Dumb & Dumber Hot Sauce

First impressions: My first impression of this sauce from looking at the sauce, looking at the label, and looking at the ingredients was that it was just another generic cayenne type sauce with way to much vinegar in it because the manufacturer wants to make more sauce for cheaper. I don’t have a problem with these types of sauces because I do really like vinegary sauce if I’m in the mood for it, the only problem is there are so many that are all the same thing all made as cheap as possible so they can try to sell them with a novelty label. The sauce itself is light red and basically looks like a watered down version of a cayenne sauce, where you would normally find a brief description of the sauce trying to convince you that its something you will like this bottle instead has a brief description for the novelty label. the only positive that I got in the first impression is that the first ingredient is habanero peppers rather than cayenne peppers.

First taste: I opened it up and was pleasantly surprised by the smell, garlic and vinegar. I meant to take a small swig from the bottle but underestimated how watery this stuff is and got a mouthful. Same as the smell garlic first then vinegar and with so much of it in my mouth at once I can say it was a little too salty but latter when I put it on my food that wasn’t an issue. this sauce was basically what I was expecting except for the garlic, yea I read it in the ingredients but was still surprised by how garlicky it was and how there was actually enough garlic in it to stand its ground next to the vinegar. I love garlic and it really makes the difference that turns an otherwise generic vinegar type of sauce into something wonderful and unique. Time to make dinner.

Dinner: as I was taking that first sip that turned into a mouthful and savoring the flavor trying to analyze every ingredient in this simple sauce my wife was making a snack, English muffin cut in half with a slice of tomato, fresh green and purple basil from my aero garden, and a slice of pepper jack cheese toasted in the toaster oven. I told her I didn’t want any but as it was toasting and the fresh basil hit my nose I couldn’t help but think how great this sauce would be on it. I made some up and it was fantastic, garlic and basil and cheese with a vinegary tanginess, damn it was good. and even with all the other great meals I made with this sauce it was definitely the best use of it, unfortunately I didn’t take pictures so I got some hungry howys thin crust mushroom pizza for the actual review pictures and if you prefer vinegar based sauces on your pizza this is about as good as your going to find. It’s not my favorite sauce for pizza but it could be my favorite sauce of this type for pizza. All in all I was really impressed with it.

Ingredients: habanero peppers, distilled vinegar, garlic, salt, and vegetable gum.

Distributed by www.risquehotsauce.com (that’s it for manufacturer info on the bottle) and if you go to the site like I tried to do for research you will see that it has nothing. It must of closed down or something. I did a quick search for dumb and dumber hot sauce and found nothing, just a few links to pages that have something to do with the movie and a link to a youtube video of someone putting hot sauce in his eye. Good luck finding this stuff, but if you do pick a bottle up because its worth trying.

Appearance/marketing: 2/10 I never would of bought this stuff in the store unless it was on a clearance rack or something. I think that if the same sauce was sold with a little more serious approach it would do better, even if it’s the same label but just has a description of the sauce on it instead of the explanation of the label. I don’t think anyone would expect the garlic level in this sauce and just mentioning that would let me know that its got something to make it stand out from the category of sauce that it is in.

Taste: 7.9/10 the vinegar, garlic and habaneros where all balanced perfectly. I really enjoyed this sauce.

Heat level: mild. It does build a little more than I expected because of the habeneros, but for a habanero sauce its really not that hot.

Overall: 7.5/10