Posted December 5, 2006 by Anthony in Reviews

Retro Review #6 – Crazy Jerry’s Brain Damage Hot Sauce

Some of you are going to call me a hypocrite due to the nature of this sauce. You see, there is a fair amount of fruit in it. But, in my defense this doesn’t taste fruity. Crazy Jerry’s Brain Damage definitely is sweeter than most, but at the same time it doesn’t tout itself as a fruit sauce.

I haven’t tried this sauce in years. And when I saw this come, wow was I ever happy. The Brain Damage sauce was one of my first sauces going back over a decade. Back in the day I had this stacked in between Dave’s Insanity, Blair’s After Death and Spontaneous Combustion.

Funny now though cause at the time I thought this stuff was blistering hot. Now I can do a shooter of the stuff and not even notice. Regardless of the heat (and there is a fair amount of heat) the taste is amazing. What also impressed me is that even after almost 10 years the sauce tastes as great as when I first tried it. The colour is pleasant in its deep red hue and the consistency thickens upon refrigeration which I recommend you do.

Ingredients: Mandarin Oranges, honey, mango fruit, habanero peppers, distilled vinegar, water, garlic, chipotle peppers, sugar, spice.

As I had mentioned Crazy Jerry’s Brain Damage is quite sweet. But its saving grace is the chipotle peppers which are subtle, but if they weren’t there I don’t think I would want to know how sweet this could have been. The smokiness smoothens out the sweetness (say that 5 times fast) and what you get is a very refreshing, sweet sauce that has a pretty good blast of heat. Not a stinging heat, but a building up constant heat that I still find impressive.

You can see this [tag]hot sauce[/tag] on pork chops, wings, salads and desserts. It is really quite versatile. If you passed Crazy Jerry’s Brain Damage up before because you thought the pink brain was just a novelty, let the longevity of this sauce speak for itself. Great stuff!

Packaging 10/10 ““ its got a brain on top ““ how cool is that
Aroma 8.5/10 ““ Fresh and lively, sophisticated
Appearance 8.5/10 ““ Pleasantly red ““ decent consistency
Taste 8.6/10 ““ sweet ““ not fruity and overpowering ““ habs stand out and chipotles keep guard
Heat 6.8/10 ““ Enough for a newbie chili-head to really take notice

Overall 8.5/10 ““ For those who don’t want an overly fruity sauce but like a hot sweet sauce