I’ve never been particularly scared of sharks. I’m the type of guy who laughs during Jaws and watches the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week for the gore. Then I tried Great White Shark Predator Hot Sauce and for the first time I tasted fear– and it tasted good.

The shark on the bottle emerges from the ocean with its immense jaws open wide, rows of gleaming teeth sharpened and ready to bite. The foreboding image is an appropriate warning for the heat within. “This sauce is too hot for ‘normal’ landlubbers.” states the label ominously. “It will attack you with no warning and take a big bite out of your ass.” Continue Reading

There are several important things going on with Pappy’s Moonshine Madness ingredient wise that result in a barbecue sauce far and away above any barbecue sauce I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. First things first, though. Pappy’s little concoction may be billed as a barbecue sauce, but this sauce does double duty as a hot sauce alone, useable in any situation you might use a traditional hot sauce. It also makes a fine wing sauce.

Now let me talk about the ingredients. Pappy’s has sugar, vinegar, fresh onions and garlic, anchovies, Worcestershire sauce,  tomato sauce and tomato paste, paprika, black pepper, lemon powder, lemon juice, lemon oil, and natural hickory flavoring. Continue Reading

Let me put this sauce in perspective. The Scoville chart measures pepper heat level in units. A Jalepeno is between 2,500 and 3,500 units, Cayenne peppers are between 30,000 and 50,000 units, Habaneros and Scotch Bonnets are between 100,000 and 350,000 units, and Da Bomb Ground Zero weighs in at 234,000 Scoville units. What this means, in layman’s terms, is that this sauce, without much effort, could blister your tongue on contact.

Da Bomb Ground Zero comes in a little bottle reminiscent of an old time medicine bottle, with a big green bomb on the label. Continue Reading

Mountain Man Garlic Pepper Sauce is a traditional vinegar-based sauce with aged red peppers. The added benefit is the taste of garlic. This one is infused with it. Any garlic lover will be thrilled.

The sauce is aromatic, thin enough to pour easily (and with its fresh, garlic-infused flavor, you’ll want to be liberal), and full of pepper seeds and garlic pieces.

I tried it with hot wings first. It’s an obvious choice, and this sauce was a natural fit. There’s no need to add anything to the sauce except for a generous hunk of butter. Drop your wings into the sauce and let them lavish in it for ten or fifteen minutes. The wings tasted great with an ice-cold Irish Red beer. Continue Reading

The flaming skulls on the bottle of “Hottest Hot Sauce” take me back to the worst nightmares of my childhood. I remember waking up screaming as skeletons chased me down the street and disembodied ghouls rose from the fiery pits of hell determined to take me back with them. Thankfully this sauce is a far more pleasurable experience for my taste buds.

The label includes standard threats that this is the “hottest hot sauce” and that it will “really set your skull on fire.” As a New Englander I appreciate the use of local vernacular on the label claiming that this is a “wicked hot sauce.” Continue Reading