Posted November 23, 2005 by clint in Reviews

Palmetto Pepper Potions – Daily Red Hot Sauce

Bottle Description: South Carolina Hot Sauce. Give us this day our Daily Red. This irresistible elixir fires up scrambled eggs, grits, oysters, burgers, hot dogs, fries, fish, shrimp, chicken, ribs, grilled vegetables, cheese sandwiches, wraps, quesadillas, soup, pizza and pasta dishes.

Ingredients: Tomatoes, fresh onions, red habanero peppers, fresh garlic, fresh lime, distilled vinegar, honey, seasoning, citric acid, xantham gum, kosher salt.

Container: It’s a glass flask! First of all:………COOL! Sure it fits a little weird in the sides of refrigerators but it looks so damn good. Aside from bottle construction I appreciate that this sauce has habaneros in it but Palmetto Pepper Potions decides NOT to paste that fact all over the bottle. Graphics-wise it’s not much. It’s a little unassuming and if it weren’t for the shape of the bottle you’d pass on it visually.

Appearance: Well it is a sauce and it is hot but really..it looks a lot like salsa to me. You can see the tomato/tomato seeds in it. It’s thinner than super market salsa and is looks a little like apricot jam.

Smell: BIG WHIFF. Smells like salsa too. Smells good, mostly tomato, onions, lime and a hint of garlic and peppers. Thanks to its salsa-ness it avoids the bitter smell and vinegar smell that many hot sauces have. Like a Mexican produce store.

Consistency: Nice and chunky. You get a nice slow pour. This sauce stays on your food without you having to worry about it running off getting all over the place. Having experienced hot sauce in the eyes, this is a plus.

Taste: Upon first impression there’s a lot of lime. The sauce is kind of sour at first. After that it becomes sweeter and that’s when the sauce shows it true colors. It’s a mix of tomato/peppers/ salt/honey/onions in that order. That’s a whole lot of taste for one bottle. For me, the lime and vinegar is a bit heavy. I think because of that it limits the amount of food that Daily Red can be poured on.

Heat: 6.6/10 (Leaves a soft burn behind. Be not afraid to POUR. )

Field Test: On a cracker? Not so good. This is after all a salsa but not really. A simple cracker doesn’t compliment it’s tomatoes and lime. On fries, once again it doesn’t do much for me. It’s better than ketchup but it tastes misplaced.

On eggs and Mexican foods this stuff is awesome. Like I’ve been saying, this [tag]sauce[/tag] has all the makings of a salsa so why not use it as such. This where the lime and vinegar become a boon instead of a bane to the taste of this sauce, if you’re the kind of person that puts lime on your carne asada burrito then you have got to add this.

Final Word: 8.0/10 overall. It’s a great on Mexican food but I personally wouldn’t put it on anything else like a hot dog or a burger, blame the lime and vinegar. I’d definitely keep it in my fridge for certain foods but it’s not an all purpose sauce. And when it comes to Daily Red, that’s not a bad thing at all.