One of my gifts for Christmas was the Hot Ones line of hot sauces for their current season.
https://heatonist.com/pages/hot-ones...aled-heatonist
A few notes:
There is a huge jump from #5 to #6. Going from the front half to the back half has always had an increase, but this is ridiculous. ALL of the back half are slightly too hot to enjoy. But I will say that they are all pretty tasty.
1) As always, the Hot Ones Classic sauce is very well made and is very enjoyable with just a small back note of heat. Very palatable, but. barely what I would call a hot sauce.
2) The tropical flavors in the Tropiquante are unique and fun, with enough heat to qualify as a hot sauce. Good, but a little forgettable.
3) Piko Riko has a classic Piri Piri flavor, so it's authentic and has some decently palatable heat, but I've never been a big fan of that flavor, so it's just a decent sauce, not exceptional.
4) The Hot Ones Barbacoa is very flavorful, and would be a great sauce on some ribs or other barbecued meat. Again, solid heat, but nothing too powerful.
5) Sichuan Gold is more like a chili oil, but damn is it tasty. If you like Sichuan peppercorns, this is a staple sauce to have in your home. It is a bit spicy, but very flavorful and palatable.
6) The Turmeric Bomb has incredible flavor. Lots of ginger and turmeric come through, but this is a heat that lingers for a LOOOONG time. There are a ton of different peppers that add different layers of heat and some are up front while others hang out in your mouth forever (Jalapeno, scotch bonnet, ghost pepper, scorpion pepper, and Carolina reaper). I liked it a lot, but it can only be had in small doses.
7) I can't tell if Cosmic Disco was really that hot or if I was experiencing a cumulative heat effect from the previous sauces, but this one really burned. It had really nice flavor with a bit of sweetness and citrus, but their combination of jalapeno and ghost pepper was incredibly hot and kind of blew out my palate. I guess that made the next one easier to handle....nah, I'm lying.
8) Da Bomb: Evolution. Look, this is a bull#### sauce. Nobody is buying this to enjoy it. It's purely for pranks and dares. It now tastes better and less chemically than previous versions, but man, it's just so ####ing hot and it doesn't go away for a LOOOOOONG ####ing time. I don't know how they do it, but it takes like 15-20 minutes for it to calm down from the intense burn to a constant moderate burn, but it's still another 15-20 minutes after that to finally go away. It's just unpleasant.
9) Unique Garlique is very tasty, but I have to be honest, my palate was totally gone at this point and I was in pure survival mode. Lots of heat in this one, but easier to manage than Da Bomb because it goes away quicker. So a big punch of flavor up front, quickly moving to some intense heat, but it goes away in a few minutes.
10) Hot Ones Apollo: It's hot, and that's all I remember. This is where you're just happy to be done with hot sauces for a while. Not for the faint of heart. Still has some very intense heat up front and it lingers for quite a few minutes. Again, like Da Bomb, this is one you do on a dare and for almost no other reason.
All in all, I liked all of them except Da Bomb and Apollo, and I really liked quite a few of them. Like last year I will probably finish all of the sauces in the first half, and then I'll probably get through half of the hotter ones before I throw them out.
On a somewhat related note, one of the previous sauces on the Hot Ones list was Yellowbird's: Bliss and Vinegar. I cannot recommend this one enough. It's just so damn tasty.
https://www.yellowbirdfoods.com/prod...39727598043191
They also have a Plum Reaper sauce that goes great on pizza. I would recommend.
