Review: Scorpion Bay Hot Sauce — Chocopotle
Reviewed by Gary

When I was in college back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, a buddy of mine transferred to the University of California San Diego. We had always surfed and boogie boarded in the frigid and great white shark inhabited waters of Northern California, so the opportunity to go south and enjoy the warmer and less dangerous waters of Baja California was a welcome one. Over the course of the next few years we made frequent trips down via a couple of old Land Cruisers and spent many long weekends and spring breaks exploring the coastlines and chasing waves. It was during this time when I discovered the quintessential food of Baja, the street taco. There are little street carts, open-air taco stands, and hole-in-the-wall restaurants all over the place. Although Baja is probably most famous for their fish tacos, I found the little pinner size carne asada tacos irresistible. There was one place in particular near Rosarito Beach that had a very unique hot sauce that I had somewhat forgotten about until I tried the Scorpion Bay Chocopotle, and the memories all came flooding back.

Scorpion Bay is located in Baja California in San Juanico, about 700 miles south of Tijuana. From what I’ve read, Rob Burns, the creator of the Scorpion Bay line of sauces, has spent quite a bit of time traveling, surfing and eating his way around Baja. Thus he decided to try to recreate some of the sauces he enjoyed on his travels and upon successfully doing so, he launched his company and named his line after what I assume must be on of his favorite Baja destinations.

Rob describes his sauces as being unique gourmet-style hot sauces that echo the true taste of Baja, and I couldn’t agree more. The Scorpion Bay Chocopotle is a delicious blend of tomatoes, water, vinegar, peppers, citrus juices, spices, and the one ingredient that sets it apart from the rest of the pack, cocoa powder. It is the cocoa powder that makes this sauce truly unique and intriguing. The aroma is rich and deep with none of the ingredients standing out or overwhelming the others. It has a nice mellow smokey peppery smell with a hint of chocolate. Wow!

I poured a bit of the chocopotle into a ramekin and found it to be pretty thick. Not too thick though, just right. And according to Rob, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. There are little bits and pieces of peppers, tomatoes and onions floating around that add to the thickness and provide a nice texture. The color is a deep rich brown from the cocoa, resembling melted chocolate fudge. I tasted a bit from my finger and found that it tastes much like it smells. The chocolate flavor of the cocoa is very evident and blends well with the smokiness of the chipotles. The rest of the peppers, the tomato, the red onion and the citrus balance everything out nicely, but individually are not pronounced in any way. Although tomatoes and apple cider vinegar are two of the main three ingredients, there isn’t an overwhelming amount of acidity. The overall flavor, like the aroma, is very mellow yet complex and would taste great on a wide variety of foods.

So what about the heat you ask? The chocopotle definitely has some heat and it is very upfront. But, it is not over powering. I’d give it a five on the HSB heat scale. It’s a sauce that can be enjoyed by hot sauce lovers of just about all heat tolerance levels.

INGREDIENTS: Tomatoes, water, apple cider vinegar, jalapeno peppers, chipotle chilies, red onions, brown sugar, Serrano peppers, Cocoa powder, garlic, kosher salt, canola oil, Mexican oregano, orange juice, lime juice, xanthan gum, spices.

All in all, this is a really good sauce and I’d recommend it to anyone who not only enjoys a quality sauce, but especially for someone who is looking for something a bit different. It takes me back to those lazy days I spent exploring the coastlines of Baja in search of waves, and makes me wish I had a plate of those little street tacos to drizzle some Scorpion Bay Chocopotle on.

Wanderlust Gourmet Foods, LLC.
7026 Fern Place
Carlsbad, CA 92011
www.scorpionbayhotsauce.com

Back on April 15th I posted a little piece and some photos about my new pepper strip that I grow in a small area of our backyard each year. Being that we live in the Southern California/Central Coast growing region, I’m able to put plants in the ground in the early Spring without having to worry about late season snow and/or frost. Things looked good for the first two weeks until I noticed that our cat had decided to start using an area of the strip as his new toilet. Although I caught the problem early on, he did manage to wreak havoc on one of the Bhut Jolokias and it lost all of it’s leaves and was reduced to nothing more than a withered little one-inch stem. Fortunately, with some careful nursing and TLC, I managed to save it and it’s now doing quite well and just started to flower.

This year we planted an assortment of peppers including Bhut Jolokia, Red Savina™ habanero, chocolate habanero, peter pepper, Bishop’s crown, Brazilian starfish, Bulgarian carrot, yellow squash, billygoat, and cherry bomb. So far we’ve had fruit from the cherry bomb, Bulgarian carrot and the yellow squash plants. As far as yield and taste is concerned, the cherry bomb has been amazing, so far producing about two pounds of really tasty peppers. The Brazilian Starfish is in a close second and is completely loaded with immature fruit that should be ripe and ready to be picked in about two weeks. The chocolate habanero is third and the peter pepper a solid fourth in upcoming yield and should also be ready to pick in about two weeks. The Bhut Jolokias however have just recently flowered as they are late Summer producers, so by September/October we should have a mess of them as well. The rest of the peppers are in various stages of flowering with some young fruit and should be ready to pick in another few weeks.

Anyone who grows their own peppers knows how exciting it is to finally see a little tiny pepper appear in amongst the leaves and how fun it is to finally get to pick and eat what you grew. I’ll post a wrap-up at the end of the growing season and let you know how it all went in the end.

REVIEW: Gib’s Nuclear Hell Hot Pepper Sauce – Formula #3
Reviewed by Gildo

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been on the hunt for the “perfect” basic red hot sauce. That quintessential all-purpose taqueria style hot sauce that has just the right combination of peppers, vinegar, spices and heat, and is as versatile as it is tasty – perfect for tacos, burritos, pizza, steaks, chops, soups, and stews. I’ve tried dozens of different brands, some coming close, but none have ever had that perfect blend, balance and flavor that I’ve been looking for.

When I first saw the Gib’s Nuclear Hell Jalapeno hot sauce that I was to review, I have to admit I had mixed emotions about it. Packaged inside a standard 5oz. bottle was this really incredible looking dark red sauce, but I found the label and name of the sauce to be a bit on the “been there seen that” side. There are a ton of sauces out there with not so original names and labels. It seems like everyone’s ass is burning, or their rectum has ruptured, or as in this case, Armageddon is upon us. Add to this some sort of a cliché-ish drawing on the label that illustrates the unoriginal name and viola…hot sauce for the masses.

Being taught to not judge a monkey by its fleas, I put my opinions about this sauce’s name and its label aside and focused on what really counts, the sauce itself.

It was taco night at the Gannon’s and a basic red taqueria style hot sauce was exactly what was needed to finish these guys off. I pulled out the Gib’s Nuclear Hell and cracked the top, taking a good whiff before putting any on my tacos. Wow! I took another whiff. Another wow! The aroma of jalapeno peppers mixed with the tomato paste and vinegar was well balanced and pepper forward. Too much tomato or vinegar can make for an unpleasant acidic smell, but the proportions here were just about right.

Ingredients: Tomato paste from red ripe tomatoes, distilled vinegar, jalapeno peppers, corn syrup, salt, spices and natural flavorings.

I poured a bit into a ramekin to check the color and viscosity. It has a nice redish-orange/brown color to it with little bits of seeds and skin from the jalapeno peppers. The viscosity is perfect. Not to thick and not to thin. It pours nicely and doesn’t run all over the place or take a power tool to get it from the bottle.

Their motto is “A Little Drop Will Do Ya!,” so I ventured forth with caution as I tasted it. It’s hot alright. Not blow your head off hot, but a definite 5 on the HSB heat scale. A little drop won’t do it for me, but for those sensitive to heat, perhaps. The well flavored balance of jalapenos and tomato paste with the tanginess of the vinegar work well together and the heat is very upfront and in your face. The corn syrup adds a hint of sweetness and the spices and natural flavorings round everything out. This sauce was good on the tacos, not great, just good. I had it the next morning on a breakfast scramble and have tried it with steak and pork chops. It was good on all of them.

So have I found that perfect basic red hot sauce I’ve been looking for? No. But I did find a pretty good everyday red sauce that will work on a lot of different types of food. If you haven’t tried Gib’s Nuclear Hell yet, it just might be worth a try.

Gib’s Classics, Inc.
4433 Kiln Court, Building C
Louisville, KY 40218
800-881-5233
www.bottledhell.com

The Spring weather out here in California has been near perfect for the last month and the ground has warmed up to above a 55 degrees, so I decided to go ahead and order up my pepper plants and get this year’s pepper strip going. Typically I purchase my pepper plants at local nurseries and growers, but this year I wanted an assortment of super hot and unusual varieties that they don’t carry. So not really knowing where to look, I turned to the internet and found Cross County Nurseries in Rosemont, New Jersey. They sell what they claim to be the world’s largest selection of pepper plants and tomatoes from April thru June, and ship them anywhere in the country via 3-day UPS. I’m not sure exactly how many varieties they actually offer, but their inventory is enormous and took quite a while to browse through. You can search for plants by heat levels, colors, uses, and even flesh types, allowing you to easily narrow down the choices. The ordering process was also easy and their prices reasonable, despite a 12 plant minimum order policy and the UPS charges.

For this season I decided to go with one plant each of 9 different varieties, and three of the Bhut Jolokia. The others include a Red Savina™ habanero, chocolate habanero, peter pepper, Bishop’s crown, Brazilian Starfish, Bulgarian carrot, yellow squash, billygoat, and cherry bomb. They arrived the first week of April via UPS and to my surprise, were completely unscathed. They were all packed tightly and neatly into one small cardboard box and were held into place with a custom looking cardboard insert that kept all the soil in place and the plants upright and secure. The soil was moist and they were insect free. Excellent!

I put them in the ground on April 7th and gave them a healthy dose of both granular vegetable fertilizer and liquid kelp and fish fertilizer. Now, with the warm California sun and some TLC, I should have my first peppers sometime in late May. I’ll keep you posted on this year’s pepper strip as it progresses throughout the summer, particularly the Bhut Jolokias. ‘Till then, good luck with your own plantings!

Cross County Nurseries
PO Box 170,
199 Kingwood-Locktown Road
Rosemont, NJ 08556-0170
Phone: 908-996-4646
Fax: 908-996-4638

Take a walk down the condiment isle of your local grocery store and you will likely find at least a dozen or more different brands of barbeque sauces. And that’s just different brands, not to mention the many different varieties of flavors each of those brands has to offer. So it goes without saying that the barbeque sauce industry is cluttered with an abundance of offerings and is thus fiercely competitive. But what is unfortunate about those sauces found on your local grocer’s shelves is that they mostly all taste the same and are of the same ilk. They are all the “plain vanilla” thick tomato-based variety that mostly taste like smoky ketchup. It’s a crap shoot when trying one for the first time, and as has been the case with me many times, mostly turn out to be a big disappointment.

So when a bottle of Grumpy’s Private Reserve Black Label Bar-B-Que sauce landed at my front door, I had mixed emotions. One side of me was really excited to taste it in hopes of finally finding that one BBQ sauce that stands out from the rest, and the other side of me just didn’t want to be let down and wreck another perfectly good slab of baby back ribs. I noticed the bottle was numbered, 26 of 550. I was intrigued that this was some sort of a limited edition sauce and decided to check their website for more information. Unfortunately I couldn’t find this particular sauce or any information about it on their site. I did however notice that their other three sauces are all award winners, so I was optimistic that this sauce would be the standout I’ve been looking for.

Grumpy’s Private Reserve Black Label Bar-B-Que sauce is thick and rich and has a really nice deep redish brown color with little flecks of black which I suspect are from the black pepper. The viscosity is near perfect. Not to thick and not to thin. It pours nicely from the bottle and sticks and slathers well onto meats on the grill. I too a big whiff and the aroma was a really nice mix of hickory, tomatoes, vinegar, peppers and a hint of mustard. It seemed to have a bit more going on than most other tomato based BBQ sauces and my first taste proved that to be right. A sweet and tangy tomato flavor is immediately followed up by the heat of the hot sauce and cayenne pepper. Not a ton of heat, just enough to warm your mouth. True chiliheads will probably find it a bit weak in this category, but it is perfect for the average consumer. The overall flavor is really good.

INGREDIENTS: Brown sugar, water, tomato paste (tomatoes), apple cider vinegar (diluted with water up to 5% acidity), hot sauce (peppers, vinegar, salt), liquid smoke (water, natural hickory smoke flavor, vinegar, molasses, caramel color), black pepper, cayenne pepper, spices, kosher salt, oriental hot mustard (mustard, turmeric).

I decided to try Grumpy’s Private Reserve Black Label on pizza by using it in place of traditional tomato sauce. What I was aiming for was a recreation of California Pizza Kitchen’s BBQ chicken pizza. Grumpy’s was excellent in this application. Two nights later I gave it a shot on some baby back ribs and again on tri-tip. I can just imaging how great this stuff would be on a pulled pork sandwich. In each application that I used it on, the sauce worked beautifully. The brown sugar and molasses helped to form a nice glaze over the meats as they finished cooking and the rest of the sauce’s flavors held strong and didn’t take on any new characteristics from being heated.

All in all, this is a really good traditional tomato based BBQ sauce. It’s got a wee bit of a kick to it in terms of heat, and packs a whole lot of attitude. It’s not quite the standout I’ve been looking for, but it is definitely one of my new favorites. Is it an award winner like the rest of the sauces in the Grumpy’s line? That’s for the judges to decide. But my prediction is that sauce will get high marks none the less.

Grumpy’s Foods
5183 East 126th Court
Thornton, Colorado 80241
www.grumpysbbq.com

The Sweet Sunshine Chili Sauce line (www.sweetsunshine.com) is no stranger to the hotsauceblog.com. Their Atomic chili sauce, and more recently their Roasted Shallots and Garlic chili sauce, have both been reviewed and were both given respectable marks. So is it really necessary to review yet another of their products? Why not.

I have to admit that I am not a real big fan of sweet hot sauces. I tend to favor those that are more vinegar based and feel that sweet sauces are more along the lines of BBQ sauces and should be considered such. So when I received a couple of their products for review, I have to admit I wasn’t very excited, that is until I opened the bottle and took a big whiff. Wow! A deliciously smoky aroma of habanero peppers, tomatoes and vinegar with just a hint of mustard and Worcestershire sauce.

I poured a bit into a ramekin and conducted the ultra-scientific finger taste test. Delicious. The sweetness of sugar and molasses is immediately followed up with the rich flavor of the red savina habaneros and tomatoes, a bit of onion, mustard and Worcestershire sauce, and then the habanero burn. This sauce is rated as hot and I whole heartedly agree with that assessment. Although it is not blow your head of hot, it does light you up a bit and give your face a bit of a glow. Awesome! Their motto is flavor before fire and they couldn’t be more dead on.

INGREDIENTS: Sugar, water, vinegar, mustard seed, tomato, ripe red savina habanero peppers, ancho peppers, corn syrup, cayenne peppers, habanero peppers, molasses, modified food starch, salt, Worcestershire sauce, natural flavors, citric acid, onion, spices, less than 1/10 of 1% sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate to preserve freshness.

Although the Sweet Sunshine sauces are classified as a chili sauce by their manufacturer, Gourmet Conveniences, they really aren’t a true chile sauce, or hot sauce, or even a barbeque sauce for that matter. It’s sort of the tasty bastard step child of all three. Nobody is really sure who the father is, and nobody cares. I ran into the owner of Gourmet Conveniences, Paul Sarris, at the 2007 Fiery Foods Show and had a nice talk with Paul and his sales guy Ed. I also tasted each of their products and found them all to be very good. Paul and Ed agreed that their sauces are very different in the fact that they are not 100% traditional and are some what of a unique hybrid. Well unique they are, and in this case, unique is a good thing.

Deciding what to try this sauce on, other than my finger, was a bit difficult because it would be good on most anything. I chose grilled chicken breasts and decided to use the Sweet Sunshine sauce towards the end of grilling, like a finishing sauce, mainly because of the amounts of sugar, molasses and corn syrup used in the recipe, and the chances of the sauce burning rather than caramelizing. Good choice. The heat and the sweet finished off the chicken perfectly with little spots of caramelized crispiness just along the edges. It was great.

The Sweet Sunshine Hot Chili sauce, like its sibling products, is definitely a standout in a retail setting. Its 5oz. multi-sided bottle is adorned with a bright, colorful, simple, and straight forward label, thus calling attention to the consumer and a potential purchase. I just hope they are also using rack cards to explain this stuff.

Bottom line, Sweet Sunshine Hot Chili Sauce is a winner. If your local retailer isn’t carrying it, demand that they do. In the meantime, order some from the Sweet Sunshine website, you’ll be glad you did.

RATINGS –

Aroma: 10/10
Flavor: 10/10
Heat: 10/10
Appearance: 10/10
Viscosity: 10/10
Applications: 10/10
Packaging: 8/10

Overall: 10/10

Gourmet Conveniences LTD
Sweet Sunshine
P.O. Box 998
Litchfield, CT 06759
Phone: 860.567.3505

Ever since I was a little kid, there has been no substitute for the classic flavor of Heinz Ketchup. I’ve tried Huntz, Muir Glen Organic, Del Monte, and even some stuff called catsup. None of them have ever held a candle to Heinz. So when I received a shipment of sauces and found a bottle of Life or Death Habanero Ketchup from The Salsa King inside, I got kind of excited. You see, secretly, deep down inside, I guess I’m hoping that someday I will discover a new ketchup that can stand up against Heinz and add some variety to my ketchup options. Would this new ketchup be the one to share my affections? There was only one way to find out and one food to try it on – homemade French fries, or in this case, Gilroy garlic fries.

It was Super Bowl Sunday and I had decided that morning that our menu for the afternoon would consist of hot wings, garlic fries, pierogies, and beer brats. I have a pretty nice deep fryer and don’t get that many opportunities to use it, so a plethora of fried foods was absolutely necessary to justify its existence and to satisfy my craving for some deep fried goodness.

Just as the game began I got started and after polishing off a pile of wings, I turned my attention to the garlic fries. I mixed up the usual topping of chopped garlic, EVO, chopped parsley, salt and grated parmesan cheese. The fries came from large russet potatoes that I sliced into strips and rinsed to remove excess starch. Then came the deep fryer. I tripled fired them to insure the insides were light and fluffy and the outsides were nice and crunchy. Once they were done they went into the garlic mix and got plated up.

Now it was time for the Life or Death Habanero Ketchup. It comes in a nice size 12 oz. bottle and the label is fairly straight forward and simple with a little dancing chili pepper king wearing a crown and holding a torch. It says it is all natural and has no trans fats, which is good, although I really don’t understand all the fuss about trans fats. I gave the bottle a good shake and we were immediately off to a bad start. After removing the lid, I noticed that the top of the neck of the bottle was plugged with dried up dark brown colored ketchup. I removed it with a knife and gave the bottle another good shake. I took a good whiff and to my dismay, it smelled just like a can of tomato paste with a hint of habanero pepper – and I stress hint of habanero pepper.

INGREDIENTS: Tomato puree (water, tomato paste), high fructose corn syrup, distilled vinegar, habanero powder, corn syrup, salt, onion powder, spices.

Undiscouraged by a bad initial impression, I poured some of the ketchup into a small container and tasted it off my finger. Same thing. Canned tomato paste with habanero flavor. The heat level was moderate, certainly not the “fire” as it is rated on the bottle, but it did put a nice tingle in my mouth. And the viscosity was near perfect. It poured smoothly and I didn’t have to fight with it to get it out of the bottle. But, where were all the flavors and smells you expect from ketchup? Where’s the vinegar, the onion, the spices? They were missing. I checked the ingredients and they are listed as being in there, but they just aren’t making themselves noticed. Someone call a search party!

The applications for this product are, well, anything you like to eat ketchup on. If you like ketchup and heat, and aren’t particular about which ketchups you put on your food, this may be for you. I on the other hand will stick with good old’ Heinz.

RATINGS –

Aroma: 5/10
Flavor: 5/10
Heat: 7/10
Appearance: 9/10
Viscosity: 9/10
Applications: 2/10
Packaging: 5/10

Overall: 5.5/10

The Salsa King
Fine Southwestern Foods
P.O. Box 20473
Mesa, AZ 85277

877-THEHOT1
www.thehot1.com

Please give Gary from Black Market Condiment Company as a new HSB Reviewer. Garys first review was delicious and the HSB is looking forward to many more reviews from Gary in the future. Check out his author page as well.

When Nick put out the call for new HSB reviewers a couple months ago, I jumped on the opportunity, but admit that I really didn’t think I’d be chosen. It’s not that I have self confidence issues or anything. I just have never considered myself to be any sort of an expert or authoritarian on anything. And I’m not. I’m just one person with an opinion, or many opinions for that matter. In this case, my opinions are about fiery-foods, something I have a passion for. Food has always played an important role in my life. All of my grandmothers were excellent cooks and I guess you could say I became a foodie at a really young age. I used to spend quite a bit of time in the kitchen watching them create and somehow managed to remember a lot of what I saw. All my life I’ve enjoyed cooking and experimenting in the kitchen, particularly with foods that pack a punch, or at least a good slap.

I really got into the whole fiery-foods thing by accident. A couple years ago I decided to plant a bunch of different peppers and herbs in a vacant strip in our backyard. It happened to be a bountiful year and I ended up with more peppers than I could use or giveaway, so I decided to try my hand at hot sauces. I’ve always been pretty good at putting together marinates and rubs and grilling sauces from scratch, but I had never tried to make hot sauce. Having a bunch of freshly picked jalapeno, cayenne, habanero, and hot banana peppers, a free afternoon, and a bunch of beer and wine, I tossed all the peppers on the grill and began developing what would eventually become a very interesting journey and perhaps my future.

With all of those extra peppers I had, I created three hot sauces that were received very well by friends, family, and even a handful of strangers. This got me really excited about creating even more and late last year, with the support of my wife, I launched Black Market Condiment Company. The basic goal of Black Market is to provide a line of gourmet products that are loaded with attitude and tons of flavor, and also appeal to a very wide customer base. None of our products are or ever will be blow your head off hot, but they are also not without their fair share of fervor. We strive for the perfect balance of flavor and heat and believe we have found it. We will be launching our initial product line of three pepper sauces and two dry rubs in January 2007, followed by our 12 to 15 additional products releasing as business growth allows. Since we are always experimenting and developing new products, that number will certainly grow beyond what we are currently capable of handling, but it’s always good to have excellent products in your back pocket.

I hope you find my reviews on the HSB interesting and informative, but also fair. I know how a good review can make or break a product, so I promise to be sensitive to that while penning my thoughts and opinions. Thanks for the opportunity Nick. Cheers!

Longbranch Trading Company has had a few of their sauces reviewed in the past on hotsauceblog.com. Fortunately for me their Longbranch Original was not one of them and I happened to have a brand new bottle of it in my pantry. Having never tasted it before, I figured it was the best choice for my first ever hot sauce blog review. I was grilling New York steaks for dinner and after opening the bottle and taking a good smell and initial taste off of my finger, I decided that this would make an awesome grilling sauce. Awesome grilling sauceIn the meantime though I did have to try it a few more times off of my finger and then I busted out the tortilla chips. This stuff is good, real good, and I had to set enough to the side for the steaks in case I ended up eating all of it.

The Longbranch Original is a salsa picante three-pepper blend of De Arbol, Chipotle Morita and Habanero peppers. It has a nice smokiness and a pleasant heat that balance well with the flavors of the peppers, garlic, apple cider vinegar and the three different roasted seeds used in the recipe. Yes, I said three different seeds. Now using roasted seeds in hot sauces is not uncommon. In fact, in Mexico they are almost a staple. But typically you only see them used one at a time. In this case, roasted pumpkin seeds, roasted sesame seeds and roasted pine nuts are all in the mix and they work beautifully together, creating a rich creamy texture and bold earthy taste.

The appearance of the sauce is a nice brown color. There are bits and pieces of seeds and skins from the peppers and the roasted pumpkin and sesame seeds and roasted pine nuts. It’s not the prettiest stuff I’ve ever seen, but the flavor makes up for that.

The aroma of the sauce was smokey and tangy and full of peppers with a hint of garlic. Interestingly enough, although this sauce uses Chipotle morita peppers, there is not an overwhelming amount of Chipotle flavor, just a hint so you know that it’s there, but just barely. This adds a nice finish on your palette and really rounds out the whole experience.

INGREDIENTS: Apple cider vinegar, water, de Arbol peppers*, roasted pumpkin seeds, roasted sesame seeds, garlic, roasted pine nuts, sea salt, spices, Habanero peppers*, Chipotle morita peppers*, xanthan gum *Denotes dried pepper

Although apple cider vinegar and water are the two main ingredients, the sauce’s viscosity was just about perfect. Thin enough to easily pour from the bottle and thick enough not to run all over the place. It brushed nicely onto the steaks and created a wonderful aroma once it hit the flames. The apple cider vinegar did by no means overwhelm the sauce, but added a nice acidic balance to all of the other flavors.

I used the sauce as a quasi steak and grilling sauce for this review, but there are many many more uses for it. Tacos, nachos, chicken, pork, hamburgers, eggs and pasta are just the first few things that come to mind. It’s really versatile and can be applied to most anything.

The packing is quite simple and understated, especially for a sauce with this much flavor. The label consists only of simple western style text and a graphic of a garland of peppers. Not very interesting and certainly not a standout on a shelf in a retail setting. It comes in a small 5oz. bottle which was disappointing only because I think it deserves to be sold in a larger size, at least a 7 ouncer.

All in all, I really like this sauce and would suggest to anyone to give it a try. It will definitely become a staple in my kitchen.

RATINGS –

Aroma: 8/10
Flavor: 8/10
Heat: 7/10
Appearance: 6/10
Viscosity: 7/10
Applications: 7/10
Packaging: 5/10

Overall: 7/10

Longbranch Trading Company
6285 East Spring Street, #319
Long Beach, CA 90808-4000
Tel: 562-421-8371