Well finally the Northeast is in for some snow! It seems like a Valentine’s Day Blizzard may be upon us as early as Tuesday. I am hoping this is a typical 2 day nor’easter in that Long Island gets the 1-2 feet posting across the entire island. We seem to get about one of these storms per season. I also can use a day off, during this week, so Wednesday would be a great day to be off, being it is the middle of the work week! I will be alone though, as I have no Valentine this year. Please reserve your tears though. I have plenty of sauces to review so I will not be without a cause! I just finished Hot Mama’s Manganero and I am now in the mood for some dessert!
I remember not that long ago reading about an Ice Cream called “Cold Sweat” that was made in Angier, NC. USA Today 7/3/2006 Posts,
ANGIER, N.C. (AP), This ice cream comes with an unusual stipulation, customers must sign a waiver before tasting it because it’s so hot.
Cold Sweat, a flavor sold at Sunny Sky’s, an ice cream shop on N.C. 55, is made with three kinds of pepper and two kinds of hot sauce.“It tastes like fire, with a side of fire,” said Scott McCallum, a regular customer, who was eating the more sedate butter pecan flavor.
“I thought it was a cool idea, but I didn’t think he’d make it that hot,” McCallum said of proprietor Scott Wilson.
I remember calling the shop in Angier, NC around the autumnal season of 2006 to get more information. I was told that Cold Sweat Ice Cream consisted of a mixture of Blair’s and Dave’s Hot Sauces as the base with peppers added in. I personally said to myself, “Sure this must be some hot spicy ice cream but why would I want to taste that as the base of the ice cream?” What happened to flavors like chocolate chip mint, black cherry, butter almond, rocky road, etc? Without these flavors to choose from it kind of takes the fun out of eating cold ice cream. I definitely got off the phone and was discouraged. I was not willing to invest a pretty penny in having Cold Sweat shipped to me with dry ice.
Initial Thoughts:So my ideas of having a spicy ice cream became pretty much discouraged until I ventured into The Hot Sauce Shop located in Ronkonkoma, NY. (I did a review for the store not too long ago). Upon looking around the store I was able to learn about a company called “Sweet Agony”. Their website is www.sweetagony.com. They are a small company in that they only offer 4 types of Jams; cranberry, peach, raspberry, and blackberry. Their two dessert syrups are Habanero Syrup and Habanero Cinnamon syrup. They have won awards for both syrup products at the 2005 scovie awards.
1st Place
Prepared Sauce – Sweet Sauce
Sweet Agony InCINNerator Habanero Cinnamon Syrup
2nd Place
Prepared Sauce – Sweet Sauce
Sweet Agony Habanero Syrup
I was back to thinking, “Yes Yes Yes now I have something spicy to put on my ice cream that will taste good! I can have my normal ice cream cones, sundaes,etc and just add this syrup to it without changing the flavor of my dessert”. I was also happy to see the cinnamon added. I was already thinking of red hots and atomic fireballs! Those things were great as a kid and they had some heat to them, especially if you are in 4th grade. (lol) I was really happy to see that Sweet Agony won awards for their products. It gave me hope that just because Sweet Agony is not as recognized or as popular as some other companies in the industry, that they can still win an award for a great product! Maybe I seen Rocky too many times but sometimes it’s cool to root for the underdog!
Ingredients:High Fructose, Corn Syrup, Sucrose, Habanero, Cinnamon. (I hope my science students would be able to recognize that this is definitely a sugary product!)
Visual: Sweet Agony comes in a standard 5 oz. industry based hot sauce bottle. The label appears to have some orange and red flames beind the title “Sweet Agony”. I am unable to make out if these are just flames or if there is an actual mouth behind it. The InCINNerator is a great name for this cinnamon based syrup. The nutritional facts are listed on one side of the label as their description is on the other side. Their description states, “Combining the heat of habanero and the sizzle of cinnamon, Sweet Agony InCINNerator Syrup changes your perception of sweet and heat.”
The syrup is a raspberry/magneta type color and has a thin consistency. No seeds, pepper pulp, or ground cinnamon is visible. This looks like a normal syrup that anyone might use on their pancakes, waffles, cakes, ice cream, etc. However the label “Sweet Agony” makes it clear to the novice that this syrup has some kick to it. There is not a trace of any extract oils either which might be good and bad. Good in that it won’t have a metallic taste, bad in that it may be very mild in terms of heat. We will find out shortly though! 🙂
Aroma: I give Sweet Agony a little dance and the cap goes pop! It is a beautiful aroma! I could sniff this all day for sure. The combination of sweetness, cinnamon, and a trace of habanero goes really well. It smells like hot tamales or red hots (the candies, lol) have been melted down and some habanero powder has been added to it! I am already wondering how good this must taste on ice cream, and many other of my favorite desserts. I am thinking of grandma’s jello with fruit cocktail embedded in it, with whip cream on top and then a drizzle of this! The hell with the drizzle actually, we are about to have a blizzard here perhaps, I would rather go with a downpour of this stuff!.
Application: Well tonight since I am getting ready for the possibility of seeing a blizzard I was in the cold white scenic mood. I ventured out to my local Carvel Ice Creamery and had my buy one get one free coupon ready! I ordered two large fat free Vanilla Sundaes, one with strawberries and wet walnuts, the other with black cherries and crushed oreos.
Politically speaking I believe they are normally referred to as maple walnuts, since they are walnuts in maple syrup. To me it sounds easy enough. However, whenever I say this to the teens or college girls working behind the counter always respond, “You mean Wet Walnuts?”. I really don’t want to sound perverted but I really do let a chuckle out everytime I hear this. Hey Gimme a break here, Valentine’s Day is here and I am Single! The Ice Cream Shop really can turnout to be such an pervy place, depending on how your hormones are flowing that day or evening. Think about it, whip cream and cherries! Enough said.
The syrup is added to the sundaes and it really goes along perfect with the wet juices from the strawberries and Wet Walnuts. It gets disguised very easily and I am really anxious to dig in now with my shovel and start plowing some of this ice cream away. When I first dig in I taste the sweetness of the strawberry syrup and then the cold hits in of the vanilla ice cream. The strawberries are so moist that the Sweet Agony Habanero Cinnamon syrup almost gets absorbed by them.
All the flavors are there and the cinnamon hot syrup flavor is becoming blended into the ice cream. It is as close to euphoria as I have gotten recently. The heat is there. I try to cool down so I keep eating more ice cream! The flavors of the InCINNerator on top of the walnuts, strawberries, and vanilla ice cream is really something special. I am eating this so quickly I have these lovely juices dripping down my mouth and towards my chin. I really am about to straddle the entire pint container onto my face. This is so good that everyone has to try it really. I don’t care if you like your ice cream to be normal, but if you are a true chilihead you have to try this at least one time for the experience of both cold and hot at the same time!! The heat for the black cherries was awesome. Same thing goes with the crushed oreo cookie topping! It is good on everything!
Final Thoughts: Sweet Agony InCINNerator Habanero Syrup is clearly a product of outstanding quality. I have no doubts as to why this product won a scovie award in 2005. This syrup is so good it really belongs on ice cream, jello, cakes, fruits, pancakes, waffles, canoli’s, and any other type of dessert you can possibly think of. I am even going to try this on my raisin bran cereal! Hell, this would make a nice addition to a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch! The heat is there and the combination of the sweetness and the cinnamon flavor are all blended perfectly. A little of this syrup on a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel might make you want to purchase this by bulk (LOL). This is an outstanding product.
I am so much into this hot syrup that I am in the process of now trying to create syrups of blistering heat! I tried to take 5 oz. of normal grocery store maple syrup and add 3 drops of Hotternell’s 4MILL. Extract to it. The heat was there but the flavor of the syrup was killed instantly. It seems that extracts will not work with syrups! 🙁 I am now in the process of purchasing syrups and I will simmer the syrup slowly for 20 minutes to infuse fresh habanero’s into it. I will let it cool and then drain the habs out a few days later. I am hoping I can get a much hotter version, of Sweet Agony, without losing the flavor of the syrup.
If I find out that this process works believe me when I say that Naga Morich Strawberry Syrup is in the works!! I am growing at least 24 Bhut Jolokia plants this season.
Packaging 8/10
Aroma 10/10
Taste 10/10
Appearance 10/10
Heat 8/10
Overall 9