Hot Sauce Guide Vol. 2

Lockdown is boring. Do you know what isn't boring? Searing your taste buds half off. Volume one was an accumulation of a wealth of experiences in the hot sauces arena. While you lot were getting lazy bodyspray sets, I was getting a dozen or so hot sauces.

Hot sauces are a perfect halfway point between seasoning and ketchup. It cannot completely mask the meal but is supposed to be the kingpin of every mouthful. Anyway, onwards and upwards…

Woah that’s a massive picture, sorry about that. The debut hot sauce had to wait a little while as I exhausted every existing morsel of the house communal stuff. Old-fashioned stickers like this make you think you're trying a recipe from hundreds of years ago, brewed in a cauldron for families of a few dozen and aged until the present day. Unfortunately, the result was quite generic. I like generic hot pepper sauces don't get me wrong, but the only distinction was apple vinegar. This didn't give it the kick they probably imagined it might. Would turn 40p spaghetti hoops into something edible, but would butcher any favourite meals of yours.

5.5/10

To your left you will see the communal sauce I was talking about. Woke up to gallons of the stuff in cupboards. Sriracha is typically oriental (Thai or Vietnamese specifically), and there is the consistent use of garlic and obviously red pepper. I find that it is usually not as hot and lays off the vinegar which can be a blessed change. You can tell a lot about a sauce from its nozzle. I cracked this open like bubbly and pondered as to what the plastic stencil looking thing would look like. There was none, and you can only conclude from that moment that you load this stuff on like mayonnaise. This stuff was cracking, sweet, but hot as anything.

8/10

Melinda is providing two of the sauces for this guide. The first of which was the classic habanero sauce but with garlic. Habenero is the standard in terms of the one I've had the most of. Inherently very hot, even with the 1/5s on the scale like this one. I thought this complimented food well, but adding garlic to a sauce as a shortcut for just seasoning food didn't feel entirely necessary in my opinion. Far less noticeable than most, and your food is cold by the time you managed to shake enough out of that tiny nozzle. Not bad in the slightest, but nothing to shout about.

6/10

At this point, I feel perhaps I should apologise for the inconsistency of the backgrounds. There is no subtext behind them, I just picked the place in the kitchen with the most light. Melinda did a much better job on this one. More of an emphasis on the pepper and the heat, back to basics. I rarely smother my food in substances for a confusing garlic mix, so this was a saving grace from Melinda.

7/10

Iguana Red doesn't conform to the status quo. I struggled to categorise this one which was a nice surprise. Imagine if you will, a halfway point between brown sauce and jerk bbq sauce (except thinner and less sweet). I assume the smokiness came from the molasses but the general taste was an enigma, a lot of fun regardless. Mixed this with some mayo on a baked potato and it was exceptional. Wasnt necessarily better than the other sauces, but different, which earned it a .5 on what it might have been. Was sceptical about the extravagant design. Had the opposite effect of the Trinidad habanero, in that I envisioned this as a concoction brewed in a basement, with the health and safety regulator tied up in the corner. The result was the opposite so good job. Never judge books nor hot sauces by their respective covers.

7.5/10