Posted July 16, 2006 by clint in Reviews

Shakey Jake’s Premium Blend Hot Sauce- X-treme

Bottle Description: Where flavor’s key.

Ingredients: Tomato sauce, vinegar, habanero, chilies, salt, garlic

Container: Is this really 5 oz’s? Maybe this is a demo bottle so it’s smaller. Anyways as you can see the label is pretty basic no frills printed out on a home printer ordeal but I certainly wouldn’t dock any points for that. I enjoy a no frills bottle when the market is flooded with so many gimmicky crappy sauces like Eat Shit and Die Hot Sauce.

As a grown man you shouldn’t be telling anyone to eat shit especially your customers. Anyways the Shakey Jake’s label is not going to catch any eyes on the store shelves so it’ll have to attract people by word of mouth.

Appearance: A darker tomato sauce with some seeds.

Smell: In order of appearance: 1) Vinegar (bah!) 2) tomato 3) Habanero 4) a bit of garlic

Consistency: The stopper is actually needed for this sauce because it’s so thin. It is very much like canned soup consistency.

Taste: I hate vinegar sauces. I don’t want a sauce that leaves nothing but a mouthful of puckering sour behind. That being said I really like this sauce. I don’t how they did it but they managed to balance the taste of vinegar into the flavor of the sauce. The vinegar is not obnoxious at all and you don’t end up with a full mouth of sour taste after using this sauce. I think it is the tomato and vinegar that complement each other. The garlic and salt drop in to add some diversity. The habaneros are there. They might not be out in the open but you can taste it throughout the sauce.

Heat: (8.2/10) On food this stuff shouldn’t bother experienced chili heads. Straight out of the bottle though? This stuff bites back.

Field Test: Wield this around with abandon. Remember what it was like to use Tabasco? The old days when you added the stuff to everything and it worked? That is what this sauce can do it’s pretty decent on everything. Have at it.

Final Word: I was surprised, very surprised. The taste of vinegar is there but I’m not repulsed by it. By that fact alone maybe Shakey Jake’s should get the Macarthur genius grant. They could use the grant to make better labels.

Overall: 8.7/10. A good all around sauce that does not have anything that puts it above and beyond but is an old reliable type of sauce.