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Great Blogs of Fire!: Dave’s Gourmet Insanity Sauce

Posted on June 9, 2017 by Mark T

When I was younger, I never understood how or why my dad would eat these strange red and yellow seeds on his pizza.  When I would try them, my mouth would hurt, and I vowed to never sully my pizza again with this mysterious condiment. As time went by, I realized they were just dried pepper flakes, and I tried them again.  What was once a traumatic experience, now was a pleasurable one.  I moved on to jalapenos on nachos and Louisiana hot sauce on my Popeye’s fried chicken.  My desire for spice grew as time went on as I diversified the foods I ate or went out of my way to try like in Mexican, Sichuan, or Indian cuisine.  I eventually reached my dad’s level where my spice tolerance makes my fellow diners shake their head in disbelief. Owners/servers of ethnicities known for piquant food traditions have marveled at the idea of a white person enjoying the same level of spice as they do or perhaps even more so.  It has also caused episodes of spice profiling when restaurant owners did not make it spicy enough for my liking even if I requested it when ordering.   By consuming spicy foods, I see myself carrying on the family tradition from my dad, but it made me wonder what caused me to develop this desire to consume fiery dishes?  According to the Smithsonian and Popular Science, it seems that food preferences are a mixture of nature and nurture.  While initial studies thought that genes could make individuals more resistant to the spicy food’s effects on their taste receptors, a recent study showed that more extroverted or thrill-seeking personalities were drawn to spicy flavors.  This doesn’t mean that the more adventurous eaters felt the burn less, rather the insular lobe in their brains connected the pain and/or novelty of the taste to positive feelings.  This connection of pain and pleasure goes against millennia of evolution where chili plants originally developed capsaicin to deter animals from consuming them.

Thus, this long history of hellish dining brings me to my first meeting with Dave’s Gourmet Insanity Sauce.  The label on the front looks fun enough with a little smiling pepper catching some rays under the sun on the beach looking innocuous enough with some shades, a little umbrella, and a cool drink at his side.  All is well with the world, or so you would think.

Then you flip the bottle over, and you realize that there was a reason why the smug chili pepper on the front had a devious smile.

Perhaps the part with removing oil stains and wax floors is a bit of hyperbole, but after tangling with this beast in a bottle, I can agree that the second half of the warning label is legitimate.  According to Dave’s Gourmet website, this sauce has been the only sauce banned from the National Fiery Foods Show and is recommended for real O.C.s or Original Chiliheads.  When I poured a bit of this hell-fire out, it was a thick, burgundy sauce that was like a very thick mole sauce or a grainy buttercream cake frosting.  I then made the plunge by tasting the drop, and it felt like a mix of a MOAB drop and a lightning bolt of nostalgia went off in my mouth.  The taste was the same or very similar to the extremely spicy, esophagus-closing sauce I had at Onniyure Donkatsu in Seoul.  According to chiliworld.com, the main ingredient is red savina habanero peppers as well as pure capsaicin or the active irritant found in chili peppers.  It is roughly rated at 250,000 Scoville heat units where as original Tabasco sauce is only 2,000 Scovilles or Frank’s RedHot sauce is only 450 Scovilles.  Needless to say, the spice level was overpowering even for a seasoned fire-eater like me, and it lasts for at least 30 minutes after eating.  The flavor is kind of bitter due to the high levels of capsaicin extract, and it is better mixed into soups or rice dishes to provide a spicier profile instead of being consumed straight up.  This sauce could be considered a biohazard though and should not be trifled with.  For example, I found that I started to cough/choke on the sauce’s fumes when washing the sauce off my plate with hot water.  Tread carefully, adventurous diners.

Final Score for Dave’s Insanity Sauce

Flavor:  3/10
Spice:  10/10
Overall:  6.5/10       This is not your backyard barbecue hot sauce.  What it lacks in flavor, it more than makes up for in spice.  It is certainly not my favorite hot sauce, but it is definitely a go-to if I’m feeling like having a good sweat while eating.

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Great Blogs of Fire: Xxxtra Hot Habañero Sauce

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Mark T

Summer is in full swing as we’re finally in August, and what better to spice up the summer than a fresh hot sauce blog post on Mastication Monologues?  So, today’s entry comes from the Tropical Pepper Company who manufactures their sauces in the wonderful land of Costa Rica.  Although, Costa Rican cuisine isn’t too spicy, the land is ideal for growing the peppers needed to make their signature sauces.  Check out my post here where I reviewed their hazardous ghost pepper sauce.  While the habañero pepper doesn’t come close in spice to the all mighty bhut jolokia, it still does pack a punch like in today’s Xxxtra hot habañero pepper sauce.  First, there is the bottle. IMG_7286 Instead of the toucan being a skeleton like on the ghost pepper sauce, it is much more inviting with some of the peppers you are about to consume in his colorful beak.  Then there is the back of the bottle which is a bit bombastic in hyping up this condiment, but it still ranks as an “ouch” on their heat scale.IMG_7327  Knowing the potency of the first sauce I bought from the Tropical Pepper Company, I preceded with caution when I popped the top to try it out.  What I found was one of the best hot sauces I’ve tried.  The sauce’s color was red with a hint of orange and punctuated with white/yellow pepper seeds floating throughout the mixture.  IMG_7328Plus, it was noticeably thicker than its ghostly predecessor which became apparent when I had to put a bit of elbow grease to get the sauce out of the bottle a la Heinz ketchup.  The ghost pepper salsa, on the other hand, is a super watery, burgundy solution of doom.  I didn’t get the hint of any sort of gastrointestinal foreboding from the habañero sauce.  Luckily, the bark was like the bite:  pleasant.  Mind you, I have higher tolerance for spicier foods, so if you’re not used to eating fiery meals, don’t dive headfirst into this pool party.  However, I found it to be an interesting mix of elements.  From the outset, it had a kick of spice with a vinegar-fueled tang but with super subtle sweet notes that I think might be attributed to the use of pineapples in the recipe.  The spice quickly ebbed to a more understated, slow burn on my tongue as I ate more of it and got used to its smooth flavor.

Final Score

Flavor:  9/10
Spice:  6/10
Overall:  7.5/10       It’s a spicy, but not too spicy sauce compared to the hype job its packaging does for it.  Thankfully, it doesn’t let the                                    spice overwhelm its flavorful self.  Recommend this sauce for wings or perhaps tacos.

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Great Blogs of Fire!: Tropical Pepper Company Ghost Pepper Sauce

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Mark T

Welcome to another Mastication Monologues post!  Before I begin, I’d like to recommend a food website that I have been a part of since the outset of my blog, but it has changed in many ways.  While there are lots of websites for restaurant recommendations like Yelp or Trip Advisor, I’d like to make a case for Zomato.  It is similar to the aforementioned websites, but it also integrates other apps like Google Maps and Uber if you need a ride to your restaurant.  I’m currently the number 8th ranked foodie in Chicago and my blog is number two on their list out of hundreds as noted on the side of my blog, so I highly recommend it for new and seasoned bloggers as well if you’re looking for a platform to launch your brand like I did years ago with Urbanspoon.  Anyway, foodie promotion over.  Let’s get back to the food!

Today’s post is another ode to one of the greatest culinary inventions in human history:  hot sauce.  While there are millions of different blends of peppers and ingredients that range from the sweet to savory to Manhattan Project levels of spice, I cannot get enough of these condiments.  I only recently decided to showcase my love for burning my tastebuds with reviews of my latest hot sauce adventures (See post #1 here).  So, I would like to let you know about a great discovery I made this past week:  Tropical Pepper Company’s ghost pepper sauce.  I picked it up from the local grocery store’s hot sauce wall that I’m slowly but surely working my way through, but I’m sure you could find it in any grocery store that has a substantial Latin American section.  I also chose this sauce at the recommendation of a fellow chili head who works at the store who highlighted the sauce’s ability to scorch your mouth with both heat and flavor.  Naturally, it piqued my interest.  Looking over the bottle, there were plenty of warning signs of the potency of the sauce.  IMG_6349From the skeletal remains of the toucan to the “More than one drop is suicide” warning on the upper label, it all made me all the warier based on previous history with this creation of the devil in the USA and overseas.  Oh yeah, and this quaint description on the back. IMG_6572 The Naga/Bhut/Bih Jolokia pepper originates from the far eastern regions of India and also Bangladesh.  It was once considered the hottest pepper in the world at 800,000 to 1,000,000 Scoville units of spiciness which made me skeptical of the number given on the back of the bottle as only 500,000 Scoville units.  To give you an idea of spice, a typical jalapeno pepper is around 10,000 Scoville units.  My following experience could only be summed up by Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk, “Too hot!  Hot damn!”.  The name either comes from the fierce Naga warriors of Nagaland or Bih comes from Assamese for “poison” since its so hot.  As for the origin of the more popular “ghost” name,  athe home of the Bhut Jolokia website provides this explanation, “The word Bhut, given from the Bhutias people, means “ghost” and was probably given the name because of the way the heat sneaks up on the one who eats it”.  This was surprisingly accurate when I finally sampled the sauce.   When I opened the bottle to drizzle on some tacos, I sniffed it first to get a snoot full of slightly vinegary hints of fire.  When I poured the candy apple red sauce on the tacos, it was more watery than I was expecting.  Upon my first bite, I found it to compliment the taco contents with an initial subtle spice that almost had a jerk seasoning slant to it with a modicum of sweetness.  However, as time went on, my appetite lit the fuse on this powderkeg of sauce.  The heat kept on building and building to leave me with a constant layer of sweat on my brow and a noticeably higher level of salivation from the sheer heat in my mouth.  Janice even told me that my lips and surrounding area was extremely red after enjoying this sauce, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I know it might seem weird, but I find pleasure in the afterburn in my mouth after eating a spicy sauce.

So here’s my general review of  Tropical Pepper Company’s ghost pepper sauce:

Flavor:  8/10  Full of semi-sweet fruity and slightly smoky notes that are surprisingly for such a spicy sauce
Spice:  8/10    While the label is slightly misleading in terms of underestimating the heat, it has a good level of spice that sneaks up on                              you, but is manageable if you’re experienced with this type of firepower (pun intended)
Overall:  8/10   This is one of the best ghost pepper sauces I’ve ever tried, comparable to Jake Melnick’s XXX wings sauce, where there                              is a nice balance of both spice and flavor instead of just tongue melting heat.

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Great Blogs of Fire!: El Yucateco Mayan Kutbil-Ik Habanero Sauce

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Mark T

Spicy food in America is becoming more and more popular as more immigrants from more spice oriented cuisines are promoting their dishes while big fast food chains are trying to cash in on Millennials’ taste buds tuned into more spicy food like Wendy’s ghost pepper fries or Jack In The Box’s Sriracha burger to name a few new products.  However, my love for spicy food runs in my veins from an unexpected source:  my dad.  For the longest time, I’ve remembered him unscrewing the tops of red pepper flake containers at pizzerias or hearing from my mom’s Pakistani coworker that she has never seen a white man eat such spicy food.  While I liked peppers to a certain extent, I didn’t have the same penchant for colon scorching levels of heat.  As I got older, I grew into my tastebuds and quickly realized that I could not only consume mouth-numbing food but also enjoy it (aside from the morning after).  I made it my point to try super spicy foods whenever I had the chance, and it has taken me on some unique adventures close to home and others a bit further in Korea and Portland, to name a few locations.  Not only have I been to some interesting food challenges, I’ve become a bit of a chili sauce aficionado.  So I am writing these new posts to highlight the new hot sauces I’ve tried.

Today’s entry is from the Yucateco hot sauce company, i.e. my favorite hot sauce company.  While I thought there only existed one type, the green habanero, little did I know there was an entire hot sauce universe out there waiting to be discovered.  This realization happened right by my girlfriend’s apartment, where I found an entire wall of hot sauce just waiting to be sampled. IMG_4050 I scoped out the bottles for my beloved green Yucateco only to find it had five other brothers waiting next to him.  I picked one up that said “Mayan Kutbil-Ik Sauce”.  “Yucateco” in Spanish refers to anything coming from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico which is also where the Mayan civilization flourished before the arrival of the Spanish in the 15th Century.  Therefore, the Mayan recipe is the ultimate homage to the region, and the name of the sauce, Kutbil-Ik, in the modern Mayan language Nahuatl means “crushed chili”.  So, when I first got the bottle home to douse my tacos with a proper hot sauce, I expected a mini-apocalypto in my mouth.  IMG_6157However, when the mottled brown sauce tumbled out onto my plate, I could immediately smell a smoky scent with citrus notes wafting off the sauce.  My first bite hit my palate with a habanero punch that washed from the tip of my tongue to the back of my throat.  Heat in food is normally measured in Scoville units named after Wilbur Scoville who developed the measurement scale.  The spice is measured in relation to how much capsicum or the chemical compound found in nature that imparts the spiciness to peppers.  Bell peppers have 0 Scoville units and pure capsicum has 16,000,000 Scovile units.  This means that pure capsicum has to be diluted 16,000,000 times until there is no detectable spiciness, but obviously this is a very objective system based on peoples’ tolerances.  The new high pressure method is much more scientific though.  The Kutbil-Ik sauce has roughly 11,600 Scoville units, so to put that in perspective a jalapeno pepper is 2,500-5,000 units.  Basically, if you’re not a chili-head, prepare to get lit up like a bonfire.  If you are experienced, you’ll find the burn to be fast and furious, but then oddly absent over the long term.  However, it not all spice as I encountered the same smokey, slightly garlicky, and super toned down lime tones I smelled from the outset.  It really made my meal pop, but it wasn’t the best sauce I’ve ever had.

Flavor:  7/10
Spice:  7.5/10
Overall:  7/10       A middle of the road habanero sauce that’s good around the house, but is not the be all, end all of hot sauces.

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