Ah yes, Fire Foods. I got to see this company start up way back when via The Hot Pepper forums. I’ve watched it grow and I must say they are really starting to grow fast. I’m finally getting a taste of what this fine company has to offer, thanks Woody!

Fire Foods Reserve Ingredients: Fruit juice, carrot, vinegar, Black Treacle Chilli (11.9%), mustard (water, mustard seed, spirit vinegar, salt), water, Bih Jolokia Chilli powder.

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Well, I finally got around to using some of the “hotter” hot sauces from the folks at Arturo’s Hot Flavors of Hawaii. I have been carrying this sauce around with me for a few weeks now, and each time I sit down to try and write something…I’m not sure what to say. It’s not bad, mind you, but I seem to have suffered a bit of “writer’s block” about this hot sauce, and it bugs me a little.

One of the things I can say about this sauce, as well as others that I have tried from Hot Sauce Hawaii, is that it’s just plain different than mainland hot sauces. The list of ingredients is similar to many sauce I’ve tried, but they just seem to be a different breed in taste and consistency:

Ingredients: water, habanero chiles, thai chiles, vinegar, modified food starch, and salt

The plainly stated label warns you to use this sauce with caution, but I did not despair. Without the words “extract” somewhere associated with capsaicin or oleoresin, I felt pretty safe being able to use this sauce with reckless abandon. The website description has this to say about this sauce:

All three North Shore Nitro sauces were created to inflict a truly flavorful, endorphin-inducing heat upon our unsuspecting public. Force 3 is the introductory version of our volcanic Thai and Habanero Pepper Sauces.

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It’s always a pleasure to do reviews on spicy snack fare, and beef jerky is no exception. Jerky itself, I’m told, is fairly easy to make. That said, few jerky makers seem to make jerky fairly well. Too dry. Too touch. Too bland. The list goes on and on. I give credit to those, however, who at least pay enough homage to the chileheads of the world by making some spicy jerky to try to please their palates.

In that same vein, we were delighted to receive an email from Amy Williams from Williams and Conner, who are Texan purveyors of some quality beef and deer jerky. They offer five distinct varieties of beef jerky, of which the Pepper Trio Beef Jerky appears to be their spiciest one. Quite honestly, all their varieties look as though they would be quite good, but I was saving my opinion for their spicy version to see how it stacks up against some others that I’ve tasted.

Ingredients: beef whole muscle, soy sauce (water, wheat, soy beans, salt, sodium benzoate), water, hickory smoke flavor, worcestershire sauce (distilled white vinegar, water, molasses, high fructose corn syrup, salt, soy sauce, natural flavoring, caramel coloring, anchovies, polysorbate 80, soy flour, garlic extract), garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper

An extraordinary blend of cayenne pepper, black pepper, and crushed red pepper brings the bold taste of the southwest to you.

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We have already announced that our good friend, Mark, over at The Chile Man.org has brought out his second batch of Naga Snake Bite. I just recently received a bottle of his Private Reserve with 10 whole naga pods contained in the sauce. I’ve already reviewed his first batch with 5 pods and this tastes almost exactly the same. So this won’t be a full review, just a little mention of what I feel is the difference between the two and also to plug a great sauce.

Naga Snake Bite: Private Reserve Ingredients: Onions, carrots, tomatoes, vinegar, Naga Morich, red chillies, ginger, sugar, Red Bell Peppers, garlic, olive oil, salt.

One thing I noticed is that he has taken my advice about the label not being centered on the bottle and has now centered it which definitely improves the look . That along with the gold banded shrink wrap makes this stand out on your “Self of Doom”. I also noticed that Mark’s added one new ingredient, sugar. The sauce does taste much sweeter but not in the way where it negatively effects the taste. The sugar actually pairs with the fruity taste of the Naga quite well.

Speaking of Naga, this 10 pod version really packs it in! The taste is so much more exquisite and really shows off the fruity taste if the Nagas. Here’s the real question, “Is there a heat improvement?”. I described the first batch’s heat as being akin to a snake bite, fast and hard. This sauce is no different.

The heat is much more harder biting and when used in the large quantities that I use it in, boy does it stick with you. Once again, the Naga’s trademark of numbing the section of tongue where it touches is quite prevalent here. This is what a sauce should be, mind blowing heat mixed with a fantastic taste. Perfection has be improved upon.

Taste: 9.7, Heat: 10

Chuck Evans gifted us with this jar of salsa goodness back at the 2008 North Market Fiery Foods Festival, so we decided to crack this jar of Raspberry Lime Salsa open right ahead of this coming weekend’s Cinco D’Ohio festival just to get a taste (no pun intended) of some of the stuff which will be available there at the show. Now I will admit to not being the biggest fan of fruit salsas in general or even to chipotle, so I hoped to give this a more fair & balanced take on it. For one thing, it’s hard to go wrong with this list of ingredients:

Ingredients: tomatoes, tomato puree, onions, red raspberries in syrup, chile peppers, Smokey Chipotle (R) pepper sauce, lime juice, lemon juice, vinegar, herbs and spices

Now this is the kind of list we like to see in the products we try…nothing but real ingredients without any chemical-sounding names of ingredients. Here’s the description of the salsa from Chuck’s website:

Chuck’s very original mild red raspberry salsa is spiked with fresh lime juice along with a hint of smokey chipotle providing layers of flavor. Serve over a block of cream cheese; top off a char-grilled pork chop; or drizzle over vanilla ice cream. Provecho!

Taste: We didn’t do anything fancy-shmancy with this salsa, but rather just ate it straight out of the jar with some tortilla chips. Given the recipe suggestions above, we wanted to try it au natural to see how it would do unadulterated by other stuff. The result? This was a surprisingly good salsa that Joe had to be restrained from finishing all in one sitting! The salsa base is a little on the thin side, but has big chunks of tomatoes and raspberries to whet your appetite. The heat is indeed on the mild side as the label suggests, perhaps 3/10 for heat, but the incredible taste will make you forget that it’s not all that hot & spicy. Great combination of chipotle flavor as well, which isn’t too smoky or sweet with the fruit in the salsa. It has a smooth flavor that really balances the peppery flavor with the combination of raspberry and lime.

Although we didn’t try it ourselves, take Chuck’s hints about the cream cheese and pork chops. This salsa would be amazing with those. You could certainly do this with ice cream or just about any dessert, and we think this would be great drizzled over cheesecake. Yum!

Overall recommendation: For those of you who think that fruit salsas are too sweet or may not truly be in to the flavor of chipotle…then this is the salsa for you. It’s definitely on the milder side of the chilehead spectrum, but it has enough heat to keep you interested at least. While you can find lots of uses in cooking for this salsa, it really is good straight out of the jar. We’d love to see a spicier version of this someday, but for now we’ll be licking the insides of the jar until we need to get some more. Try some for yourself and see what you think. Enjoy!

It can be a rarity indeed when we crank out a review truly quickly, so we allow a little inspiration to take hold of us when we have the chance. Such is the case with this new Honey BBQ sauce from the mad geniuses at Torchbearer Sauces. This is the first new product we’ve tried from Torchbearer in quite a while, but we have always enjoyed their products in the past…so we had no inclination that this sauce would be any different. It’s the first bottle that strays from their non-woozie eight ounce bottle that’s been a standard issue for their stuff, and comes in a huge-mongous sixteen ounce bottle.

Ingredients: tomato paste, water, honey, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, molasses, worcestershire sauce, yellow mustard, chili pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, lemon juice, oregano

Kudos to the gang for sticking to all-natural ingredients. An automatic thumbs-up from us for that!

I remembered reading another review of this hot sauce online a couple of months ago and wished that I had had some of my own to try and then…WHAMMO! Todd Ross of Bisummo sends us a request to taste their hot sauce for ourselves. It was as though he was reading our minds. Thanks for using your Jedi mind powers for the forces of good, Todd. Soon thereafter, a couple of bottles of their Ass Murdering Hot Sauce showed up on our doorstep and I wasted very little time in cracking open the bottle and pouring over and in just about everything except breakfast cereal.

There’s a lot of “ass” hot sauces out there these days. You’ve probably seen them. Ass in the Tub. Baboon Ass. Neal’s Hairy Ass. Ass Kickin. Big Daddy’s Ass Burn. Ass Blaster. Flaming Coon Ass. Ass Reaper. Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally. The list goes on and on.

Face it, folks…that’s a lot of ass. Despite the fact that this sauce also highlights the “ass” (it’s a donkey…get it?), this sauce is one of a kind. I am also glad to I can say that that is a good thing. This sauce doesn’t reinvent the wheel with its ingredients, but it has an impressive list of good stuff.

Ingredients: lime juice (lime juice from concentrate, sodium benzoate, lime oil, sodium metabisulfite), jalapeno peppers, serrano peppers, dijon mustard (water, vinegar, mustard seed, salt, white wine, fruit pectin, citric acid, tartaric acid, sugar, spice), garlic, habanero peppers, vinegar, molasses, olive oil, turmeric
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Our original plan was to let Linda do the whole review on the Ellie’s Lip Smackin’ Sauce because of how much she liked it after trying it for the first time, but it really turned into quite an interesting taste experience for both of us. Here’s our stories:

Linda: The minute I got a whiff of this sauce, I knew it would be good. I could tell it would be savory, but the exact tastes weren’t clear until I tried it. It has a kind of soy sauce flavor to it initially, but with a more balanced blend of spices added in and an interesting texture (almost like tomato juice). Yes, it was a bit salty and that hit me right away, but I immediately saw potential for this sauce. Before I get to my big discovery on what I think is the best way to use this sauce, I must point out that if you’re going to do anything with this sauce, do NOT immediately season anything. We cooked some chicken with a spice blend first, added this at the end and it was just too much. This sauce stands very nicely on it’s own and would make a good quick marinade. What I like to do with it most of all is mix it with another one of my favorites…maple syrup (100% maple syrup mixed 1-1). It is the ULTIMATE combination. The sweetness of the syrup tones down the saltiness and the blend of flavors just marries and creates something you will never forget. It would be great as a grilling sauce, but I have to say that stir fry with it is amazing. Great on baked pork chops as well. I imagine that the combo on a ham steak would be nothing short of wonderful, since ham and maple syrup have a steamy relationship to begin with. I would definitely recommend this product.

Ingredients: red cayenne peppers, vinegar, water, wheat, soybeans, sodium benzoate as preservative, wine, high fructose corn syrup, butter, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, black pepper, and spices
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It’s been a little while since we had some good homemade salsa, so we dove back into the fray with this new arrival from Ed & Patti Wajer called Ed & Patti’s Hot 4 Pepper Gourmet Salsa. This salsa fits into both categories with us…that of a homemade product as well as a commercially distributed one. Ed & Patti hail from the great state of Michigan, where their salsa is available at select vendors at various times throughout the year.

My desire for finding a really good bar that serves me nothing but the finest beers has taken me to many places. Since I moved back to Cleveland, Ohio, I was forced to locate a new place to call home and thus I discovered La Cave Du Vin (located at 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., Lower Level, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 (phone# 216-932-6411).

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