First Impressions: Oddly reminiscent of an R.L. Stein Goosebumps book cover, particularly The Werewolf of Fever Swamp (#14) or You Can’t Scare Me (#15), Louisiana Swamp Scum’s label is campy and intriguing in the same way that the series of children’s horror novels used to be (I have since graduated to Fear Street). The sauce looks almost black, not to mention disgusting, but it’s totally supposed to look that way…its swamp scum!

Swamp Scum was clearly designed to look like something that had been dredged from the murky depths of the bayou. What worries me here is that I think they may have decided to call it Swamp Scum before creating the sauce, and then just pumped a bunch of food coloring into the product to fit a pre-conceived theme… Alright, really what I’m trying to say is that if the sauce purposely looks gross for the sake of its name, then it better be really freaking good for the sake of everyone!

Ingredients: Peppers, Vinegar, Salt, Molasses, Natural Flavoring, Caramel Color

Smell: I can’t say I’m crazy about the smell. It smells very smoky, which is weird because there is no mention of liquid smoke or smoked anything in the ingredients. Maybe some of the ambiguous “peppers” were chipotles, or maybe they put the sauce in a smoker for a while. Perhaps it’s not smoke, but there is a very strong, kind of sweet smell in there that isn’t all that appealing. I also detect vinegar and some slight heat.

Appearance: While it is appears a brown to black color inside the bottle, dribbled onto a plate Swamp Scum is a dark forest green. Thin it out a little bit and it the color of algae…hey, like in a swamp! The sauce is completely liquid but travels slower than water. There are no chunks or texture, but miniscule specks of red and green are visible under closer inspection.

Taste: Hmm…I don’t know about this one. Something overtakes my tongue right off the bat, still don’t know what, but I still think smoke flavor. I’m not opposed to smokiness, but whatever that is, there is way too much of it, and it tastes incredibly artificial. I always thought food coloring was flavorless…could this be what I’m troubled by? It might be too much molasses, as there is also a dull, misguided sweetness that blankets the palate. If not for these issues, I think this would be a rather traditional vinegar based cayenne sauce, akin to Frank’s, Pawleys Island Sunburn, Louisiana Supreme, etc.

Heat: The heat is mild. I’m feeling it a little in the back of my mouth and not anywhere else. I’d imagine real swamp scum isn’t too hot either.

Overall: I don’t like it. I am but one man. At least one of my roommates does like it. I think he said he likes using it as a utility sauce for dishes that require just a little heat and some sweetness. I decided to give it two fair shakes of a lamb’s tail on lamb burgers topped with bleu cheese. I chose this meal for two reasons. First, lamb is a meat that, like this sauce, was always inexplicably smoky to me. Also, I figured the pungent bleu cheese would cover up a good deal of the less flattering qualities of this sauce, but not subdue the mild heat. Both me and my luncheon companion thoroughly enjoyed our burgers and agreed that the sauce was an appropriate and agreeable accompaniment…so who knows, you might find some things you could really enjoy it on.