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Batten Island Gourmet Sauce
Hot
First impression: This one is going to be rough for me. I can tell just from the list of ingredients. It has nothing to do with artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. Batten Island Hot Sauce is 100% natural and should be proud to be so. There is no high fructose corn syrup or xanthan gum used as thickeners. Batten Island gets a real nice large THUMBS UP for this! No on to what I’m talking about as far as ingredient content…
Ingredients: raisins and/or dates & prunes, vinegar, apple, (one or more of the following: pears, papaya, mango), habanero & cayenne pepper, tomato paste, brown sugar, garlic, onion, salt, and other exotic herbs & spices.
Appearance/Smell/Taste: I crack open the lid and take a hefty whiff of this strange concoction of a hot sauce. The first thing that hits my brain receptors is an odd mix of steak sauce and apple pie?!? I shit you not folks… lol This one is definitely DIFFERENT! What is most annoying about the ingredients is the ‘and/or’ and ‘one or more of the following’?!? Seriously, I do not know why food manufacturers label products this way. I for one as a consumer would like to know what I’m eating. Labeling this way just leads to too many ‘for instances’ for my liking. Aside from this little bitch about what’s actually in the bottle, let’s look closer shall we?!? The sauce has a muddy brown color with a slight hint of orange-ish red kinda hue. Almost like the surface of Mars, but not exactly. You can see a myriad of dried spices mixed together pleasure. So let’s find out. Hmmm, it tastes almost exactly as it smells. Sort of an odd mixture between steak sauce and apple pie. The sauce almost has a slight gritty texture. Looking closer at the ingredients there is listed ‘habanero and cayenne PEPPER’. Does this mean powders are used instead of fresh or IQF frozen pods?!? If someone can correct me on this I’d like to know. The sauce itself is a nice thick consistency. It flows nicely from the bottle into large collected globs. I’m glad that I’m not actually cooking anything for this review. I haven’t had pizzeria pizza in months, so I was desperately jonesin’ for a slice of heaven. I started off the food test with a slice of white pizza…
Prepared meal: White Pizza – ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, and lots of garlic!
There isn’t a hot sauce that I have come across that didn’t go well on pizza. As you can see from above, I placed a hearty portion of Batten Island HOT Hot Sauce on my pizza to give it the food test. Well, perhaps we have a first here folks.
Complement to meal: Just the smell of this sauce going onto the pizza was, strange. It’s not bad mind you, just not something that I’m accustomed to in a hot sauce. The smell of the steak sauce kinda shows up very lightly. Still not sure if this is going to be a good match here. ‘Chew, chew, chew, chew’… Strange. There isn’t much heat, and it tastes like I have steak sauce and apple pie filling on my pizza.. lol I detect a hint of raisins and/or dates & prunes, but I’m really not sure since the list of ingredients is just as confused as my taste buds currently are. It’s got a very sweet after taste. Not too sweet, actually that is as a good level I suppose for a hot sauce of this type. I suppose since this is supposed to be the hottest of the Batten Island Sauces, I’m a little disappointed in the heat level of this one. It could be plenty hotter and still be bearable to an uninitiated tongue. I have to give Batten Island Sauces credit where credit is due. This hot sauce is DIFFERENT and UNIQUE. There is no funny stuff or phony bologna either, which is very important coming from a manufacturers stand point. I would say try this sauce with some kind of meat or fish. I bet it would taste better if it were cooked a little with some food, that might help the flavors come out a little better than just blopped onto a slice of pizza. –Lars-
Initial impression: 8/10
Ingredient quality/content: 8/10
Flavor/textue/smell: 3/10
Heat: 2/10
Overall: 5.25/10
Batten Island Gourmet Sauces
www.battenislandgourmet.com
10418 New Berlin Road
Suite 224
Jacksonville, FL 32226
1-877-FLSauce
Chilehead Comments:
Posted by: Lars - Categories: Uncategorized
Permalink: Review: Batten Island Gourmet Sauce - HOT
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13 Comments »
Buddah on 9/15/2007 at 8:44 am said:
I really like your review style Lars, but I have to say choosing pizza for this hot sauce was a mistake. Don’t fruit the beer? Well don’t fruit the pizza either. I know tomatoes are fruit, but what other kinds of fruit do you usually plop on pizza? Pineapple is the only fruit I have ever tried, and for good reason. Prunes, pears, papaya? Good god. lol Fruit doesn’t work. 1 look at the ingredients and you should’ve tried another hot sauce on your pizza, or at the very least, found another food of choice before you completed your review. It is kind of like trying mustard on eggs. While that might work to some degree, you haven’t done the mustard justice. Other than my pickiness on the fruit on pizza thang, great review. Sorry for the complaint.
No worries. Like I said, I wasn’t in the mood to cook anything and Batten Island was next at bat. This is definitely the first hot sauce that I have tried that didn’t really mesh with pizza. There is a first for everything. I still have 2 more reviews coming up. One of which was a dry spice that I made orange Roughy… And well.. You’ll see the outcome. -Lars-
i had the x tra hot version of this sauce, and was really disapointed with the heat in that one also.
this is off topic but since its a thread i know you will read, i love your capsacin carnival.
Hey Lars,
Good one buddy.
A little disappointed there wasn’t a gourmet recipe attached to this one, but you deserve a break.
You’re reviews always make me hungry.
By the way, are you listed with Peppers? (off topic, sorry)
Justin on 9/15/2007 at 11:51 am said:
i had the x tra hot version of this sauce, and was really disapointed with the heat in that one also.
this is off topic but since its a thread i know you will read, i love your capsacin carnival.
Thanks man! 
Uncle Big on 9/15/2007 at 2:28 pm said:
Hey Lars,
Good one buddy.
A little disappointed there wasn’t a gourmet recipe attached to this one, but you deserve a break.
You’re reviews always make me hungry.
By the way, are you listed with Peppers? (off topic, sorry)
Luther has my hot sauces. You are talking about the Peppers in Rehoboth Beach, DE, right?!? lol -Lars-
It’s fun to make people hungry! lol
I’m glad you guys are enjoying my reviews. Good, bad, or indifferent I’m trying to be as fair and balanced as possible. -Lars-
Lars on 9/15/2007 at 11:44 pm said:
Luther has my hot sauces. You are talking about the Peppers in Rehoboth Beach, DE, right?!? lol -Lars-
Yup, Luther, Chip and the whole gang and Peppers in Rehoboth Beach, DE.
I need to be ordering some splits cases for sampling in the store to see what the masses think.
Everyone that’s tried your products on HSB seems to like it. I’d like to continue that trend.
Cheers.
We are definitely going off topic here, but Capsacin Carnival and Salubrious Savina are 2 quality hot sauces in my honest opinion. I also tried the pasta and bbq sauces at the Weekend of Fire in some of Lars homemade concoctions and I will give them the big Buddah thumb of approval as well.
Uncle Big on 9/16/2007 at 12:09 am said:
Yup, Luther, Chip and the whole gang and Peppers in Rehoboth Beach, DE.
I need to be ordering some splits cases for sampling in the store to see what the masses think.
Everyone that’s tried your products on HSB seems to like it. I’d like to continue that trend.
Cheers.
Thanks man, that would be great!
Congrats on being a daddy as well! Best of luck! -Lars-
Buddah on 9/16/2007 at 5:37 am said:
We are definitely going off topic here, but Capsacin Carnival and Salubrious Savina are 2 quality hot sauces in my honest opinion. I also tried the pasta and bbq sauces at the Weekend of Fire in some of Lars homemade concoctions and I will give them the big Buddah thumb of approval as well.
I am visiting many blogs that have this “review”on them and I want the public to know I think it is unprofessional as well as immature for a grown man or woman to speak so vulgar publically. I have had this sauce and it revolves in my kitchen door everytime I need a new bottle. It is not for the close minded BBQ rutter, but for the geniune “foodie” that enjoys new tastes and is not afraid to try something different. If you don’t add this sauce to your list your missing out!
Amanda on 11/30/2007 at 1:05 pm said:
I am visiting many blogs that have this “review”on them and I want the public to know I think it is unprofessional as well as immature for a grown man or woman to speak so vulgar publically. I have had this sauce and it revolves in my kitchen door everytime I need a new bottle. It is not for the close minded BBQ rutter, but for the geniune “foodie” that enjoys new tastes and is not afraid to try something different. If you don’t add this sauce to your list your missing out!
Well, since I wrote this review as far as I know this is the only blog that it has appeared on. What’s with the quotes around review?
Are you certain that you didn’t want to post your message under THIS review?
http://www.hotsauceblog.com/hotsaucearchives/review-batten-island-mild-gourmet-sauce/
And you are? The vulgarity police?!? Or are you the manufacturer? Or do you have a relation to the manufacturer and you are just upset that I didn’t like their sauce? I’m about as open minded as they come, but hey since you are the expert at hot sauces I suppose you are correct and I am wrong. Whatever!
Sorry, it wasn’t that good in my opinion. As far as I could tell it was made with powdered chilies, which usually makes a pretty bad hot sauce.
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I really like your review style Lars, but I have to say choosing pizza for this hot sauce was a mistake. Don’t fruit the beer? Well don’t fruit the pizza either. I know tomatoes are fruit, but what other kinds of fruit do you usually plop on pizza? Pineapple is the only fruit I have ever tried, and for good reason. Prunes, pears, papaya? Good god. lol Fruit doesn’t work. 1 look at the ingredients and you should’ve tried another hot sauce on your pizza, or at the very least, found another food of choice before you completed your review. It is kind of like trying mustard on eggs. While that might work to some degree, you haven’t done the mustard justice. Other than my pickiness on the fruit on pizza thang, great review. Sorry for the complaint.