Captain Spongefoot Trilogy
Wing Sauces

And yet again it’s time for some hot wings! I don’t make wings very often, but lately I have been finding myself experimenting with wing sauces. There might be something on the horizon coming from me regarding wing sauces, but I’ll have to keep anything else under my cap for now. But in my cabinet just begging to be sampled I had a trio of Captain Spongefoot Wing Sauces just waiting for some chicken wings! You can go to their website for more info on all of their sauces.

http://www.captainspongefoot.com/

I have a sampling of the Original Wing Sauce, the Chipotle Wing Sauce, and the Sriracha (Z) Wing Sauce. It seems they have a new Cranberry Chipotle Wing sauce, but hey beggars can’t be choosers. So I line up these 3 sauces and give them the once over.

First impression: ‘Legendary Flavor is on the Horizon.’ The Captain Spongefoot line has a very professional looking brand as part of the label. Going along with the whole ‘sea and sailor’ image, there is a lovely little drawing of a boat sailing the high seas just looking for some chicken wings to smother in wing sauce. They use some nice muted colors for the background of the labels, which gives them a nice overall appeal. There is even a little Chinese type Junk ship on the Z Wing Sauce! Just to make sure that you know that this sauce has some of the flavor of the Far East. Now let’s take a closer look at all of these sauces and see how they hold up on some wings!

Ingredients: Original Wing Sauce – cayenne pepper, sriracha pepper, water, vinegar, clarified butter, salt, sugar, garlic, natural flavors, and corn starch. (contains allergens: wheat, soy, and fish)

Chipotle Table Sauce – cayenne pepper, chipotle pepper, water, vinegar, clarified butter, salt, sugar, garlic, natural flavorings, and spices. (contains allergens: wheat, soy, and fish)

Sriracha (Z) Table Sauce – sriracha pepper, chipotle pepper, water, vinegar, clarified butter, salt, sugar, garlic, natural flavors, and spices.

It seems that these sauces based on the ingredients are very similar in design. There seems to be just a few slight variations to give us some different subtle flavors.

Appearance/Smell/Taste: I give each sauce a nice little smell and they all pretty much smell identical with some slight variances to each sauce. They actually don’t smell all that great, scent wise they are very generic and basic. Dare I say kind of like Frank’s wing sauce?!? I have to admit they have some nice smoky overtones to them. But overall, the smell is just very basic wing sauce with a touch of smokiness. Straight up, they are very pungent and vinegary to the palette. All three sauces have pretty much overpowered my tongue and taste buds with a wave of vinegary vinegar. But I can see that these are pretty much specific application sauces, ie meant for wings! So I got the fryer all set to go and fried up some yummy chicken wings.

Prepared meal: Deep Fried Chicken Wings.

I’m pretty sure that making wings to most folks on here is pretty self explanatory. So I really won’t go into details about making wings. Just fry those suckers up in oil heated to about 145 degrees for about 7-8 minutes. Drain, then toss in your favorite sauce. Here comes my synopsis of the Captain Spongefoot Trilogy.

Complement to meal: Starting with the Original Wing Sauce, I grabbed about 4 wings and thoroughly coated them. Taking the first bite, the sauce has it’s harsh vinegary bite. Just like a typical wing sauce. But, the addition of the chicken definitely cuts down on the harshness a bit from taking the sauce straight up. So it really does remind me of a ‘typical’ wing sauce. Note cayenne peppers as the main pepper here. There is also a slight hint of the Sriracha, but the cayenne definitely takes center stage here. BUT, and I say but because there are some differences here to take note of. The Original Wing Sauce has a nice garlic hint to it with a nice subtle heat. I’d say it’s roughly a 2-3 on the HSB heat scale. The garlic really adds to the overall flavor, so it’s really not just a ‘typical’ wing sauce. It does have that ‘disguise’ from it’s appearance and smell. But once this sauce hits a wing, it’s another ball game for sure. And I don’t even like baseball. So perhaps it’s more like another soccer game then!

I must say that I really kind of like Chipotle peppers. Although sometimes, and it’s only ‘sometimes’ when it’s a cheap ass sauce that uses artificial Chipotle flavorings and such. Not here, since Captain Spongefoot uses a mixture of chipotle and cayenne chilies for the Chipotle Table Sauce. Now, I kind of have an aversion to the name ‘Table Sauce’, especially for this product. It’s not really a table sauce with the addition of clarified butter, it’s a wing sauce. So if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, common sense tells us.. Well you get the idea. I will give kudos for Captain Spongefoot for trying a different type of name for a wing sauce in a gourmet food line. So I guess the plus and the minus just cancel each other out! Getting back to how this sauce tastes on wings. I like the taste initially of the Chipotle Table Sauce a little better than the Original Wing Sauce. It has a slight smokier and creamier flavor to it. Which I prefer over the Original Wing Sauce. The heat was about the same on the HSB heat scale, perhaps a notch higher maybe 3-4 on the scale. Definitely a little bit more clarified butter in this one, there is also no corn starch as a thickener, which migh back up my assessment that there is slightly more butter in this one. Very good wing sauce.

Last but not least is the Sriracha (Z) Table Sauce. Once this sauce hits the wings, the smell of the Sriracha pepper is more dominant than smelling it straight up. This sauce still has that vinegary flavor to it, but yet again the chicken has slighted this and muted it to the point that it tastes good on a wing! The Sriracha Table Sauce has less of a vinegar flavor than the other two. That and there is a touch more smokiness and a touch of sweetness to this sauce. And the heat level of this sauce is definitely the highest of the 3 sauces. I’d have to say that it’s at least a 4-5 on the HSB heat scale. It’s definitely not a barn burner, yet it has a nice mild-medium heat that lingers a bit on the tongue as I eat more chicken wings! Damn, I love hot wings! I just wish it were like eating a salad! Again, I’d have to say that the Z Sauce is definitely my favorite of the Captain Spongefoot trilogy! And like I was saying earlier. They seem to have the ‘disguise’ of a typical wing sauce. But they all have some really nice nuances to them, that separate them from the pack of a traditional wing sauce. Still a touch vinegary, but if you like wing sauces, then you’d really like the Captain Spongefoot line. Now, all I need is a bottle of the Cranberry Chipotle Table Sauce! I bet that one is just tits on some wings! Take care all and till next time! -Lars-

Initial impression: 8/10

Ingredient quality/content: 8/10

Flavor/textue/smell: 6/10

Heat: 5/10

Overall: 6.75/10

Quaker steak and lube atomic wing sauce

My first impression of this sauce from the bottle was that it was a novelty sauce and probably wouldn’t be that hot. it comes in a medicine bottle and the sauce itself has an eye dropper very similar to pur-cap. Pur-cap however is an extract and I can understand the eye dropper, this is a wing sauce what am I supposed to do put one drop of sauce onto my wings? Dilute it maybe? It also has a waver that I’m supposed to sign and mail to them before eating it. how am I supposed to take that seriously, if it truly needs a waver they had better have you sign it when they sell it or people just wont do it. I took a look at the ingredients and it gets even better, the number one top of the list ingredient is Tabasco sauce. It has a breakdown of what is in Tabasco sauce, spices and then another hot sauce with a breakdown of what is in it. vinegar, salt, garlic, and some preservatives. So it basically sounds like they mixed other people’s sauces together added a few things and sold it as there own. If that’s the case how did they not get sued by Tabasco who seems to sue anybody and everybody they can? I did some research and got this from their site. “The “cult” following of its wings, spurred by an imaginative promotional schedule, has made Quaker Steak and Lube immensely popular with families, couples and singles alike. Everyone from two to eighty-two loves The LUBE! Truckloads of chicken wings arrive daily from the nation’s top chicken processors, and Tabasco(R) and Frank’s RedHot(R) sauce are purchased in 55-gallon drums.” I don’t make hot sauce and I don’t know anything about the legal works of it so I’m just going to forget about it, what do I care anyway. I’m more concerned with the taste. It claims to be between 100,000-300,000 scoville heat units so maybe it wont be so bad after all. The second hot sauce listed in the ingredients does have pepper extract listed in the breakdown. I cracked it open and licked the side of the dropper. My first impression was that it was more of a steak sauce because it had a very bold flavor with just a little tanginess from the vinegar. It wasn’t that hot so I set the dropper aside and poured it over my wings in a bowl then shook them up and served them with blue cheese dressing. The smell of the sauce on the hot wings was a lot more vinegary than the taste. But even being warmed up the flavor of vinegar was never an issue while eating the wings. It had just the right amount of tanginess to it, and was actually pretty good. it is definitely different than most wing sauces I have had in the past, which is a good thing. Even though its not my favorite and does not have enough heat for my likings it is something different after eating the same old wing sauces all the time. It would probably go really good on a steak because the flavor of it reminds me of steak sauce, and it didnt have that really buttery flavor to it that most wing sauces have to really set them apart from hot sauces.

Ingredients: Tabasco sauce (vinegar, aged red pepper, salt) hot sauce (cayenne red peppers, vinegar, salt, and garlic), spices, hot sauce (tomato paste, water, pepper extract, vinegar, sugar, molasses, soy sauce) vinegar, xanthan gum, propylene glycol alginate, less that 0.1% sodium benzoate added as a preservative, salt, and garlic.Note: I realize that there are some typing errors in the ingredient list, that is how the bottle is so I didn’t feel the need to change them.

Smell: 5/10

Taste: 7/10 I like that it is so different than all the other wing sauces out there, but it almost doesn’t seem like it should be put on wings its so different.

Heat: 5/10 the medicine bottle and eye dropper and waver that I never completed and sent in before eating are purely a novelty, the heat isn’t that bad. Price: the website has it listed for 5.99 and I would say that is a decent price for it

Overall: 5.7/10

Quaker Steak and Lube
101 Chestnut Street
Sharon, PA 16146
724-704-7115

I’ve been a buffalo chicken wing freak ever since the days of The Airways Hotel in Buffalo, NY. Seems they stumbled upon a hot wing sauce by accident and the rest is history.

Chances are, if you don’t reside in Colorado, you probably haven’t heard of the Captain Sponge foot Trading Company. Their sauces have been handcrafted there, since 1995. Shame on this company for not marketing and targeting the rest of the country. Their Original-Wing Sauce is as good as a wing sauce can be! With a little marketing, their products could be everywhere and trust me, they would sell.

Lets take a look at packaging. Their 2 bottle Colorado gift pack consists of a 5 oz. bottle of Chipotle-Table Sauce and a 5 oz. bottle of Original-Wing Sauce. Notice how the “CO” (Chipotle and Original) on the labeling stands for Colorado. Coincidence? I doubt it. The labeling is extremely good, in fact, has won several awards.

After a little research, we learn that this gift set won 1st place in the Scovie Awards for full product packaging and 3rd place for product label for the Chipotle-Table Sauce. (I will review this sauce at a later date). Both awards were in 2005.

Very impressive labels. Good quality, non-gimmicky and all around just plain good.

Captain Sponge Foot’s motto is “fry or bake, sauce and shake”.

Ingredients: Cayenne Pepper, Sriracha Pepper, Chipotle Pepper, Water, Vinegar, Clarified Butter, Salt, Sugar, Garlic, Natural Flavors and Spices, Corn Starch.

I really like this line up of ingredients. My first aroma after opening this sauce up was from the smoked Jalepeno’s or Chipotle peppers. Smokey, with a hint of garlic (probably from the Srirachi pepper). I found that Srirachi is actually thai chilies mixed with garlic and sugar. It is named after Sriracha Harbor, the largest private port on the Eastern Coast of Thailand, not far from Bangkok. I did notice a hint of tang, but not really from vinegar. It was mild and mellow.

Using Clarified Butter in the ingredients is brilliant. Clarified Butter doesn’t burn easily and really adds sweetness and texture.

I prefer to very lightly dust my wings with flour, but it would not be necessary with The Original-Wing Sauce. The consistancy is quite good and would stick without any cooking medium.

As you can see, the appearance of The Original-Wing Sauce is a deep red, with bits and pieces of peppers visible. I get a feeling that there is some tomato in this sauce but it is not listed. The texture is perfect. I’ve added just 1/2 tablespoon of real butter to the sauce and once the wings were done, tossed them in the sauce and served them with celery and blue cheese dressing.

Folks, I’ve got to tell you. Captain Sponge Foot Trading Company has a great Original-Wing Sauce. The taste is better than the original Airways Buffalo Wings. Spicy heat, about a 6 on my scale and true chipotle flavor with garlic and some sweetness. It is all there. Come on Captain Sponge Foot, take your Original-Wing Sauce and set sail farther East. We need ya.

Packaging 10
Appearance 10
Aroma 9
Taste 9.5
Heat 6
Overall 9.5

Captain Sponge Foot Trading Company, Inc.
2222 County Road 57
Granby, CO 80446
970-887-1043
www.captainspongefoot.com