extract and Jolokia.

This thing’s so hot it’s in the realm of hard to eat and that’s a hard realm to get to with me. I could only brave 30 seconds of it at a time before I had to spit it back out, although I did that until it was gone so that’s saying something for the flavor. Good candy, too hot….ohhh…..endorphin rush….pritty colors….

Taste: 7.5, Heat: 10