First Impression: Paging Dr. Craig, paging Dr. Craig, we have a bland sweet potato emergency at the work Thanksgiving party! Please report to the lunch room, stat…stet? Stat? Where’s George Clooney when you need him…er, John Leguizamo- er John Stamos? ER fans, anyone? Yeah, me neither. I want to know what kind of doctor Craig Edward Wright (Dr. Craig) is…or does he just play one on TV? Google yielded no clues. And then I’m a bit confused as to the intent of the “Say Ahhhh!” on the label. Is that like a tasty, delicious “Ahhhh,” a sigh of relief “Ahhhh,” or a Dr. Jack Kevorkian “Ahhhh!” In that case I hope they taught Dr. Craig the Heimlich in med school. Well, he has piqued my curiosity, regardless. Thanks, doc!

I went to the website and was intrigued to find that Dr. Craig offers hot sauce fundraising opportunities for schools! Move over Gertrude Hawk [obscure Northeast Pennsylvania chocolate company reference], I’m going door to door with hot sauce! Love it!

Ingredients: Rice vinegar, habanero pepper, pineapple, onion, garlic, natural liquid smoke flavor, brown sugar, cornstarch, cayenne pepper, sodium benzoate, and potassium sorbate to extend freshness

Smell: Sweet and tangy, with a little smoke. I definitely get some vinegar, but the sharpness is mellowed out by the brown sugar. Onions, garlic, the usual suspects. It smells like this barbecue concoction we used to spray the chicken with at my church’s chicken BBQ. You know, that one? Well, it’s an indication to me that it should be a pretty good sauce.

Appearance: It’s like a shiny, drippy glaze. I want to spatter donuts with it. See-through orange in color. Red specks and strands throughout, and a little seed here and there.

Taste: Remarkably sweet, but the vinegar and very likely the pineapple provide enough tangy contrast that you don’t feel awkward about it. That is to say, it balances out quite well after a few seconds. There seems to be a lot of garlic flavor in there, which really compliments the sweetness quite well. I still think barbecue of some sort when I taste this stuff. I’ve been sitting here dabbing it into my mouth over and over again, and as far as straight tasting goes, I am still torn about the sweetness, kind of asking myself if I should really be into it or not. But I think I like it, I really do. Hot sauce sweet tooth? Guilty as charged, I suppose.

Heat: I do take issue with this being labeled “extra hot.” I think it’s a medium, and if medium were judged on a scale of 1-3 with 3 being hottest, this is about a 1.7. The heat is delayed quite a while, but it shows up eventually, not unlike a New York subway train. It never gets that hot, but it does linger for a while, right in the mid-tongue, which I think is my favorite heat-lounge. The heat has somewhat of a soothing presence…ahhhh.

Overall: Diagnosis, tasty! Good overall marks. Not the hottest thing in the world, but I don’t think that was ever the vision Dr. Craig had in mind. It’s a nice table sauce, perfectly safe for guests, but enough bite for the less hot sauce-inclined to say “Hey now!” It’s a good family sauce, a friendly general practitioner of hot sauce goodness.

Oh, I used it on sweet potatoes! I saw it had brown sugar in it, I needed brown sugar for sweet potatoes, and the real brown sugar I had had solidified into a brick. So I whipped up some Dr. Craig’s-infused mashed sweet potatoes and brought them to work, for our own little Thanksgiving feast [reference way above]. I actually had to dump a lot more on my own portion to taste it, but the result was very good, on turkey too! Go ahead and schedule an appointment, I think he’s taking new patients.

Contact:
MFD. by Bobbees Bottling
Louisburg, N.C. 27549
www.doctorcraigs.com