Good Hurts

Where have all the Good Hurts gone?

2011-09-15T14:03:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is: September 2011, over a year after my last post and about 100 zillion (or so it feels) Twitter followers later. And you might be wondering what I am: Where the hurts at?
The truth of the matter is that they hurt. This site wasn't a gimmick--it was a lifestyle. And after building up the kind of tolerance that would require plutonium to taste spicy food, tearing my insides apart, and giving myself endless heartburn, the time came to walk away. Will I be back? Someday, someway. I met a lot of cool people and still enjoy a quality hot sauce, but I'm inundated with other projects (mostly poetry related, like O Sweet Flowery Roses or my press Strange Cage).
I'm a man of fiery passions, and as those poor folks in Texas know better than anyone, fires can easily rage out of control. Eating those wings in Brooklyn was a real wake-up call. And as I get older I feel a weird, almost instinctual need to try to preserve myself.
Stay spicy, and thanks for keeping in touch. I'll try to come back and do some reviews sooner than later.
XOXO
Russell Jaffe

Ed's Roadhouse Jerky Inferno Hott Dam Jerky: Why eat anything else?

2010-06-25T15:58:00.000-05:00

Ed's RoadhousE (I think the second E is supped to be capitalized) Jerky is as All-American a business as you can get. Their website keeps it simple: no additives or preservatives, simple flash animations, and an ethos the family can get believe: nobody beats my meat. Well, maybe not the family, but you get the idea. They make jerky straight from the fields of Buffalo Grove, IL, a hop skip and a jump from my hometown of Deerfield. And they make it very, very well.

Let's look at the facts: Inspired by a visit to legendary Chicago BBQ hotspot Talbots, Ed Herman has perfected his own spice crafts and USDA approved jerky mastery. The company donates money to American troops and touts their "no bull" policy about how great their product is? But IS it that good? The answer is yes. And I have the good hurts tearing my face up right now to prove it.

Good Hurts: I'm sure Ed and our troops would appreciate me saying this: this beef jerky hot knock your fuckin' head off hot. There is no more eloquent way of saying this. And if you don't believe me, the chilies they use reads like a suspect list of the spice world's most wanted: fresh habaneros, jalapenos, and fearsome Indian ghost chilis, the hottest peppers known to mankind. You can even see fresh, yellow seeds poking up from the mouth watering molasses brown jerky. After one piece, you're entire face is submerged in spice. Your nose runs, your through tingles, your eyes water--and you'll have to eat another piece. Absolute brutality...pounding stampedes of heat stand high atop the flavor. You'll have nothing to fear from meatsweats...you DO have to worry about heatsweats. We're living in a post-Man vs. Food world, so I need to clarify something: when Adam Richman explains how x pepper is x times hotter than y pepper, it's based on a much-outdated Scoville scale. A fresh habanero is insanely hot. A ghost chili is truly beyond insanity. But Ed has found a perfect harmony between crazy heat and must-eat flavor. THAT'S what Good Hurts is all about.

Flavor: Like a proud hot freak, Ed packs his jerky with wallup after wallup. But like a true gourmand, Ed Herman knows that the subtlety of ingredients makes all the difference. You can taste a sweetness brought in in thick, syrupy waves of molasses, sweet apple smoke (possibly the most dominant flavor), and corn syrup. Believe it or not, using anchovy paste (I know you make a face when you read that) adds a robust salty flavor and doesn't taste like its fishy namesake one bit. But because this isn't a hot sauce, it's all about the Angus beef, masterfully jerked (forgive me for writing that) and chewy, but still soft and moist enough to stand head and shoulders about the lousy leather tough cheap jerkys ruling our roadsides.

Availability: Order it from Ed's site. It's cheap, all natural, and a solid local business, and we need more of those than we do more oily, stinky processed jerkies sold at major chains.

Good for: Clearly one element of the American Dream is doin' things your way and gettin' the job done right. Ed's RoadhousE Jerky is something that rides solo off into the sunset. I wouldn't put it on anything, but if you're a real carnivore, I could imagine shreddings being laid on salads or sandwiches. Jerky is such a salty, savory snack on its own that its hard to imagine putting in on anything...and you sure as hell won't need to spice it up.

Heat: *****
Flavor: *****
My Review: 9.8/10

Why eat any other jerky? This is the best it can get. Sweet, salty, hot as hell, chewy but not like eating a bootstrap, robust, flavorful...this surely must be meat nirvana.

We're back from vacation!

2010-05-10T18:14:00.000-05:00

Yes, Good Hurts took a month long sabbatical, but we'll be returning strong this summer with new sauces, reviews, videos, and the works!
Looks like we've also had an influx of Chinese porn spammers. Rest assured, Good Hurts is not associated with any of those things. If any bloggers have suggestions of how to get rid of them, let us know!
-Russell Jaffe, editor

Scorpion Chilli Habanero Extract: Habanero perfection, pure and concentrated

2010-04-01T12:19:00.001-05:00

All the way from Fremantle, West Australia comes Scorpion Chilli (yes, with two L's...we just have one here in Chili-ville, USA). Their slogan: "Hot in...Hot Out!" Yes, the connection between hot sauce/farting/traumatic bathroom experiences is in fact an international language. Yet beyond the simple jokes and loveably combative mascot lies a hot sauce company with humble roots, knowledge of intricate craft, and phenomenal flavors.

Let's Look at the Facts: With the (not so subtle) joke slogan and gun-toting, wild eyed scorpion mascot (their other flavors have the scorpion doing different things, like throwing lightning or holding a giant penis [sauce: Morning Glory]), this company seems lewd and crude. In fact, it's more like a "mouse that roared" situation; run by Dave, a social worker and high school principal, and his partner Hannah, a university student and youth volunteer, this company actually helps empower primary school students by getting them involved in their hot sauce business. As an educator myself, I can say honestly that students applying themselves in real-world businesses while still in school is a fantastic idea and boosts student attention, morale, and confidence needed to make the critical transitions from to the real world post-graduation. Dave's a knowledgeable and likable guy. He, like other hot sauce sites, understands the joys of sharing on Youtube:

Oh yes, they make hot sauce too.

The first sauce I sampled was the Habanero Concentrate, which made me nervous because I assumed I was going to be eating, well, pure extract of a habanero. Not so; the velvety yellow-orange sauce is sweet, flavorful, and absolutely packed with heat. It's about as close to habanero perfection as you can get.

Good Hurts: This sauce is really, really hot. It will leave your lips and tongue burning and your nose running for its life. It will leave the sides of your mouth and gums tingling. It is, I believe, as close as you can get to a flavorful hot sauce with crazy heat as you can get before the heat starts to overtake the flavor dramatically. And Scorpion Chilli has a soft spot for the dramatic; of the sauces they make that I have tried, this isn't even close to being the hottest. Typical to chilihead sauces made for--and by--chilheads, Scorpion Chili uses goofy images and jokes to catch attention of hot freaks, knowing that they are trying something really hot. Normal people need not apply...this sauce is that hot.

Flavor: I believe I have formed some sort of wonderful Pavlovian relationship to this sauce; when I unscrew the large red cap, my mouth begins to water and my heart pounds in anticipation. It's not the heat that does this--it's the flavor. Sweet but not too sweet; Rich but almost devoid of calories; Slight notes of salt that are awash in habanero citrus heat. This sauce just tastes so damn good. The locally grown habaneros, lime juice, and ginger mask the tomato and garlic but they don't cover it completely. Sugar rounds out the sweetness. I just tried some amazing habenero sauces from Marie Sharp's that were less sweet and more garden savory, and this sauce is on the same level. What makes this flavor so special? Habaneros are the showcase of this sauce. There are no frills or goofy secondary flavors, no enhancers or preservatives. The other flavors only work to showcase the habanero. In a world of runny, discolored sauces based on possibly the most over-exposed pepper in the world, this is truly the cream of the crop.

Availability: As a grass roots, community-based hot sauce in Australia, you gotta believe that this sauce isn't going to be easy to find in grocery stores on this half of the planet. However, their sauces have won a number of awards, including some internationally. Ordering this sauce is not just helping a growing business...it's helping you get some unique and amazing stuff! Here's their sauces section, the best place to find their sauces in the whole wide world.

Good for: Scorpion Chilli mastermind Dave and I seem to have similar domestic situations: younger girlfriends in higher ed universities who like hot sauce but don't obsess about it like we do. In a must-mention twist, I actually caught my girlfriend pouring some of this sauce into a pineapple salsa because she liked the flavor! I put it on chips, burritos, and, well, peanut butter sandwiches. It's sweet but not overpoweringly so, and it's hot as hell. If you can think of anything that would be good with the citrus burn of habanero, this sauce is great for it.

Review:

Heat: ****

Flavor: *****

My Review: 9.6/10

If you have to search the whole wide world, a sauce like this made by a team with so much passion and dedication, so many community ties, and such a feel-good story is rare. This is one of my top habanero sauces, full of rich flavor and serious heat. Keep your eye on this rising company!

One person's sauce is another person's grenade

2010-03-23T14:49:00.000-05:00

Very exciting hot pepper news has emerged from Gauhati, India today!

The Indian military plans on using ghost peppers to fight baddies!

If I ever run out of hot sauce, I know I can just bring my leftover pizza crusts, burritos, rice + beans, hummus, and basically everything else in my fridge to India and then commit a serious crime that ends in a police standoff. I'll bet one of those grenades would be plenty for even the most hardcore of chiliheads.
-Russell

Marie Sharp's Habanero Hot Sauces: Finger lickin'/hurtin' good!

2010-03-21T18:52:00.001-05:00

Proud products of Belize...Marie Sharp's makes'em. Just ask their website, a shockingly simple, easy to navigate page that lays out the humble history of their family business. But is simplicity bliss? The short answer is yes, and the long answer involves habaneros, fresh veggies, and vibrant near-Caribbean tropical flavor! This is a first for Good Hurts...two hot sauces at once. But mark my words, the sauces are both variations on a theme: excellence.

Let's look at the facts: Founded in 1980 by it's namesake Marie Sharp, whose hot sauces were the talk of her neighbors and friends, Marie Sharp's has grown from her kitchen to a factory in Dangriga, Belize with over 20 employees and international sales. But don't let this rags-to-riches story of the American (well, Belizian) dream fool you: the business is run by Mrs. Sharp and her husband Gerald and swears by high quality and attention to detail. It shows in this, their most simple of sauces: Hot Habanero and Fiery Hot Habanero.

Good Hurts: Belize, for suckers who aren't in the know, is in Latin America, comfortably nudged along Guatemala and Mexico. However, pepper heads will note the proximity to the Caribbean not because they are more geographically inclined, but because they can smell the sweet citrus fire of Scotch Bonnet habaneros. These are this humble reviewer's favorite peppers, and this may be the best regular hot sauce for them.
HOT HABANERO: Not too hot but definitely not tame, this sauce is like that one dependable horse you in the stable that's strong and faithful but retains its wild animal edge. The habanero hurt is muted but it's a sauce that's much hotter than an average hot sauce and it won't let you down. This is a great sauce for people looking to transition from normal hot sauce to the wild world of fiery fury in a non-frilly, gimmick-free way.
FIERY HOT HABANERO: Still frill-free, still flavorful, but a heck of a lot hotter. This is one that will leave your lips and tongue burning and shaking. This is the one with more heat for the hotheads looking for Scotch Bonnet goodness!

Flavor: The Scotch Bonnet is an amazing product of the planet Earth; native to the Caribbean, the hot pepper is a habanero with a sweeter, brighter flavor. It's easy to cook with and the insane may be prone to eating them raw. These sauces are clones: exactly the same flavor, different levels of heat. How much can you handle? Both are bright orange, just like the pepper, and the flavors of lime juice, onion, and carrot are just subtle enough to round out the heat of the pepper while keeping its flavor bold and citrusy. Both a pulpy and thick like a watery puree. Everything in this sauce tastes market fresh. I think this sauce should be a staple in anyone's cupboard who wants something less savory; picante sauces often taste like tomatoes or savory red chilies, and Louisiana sauces have vinegar at the forefront. Think of this as a hot orange pepper sauce, sweet and filled with delicious veggies that aren't green.

Availability: Theses sauces are available...where crazy amounts of hot sauce are sold. It's a small business despite it's inspirational growth, so I recommend you find it online or search the nearest hot sauce emporium. If you like hot sauce and are sick of of the over-savory or watery, this sauce is for you!

Good for: The sky is the limit here, as it is with any truly excellent sauce. I liberally dump it on Mexican foods like chips, burritos, tacos, and even avocado salads. I drench my pizza in it. And what would scrambled eggs be without a lift of sweet pepper goodness? Nature knows exactly the right amounts of sweetness to put in fruits and veggies, so you can go wild with these sauces and STILL not overdo it.

Review (for both sauces)
Heat: **3/4 (Hot) ***3/4 (Fiery Hot)
Flavor: *****
My Review: 9.3/10

The only difference between these sauces is heat; what they have in common is masterful flavor and gorgeous color. Marie Sharp's should be truly proud of these sauces, but something tells me they already are.

Tabasco Garlic Pepper Sauce: 'Nuff Said

2010-03-10T20:58:00.000-06:00

This is Tabasco with garlic in it.

Let's look at the facts: This is Tabas...oh, I said it already. Well, that's what you need to know.
This is Tabasco with garlic in it.

Good Hurts: Actually, Tabasco sells the fact that this sauce is less spicy than their original sauce. The original sauce can be slightly spicy for hot heads in massive quantities, so this sauce is gonna take gallons to nail the real freaks. For everyone else, I recommend not expecting anything than what's on the label. There is almost nothing hot about this sauce.

Flavor: At it's best, this is like a heavier, thicker, slightly more smelly Sriracha, a garlicy and bright pepper blend. At worst, this is the tang of Tabasco brought down by garlic. Garlic is a funny thing with hot sauce...it can really overpower a flavor, but it can, if used sparingly, add savory notes to savory sauces. This really, really tastes like garlic. I'd recommend it in place, perhaps, of garlic when cooking.

Availability: Where Tabasco products are sold. On Earth. This sauce, strangely, is the one I've seen least frequently when it comes to Tabasco. However, after a week of Tabasco reviews, you should get the gist.

Good for: Here's the most important part of this review; the garlic is so powerful, yet there's the slightest tangy zings of the pepper mash Tabasco knows and loves so well. It's a sharper garlic sauce, and it amazingly skirts the problem many garlic based sauces have of ending up tasting like chalk. I think this is best in Bloody Marys! Why not? It's slightly spicy and has a garlic flavor that would go wonderfully with tomato. Also, I say liberally dump it in tomato soup for a hearty grilled cheese companion. This sauce is decent on its own, but much better paired with a powerful pal.

Review:
Heat: 1/2 star
Flavor: *1/2
My Review: 4/10

Do it for your tomatoes. Otherwise, be ready for a garlic flavor that, as most garlic tends to do, runs the show when it comes to good hurts.

Tabasco Habanero Sauce: Tabasco turns up the heat

2010-03-02T21:40:00.000-06:00

There are two types of people in this world.

Actually, there are many types. You can break my classification of two different types into a nearly endless stratum...but before I've even gotten to the review, I've digressed.

There are two types of people in this world:

People who like Topple and people who don't.

This, of course, isn't entirely true; some people enjoy the intensity, dexterity, and competition associated with Topple. Still others like the game but prefer to stand on the sidelines and watch. Then there are some that want nothing to do with the game. Is this sauce a well-balanced winner, or is it toppled in its own crazy heat and crazy blends of flavor?

Let's look at the facts:

Of course, this is a metaphor for Tabasco's Habanero sauce. It's not as delicious as their Chipotle sauce, but it's easily as daring. However, the good folks on the modern day Island of Dr. Moreau, McIlhenny Co.'s Avery Island, have stepped big-time out of their comfort zone of traditional Louisiana sauce to making a much hotter "Jamaican style" sauce. Their website claims that "mango, papaya, and more" to create a "Caribbean touch to any dish you're serving." However, Tabasco needs to make sure people know the special secret; this tastes like Tabasco, except it's super, super, super spicy. However, after the nuclear pepper fallout clears, little dots of a unique flavor begin to trickle in.

Good Hurts: It's Tabasco, but really hot. I'm really trying to be kind here; Tabasco is a tasty sauce that I've said before seems more akin to the UK's love of vinegar than it is about murdering your baby taste buds. This sauce is a brave new frontier for Tabasco: a sauce way too hot for the masses their traditional sauce holds so much footing with. It's a blistering, tongue ravaging heat, the kind that usually accompanies habaneros. This is truly Tabasco's olive branch to the mouths of the hottest hot freaks out there.

Flavor: This is a very funny sauce when it comes to this category. The ingredients are eclectic, ranging from tamarind and papaya paste to regular Tabasco sauce, tomato paste, onion, and garlic. Like a veritable bottle of Topple, this hot sauce balances average Tabasco sauce with an insane amount of heat for the brand, followed by waves of tropical ingredients to try and balance it out. What works is that this sauce is really hot and has subtle notes of sweet flavor after the dust has settled from the tremendous heat; what doesn't work is that "caribbean flavor," as the Scotch Bonnett has a vibrant, bright sweetness like an orange or yellow pepper. Because so many savory things, like garlic, onion powder, and liberal amounts of salt and vinegar dominate this sauce, it's gonna taste a lot like Tabasco. But much hotter.

Availability: This sauce seems to be hardest to find of the "new breed" of Tabasco's products, but it's part of the gauntlet Tabasco throws down on their site: demand it and it shall be in your store in no time.

Good for: This spicy sauce is excellent for livening up soups and chili, I think, because it has classic combinations of savory and spice, like it's much older brother. Don't hold your breath waiting for a sweet, happy, tropical experience. Use this sauce as you would Tabasco, but hotter. Seriously. I know I repeat this again and again, but this sauce could easily be used to prank someone who thinks Tabasco's normal sauce is really hot.

Review:
Heat: ****
Flavor: **
My Review: 7.3/10

For Tabasco flavor with heat from the other side of the tracks, get yourself a bottle O habanero!

Tabasco Chipotle Pepper Sauce: The pride and joy of a president, an instant classic

2010-02-28T22:30:00.000-06:00

President's choice: not just another brand name for cheapo bulk grocery stores, but those words bestowed from Paul McIlhenny, president of Tabasco, onto Tabasco's Chipotle Pepper Sauce. Be very careful with this sauce; it's not too hot, it tastes great, and it's Tabasco's best product for hot freaks or foodies. So why be careful? Because addictions can be problems, and this sauce will fly off your shelf and out of your fridge which, consequently, will cause money to fly out of your wallet to get more of this stuff to guzzle down.

Let's look at the facts: According to Tabasco legend, Paul McIlhenny would only share this sauce with his family for some time; now, it's available in many places, though not as easy to find as it's thinner, redder cousin. Why is that? It may have something to do with the fact that the chipotle pepper, while loved by hot freaks and snobbish food-show types who like to use the word "infuse," is still often too damn hot for the regulars. The taste is something different than the French and European style aged vinegar sauces Tabasco is famous for; in fact, to look closer at this flavor, you have to look to Mexico and areas of South America, where red, ripe jalapenos were smoked over a fire and left to dry, creating the maroon/reddish brown, wrinkly pepper we've come to know and love. This sauce is really special for Tabasco for a couple reasons: 1.) it tastes incredible, and that's always special, and 2.) the texture of the sauce is different than what they usually do; this sauce is noticeably thicker and heartier. In fact, if it were a little thicker, one might be inclined to use it like you would a salsa or bean dip. Yes, this one's a real champion.

Good Hurts: Tabasco claims that this sauce is not too mild, not too hot; I think it could stand to be a little hotter. This chipotle pepper sauce is one that won't leave you face-down in a puddle of milk with urine stained pants and no memory of how you got there. A raw chipotle (or one that cones in the delicious cans of adobo sauce--highly recommended) is pretty hot...one that will no doubt see you sweatin' and shakin'. This sauce will leave a lingering burn on your lips and the tip of your tongue, but by no means is it an enveloping or serious heat. The problem is this: while this sauce is meant to be flavorful, it's not a sauce designed to rest on the laurels of taste alone. It should be a little hotter, because a chipotle sauce should be hot like a chipotle pepper unless otherwise noted.
Small complaints about an awesome sauce, I know...but little things can chip away at what otherwise may be flawless.

Flavor: This sauce is a BBQ lover's real dream companion; the bottle makes sure you see the prominent repetition of the word SMOKED across the top. Onion powder, garlic, and hints of sugar round out a flavor not unlike the delicious, full-bodied smell of a campfire. Vinegar and red pepper go into the mix; a lot of the ingredients have overlap with BBQ sauce. The difference here is that this thicker sauce is still much thinner than salsa or molassas/ketsup like BBQ. It's Tabasco's best sauce, full of rich and subtle flavors, all enjoyable. Major kudos to this one, especially for whomever had the foresight to push their company in such an interesting direction with new stuff like this.

Availability: It's easy to find with most other Tabasco products (read: everywhere, all the time), but they say something interesting they can actually back up: if you can't find it, request it at a location and they'll find a way to get it to you. Tabasco is a master of distribution, so they really can ship sauces to local markets that carry their products pretty much at (your) will.

Good for: The smokey flavor of a chipotle is friends with any chef for a reason: it's unique, hot, and compliments such a wide range of foods. I think Tabasco is on to something when they say to use it like a marinade for grilled veggies and meats. Also, because this sauce is sweeter and not too hot, it's a good additive to bean or chili dishes without being too overpowering. If you want a taste of the chipotle pepper that works well for pretty much anyone, this should be your go-to Tabasco sauce. If I were them, history be damned, I'd push this sauce as hard as their original.

Review:
Heat: *1/2
Flavor: ****1/2
My Review: 8.9

In a proper chipotle sauce, heat should be showcased a little more. However, this bold (literally) experiment in branching out is nothing short of a monumental triumph. This is a must-have sauce for your pantry!

Tabasco Milder Jalapeno: Jalapeno taste with a green pepper heart

2010-02-24T16:01:00.001-06:00

It's time to give some Good Hurts attention to Tabasco...that's right, Big Tabasco, the company synonymous with hot sauce for so many people worldwide. As any giant company knows, you have to stay relevant and take risks to be on top. This sauce, the one I think is one of the company's most out-there, is marketed as a mild jalapeno sauce. It's mild and jalapeno-y, but is it any good?

Let's look at the facts: Tabasco is so big and powerful that they can sort of create their own spectrum of hot sauces. In the middle is their standard hot sauce--watery, tangy, and moderately spicy if you enough of it. This sauce isn't spicy at all, but seeks out a pepper rich in flavor but difficult to harness without the heat. Flavor is important here, and this sauce does a pretty good job of capturing the ripe zest of a raw jalapeno while essentially neutering the insane heat.

Good Hurts: This sauce has only the slightest traces of heat...a slight murmur in the back of your throat, a gentle tingle on your lips. This sauce's heat is nearly intangible; without jalapeno on the bottle, you might not know that it's meant to be a hot sauce. One of the big pluses of this sauce is that it tastes the way most Tabasco does (salty, tangy) with only a hint of spice but flavor intact.

Flavor: It's like I said above: this sauce is very salty and tangy, but it has a special quality other jalapeno sauces have a really hard time replicating. A raw jalapeno is a magical thing, full of fresh, green-pepper like acidic flavor and a seering heat. For some reason I don't (and probably never will) understand, most places that make jalapeno sauce end up making it smell and taste strongly of chalk. I've encountered this problem with dozens of hot sauces, but it exists mostly in the jalapeno world. Maybe it has something to do with freshness, packaging, or the aging of the pepper mash...whatever it is, Tabasco is able to effectively side step it. However, the sauce tastes good, not amazing. The salt and acid will command control of your taste buds, hiding some of those subtle qualities that make jalapenos so gol' durn tasty.

Availability: Well, if you live on the planet Earth, Tabasco is probably nearby. Their standard sauce is easiest to find, but this sauce is nearly as prevalent in grocery stores, gourmet shops, and even gas stations.

Good for: You just have to see this website; Tabasco may have a much bigger budget than, say, Bob, who makes sauce out of the muffler of his car and sells it per-order, but it really shocks me that Tabasco is one of the few companies with the foresight to name all the things they think their sauce is good for. This sauce's best and brightest qualities are also the things that hold it back a bit: the salty, tangy pepper zest and lack of heat make it ideal for blander, carb heavy dishes, like rice, beans, tortillas, grits, and more. Without the kick of spice, this sauce becomes a more everyman sauce and less a part of the exclusive world of hot insanity.

Review:
Heat: 1/2 star
Flavor: ***
My Review: 6.9

For a decent jalapeno flavor with the the heart of a mild green pepper, Tabasco's got your number.

It's Tabasco week at Good Hurts!

2010-02-24T15:03:00.000-06:00

Over the next week or so, Good Hurts will be featuring the primary sauces made by big Tabasco, the #1 hot sauce company in the USA! Since last reviewing their standard namesake sauce, I became interested in their other products. I think you'll find that Tabasco is surprising, versatile, and, despite their tried-and-true legendary formula, "still gots it."

Jalapeno Harissa Batch #112: Jalapeno without the hurt

2010-02-15T16:21:00.000-06:00

The good folks at Original Juan's continue their Good Hurts dominance throughout the early part of 2010 with Jalapeno Harissa's Batch #112 sauce. Does it hurt as much as Harissa (if that is Harissa on the bottle) makes it seem like it does?

Let's look at the facts: Well, first of all, it needs to be said: my bottle doesn't have the fun heat-o-meter that the picture shows. That being said, the heat-o-meter needs to be checked (where can you get refills of mercury these days?) because this sauce is tasty but tame as a pussycat.

Good Hurts: It's good, but it certainly doesn't hurt. Harissa must have either eaten a different sauce or gotten an insect in her mouth; this sauce is not hot at all. Even the most inexperienced of spice eaters would be hard pressed to detect even the slightest inklings of heat here. Jalapenos may be in it, but the flavor is more pervasive...not so much the spice.

Flavor: When I tasted it, something was interesting that I couldn't put my finger on. The zest of the jalapeno is there, but the garden-fresh flavor of tomato paste covers it up a bit. It wasn't lime juice of salty vinegar, but something seemed indicative of light, aromatic herbs. Then I looked on the bottle and found it: fresh mint and cilantro! This sauce has the taste of a very runny pico de gallo salsa, garden-packed with the powerful zings of mint and cilantro. Very, very tasty...not quite sweet, but a finely-chopped salsa-like hot sauce.

Availability: These sauces are very easy to find in grocery stores nationwide and on the Original Juan's website. Their "Batch #" series of sauces seems popular, tasty, and welcome alternative to the more easy-to-find Louisiana sauces and big-name Mexican picante sauces.

Good for: Because this sauce seems so much like salsa, I think it pairs really well with pretty much any Mexican food you can think of...chips, tacos, and fajitas would go well with this thin, finely ground flavor. The ingredients are already eerily reminiscent of salsa, so why not treat it like one?

Review:
Heat: 1/4 Star
Flavor: ***1/2
My Review: 6.9/10

A member of the salsa family has jumped the tree and landed in the branches of hot sauce, but it will never be a full-blooded sibling; tasty and worth eating, but a far cry from some of the burning beauties Original Juan's is capable of (read: Da' Bomb).

Da' Bomb: Beyond Insanity...yes, the name of the sauce IS the description

2010-02-03T23:12:00.002-06:00

What are the boundaries of our humanity? Are our breaking points more physical or mental? Must we experience physical and mental anguish to understand who we truly are and what we are capable of? The multiple approaches to the human mind, body, and condition are all faced with their mortal limitations by Da' Bomb's Beyond Insanity hot sauce, one of the darkest vortexes in the furthest corners of the hot sauce universe.

Let's Look at the Facts: This sauce is made by Original Juan's...yes, the company that makes the fun bottles with the screaming people on them also produces this military-grade pill of pure pain. The A-Bomb on the front is absolutely fitting for this sauce, and if I ran the company, I'd wrap it in some caution tape, too. In the interest of the hundreds of thousands of families undoubtedly reading this review, this is not S**T to *F**K around with. A tiny bottle of this will go a really, really long way. I plan to be buried clutching my three-quarters full bottle, for example.

Good Hurts: This sauce is explosive and at almost 200,000 Scoville units (Dave's is about 80,000 and still far, far to hot for anyone to realistically consume), it really is way beyond insanity. Here's some Good Hurts advice to everyone out there in the hot food nebula: once you get this hot, how much hotter it can go is sort of negligible. Yes, some super double dog extra special reserves are at nearly half a million Scoville units (or even a million), having just one bite of anything this hot will smash you and isn't meant to be fun food. One drop on your tongue is an explosion of epic proportions...a milisecond tingle becomes a dry, taste-bud tearing blast that lingers for up to 20 minutes(!!!!!!). You can even feel your ears ring, sinuses ache, and tongue-tip cook within a couple tiny, tiny drops. This is made only for real hot freaks like me and you.

Flavor: Like heat, the flavor is sort of hard to notice when your ears, eyes, and throat are burning violently, with the unrelenting churl of oil-less gears. Unlike Dave's it's not much of a tropical blast, which is ironic because the ingredients actually contain orange juice concentrate! That's like saying napalm is better because it's made with marshmallow, along with industrial toxins. The chipotle puree, which is made from ground up roasted jalapenos, water, and liberal amounts of salt, cuts the tropical flavor of habanero; It's like a sweeter version of red clay. That's the taste of death before the spice carries you away.

Availability: I'm a big mixed martial arts fan, but I think regular people unfamiliar with the sport can follow this metephor: UFC is super popular and their name is everywhere. But they also own WEC, a smaller federation running shows in small buildings almost totally devoid of the UFC name. Da' Bomb sauces are Original Juan's UFC. Original Juan's ubiquitous screaming face sauces are in Wal-Mart, for goodness sakes, but you'd be hard pressed to find it anywhere but at solid, self-respecting hot sauce emporiums or the internet. It's too hardcore for any normal person, but also too hardcore to just go away.

Good on: In this case, on is in, unless you want to be one of those annoying people posting videos of themselves eating hot sauce on Youtube (read: video forthcoming). A drop in chili will make it too hot for the average homeboy. I don't mean a bowl of chili...I mean an entire pot of chili. Use with caution! This is not a food...it's a food additive. Why is it made? Ask yourself this question first: what is the human condition?

Review:
Heat: *****
Flavor: *
My Review: 6.5/10

A good review for shock factor and making other foods hot, but otherwise not made for human consumption. Enjoy!

Video Kaboom: Russell vs. Buffalo Cantina Seppuku Wings Challenge

2010-01-17T22:36:00.002-06:00

WARNING: DO NOT TRY AT HOME...OR ANYWHERE.

Cajun Bayou: The official favorite Louisiana Hot Sauce of Good Hurts

2010-01-17T11:57:00.000-06:00

Apologies for the 10 day gap in reviews...the GoodHurtsTron5000 needed to be taken out behind the woodshed and "corrected." Now I have a new Mac and nothing to stop me from communicating with the outside world. Please be patient...the video of my toppling the Buffalo Cantina wing challenge and losing a piece of my soul doing it will be up soon!

Like UFOs in our skies, Louisiana hot sauce has plenty of people who claim to have seen the best evidence out there (of flavor, heat, and other taste mysteries) that a particular brand is really amazing. Like UFOs, fleeting samples of the stuff come in and out leaving hot sauce fans to wonder which kind really proves that the stuff can hold a culinary key to the future in a world where hotter and hotter insanity sauces are landing every day. Like UFOs, Tabasco is the Roswell incident, the benchmark Louisiana hot sauce with time on its side and the widest base of believers. And like UFOs, this grainy photo was the only one I could find of a rich, shiny sauce that I believe can trump the countless other sauces like it. Floating between a Louisiana and Picante sauce (a la Salsa Huichal, Cholula, and others) this sauce is worth investigating.

Let's Look at the Facts: My best friends in the world at Original Juan's can count this sauce among their wide variety of interesting hot sauces. And why not? It's a sauce that enters a whole other division of hot sauces...one filled with similar flavor but possibly the widest fanbase. It's pretty simple...created from a cayenne pepper mash, in which the red peppers are crushed up and left in a (usually enclosed) vat of vinegar and aged, this sauce can boast that the only thing it rests on is its fresh cayenne flavor, since there are no additives or preservatives and no sugar.

For a company that uses such creative packaging, Cajun Bayou keeps it simple: simple package, simple label, and simply effective.

Good Hurts: What can I say? This is a hot sauce meant for flavor, not knock you socks off heat. I would be interested to see a really hot Cajun sauce someday...but I dream. For now, this sauce has almost no heat, even for those of especially weak spice constitutions. This is a sauce for the elderly and babies as well as anyone who wants to explore the endlessly similar corridors that Louisiana sauce offers: salt, cayenne pepper, and vinegar. Flavor is really what's important in this hot sauce.

Flavor: This is a special sauce because the first thing the pops into your mind when you eat it won't be "tangy!" Tabasco, Frank's Red Hot, Trappey's, and other heavy hitters in the Louisiana industry have sauces that have a tart jolt of salty vinegar at the beginning, but this one is much more understated, pushing it close to the smoothness of Cholula and its Picante family members. It's also very vinegar-y, though, which means that it's going to be really good with something starchy and not very acidic. I think this sauce is ideal for a lot of foods you might not otherwise want to end up puckering up for by using too much of the other guys' sauces.

Availability: This sauce is on their website, of course, but don't expect to find this sauce in too many grocery stores worldwide. While Original Juan's has some decent distribution, this sauce might have too much competition to get it in stores where Original Juan's other, well, original products can shine. If you find it, I recommend it thoroughly. If not, it might be worth ordering if you're sick of being let down by the too-salty grind.

Good for: This is the shining point of this sauce. What Louisiana sauce lacks in heat, it makes up for in versatility. This sauce is no different. Pour it liberally on pizza, pita chips, fries, or my personal favorite, kettle chips, for a deep south take on the classic British chips n' vinegar. The salty sauce isn't too tangy to overpower your favorites, but adds a tasty savory kick. I could eat bowl after bowl of kettle chips and this sauce if I didn't care about my pesky liver and completely pickling it.

Review:

Heat: 1/2 star

Flavor: ***

My Review: 7/10

As far as Louisiana hot sauce goes, this is as good as it can get. Don't forget to watch the skies...er, the swamps, for the latest and greatest from the wide world of cayenne.

Pain 100%: Nature's brutal wrath, one drop at a time

2010-01-08T17:52:00.000-06:00

In a world of so many hidden messages, many obfuscated further by carefully crafted rhetoric, bright, catchy images, and downplayed pratfalls, it's refreshing to know that Original Juan's, the most important name in Kansas City, has banged out an all-natural hot sauce for the organic hot freak in your life. What they've come up with definitely isn't for the feint of heart, but should be embraced by true pepperheads looking for a chemical-free fix of fire.

Let's look at the facts: Located in the "Meltdown" section of their hot sauce area of their site, Pain 100% is a simple take on habaneros, some of the hottest peppers under the sun. While the effects food additives (like thickening gums) are sketchy and blurred, Pain 100% boasts all natural ingredients, though some of its spices could benefit from some elaboration. This sauce is all about the raw power of the habanero, and all other spices and flavors come second. No frills, no gimmicks, and no kidding around: this sauce is thick, bright, and hot.

Good Hurts: The raw habanero is hot as hell, and this sauce is packed full of raw seeds and the orange-red color unmistakeably associated with the pepper. This sauce packs a wallop, too, and will definitely be too much for regular people looking to pep up a burrito. This is a sauce that toes many lines: after a few mouthfuls, you'll be aching bad; it's not hot enough, however, to just be a food additive. The real truth of this sauce --which is lip-burning and tongue titillating to its very core--is that it's a hot freak's standard hot sauce. Simple, habanero-rich, and thick, this hot sauce is one made for people who want to dump it on heavy and sniffle, weep, and cough their way through their favorite foods.

Flavor: The sparse ingredients say a lot: habanero peppers, water, and the Earthy garden zest of fresh tomatoes in the form of thick (there's that word again) tomato paste. Lastly, the label adds, are "salt and spices" and "natural pepper flavoring." Whether or not this is extract or actual ground up peppers remains unsolved. Whatever the spices are, they are all but whispers between waves of intense, lingering heat.

Availibilty: Besides rockin' the KC, Pain 100%, along with a number of other exciting Original Juan's sauces (no, they don't pay or sponsor me. They just make damn good sauce) are surprisingly available at many finer groceries and gourmet food stores.

Good for: Because the habanero is such a sharp, acidic pepper, it really overwhelms a lot of other flavors. This sauce is best accepted for what it really is: an all-natural habanero showcase. Not hot enough to destroy your soul, but hot enough to really make the rest of your meal a tear-jerking expressway to habanero hell, Pain 100% stands in an interesting place. It's best to just pour over pizza, burritos, rice, or other starchy foods that won't grind up against the power of the habanero.

Review:
Heat: ****
Flavor: **
My Review: 8.0/10

A solid, simple habanero sauce for hot freaks to slather recklessly and for food adventurers to have an organic good time gettin' burned.

Seppuku Challenge at Buffalo Cantina completed! Why did I do it? A letter from the editor

2010-01-07T19:53:00.000-06:00

Dear Good Hurts readers,

I'm not one to try to talk down to an audience, and I'm not one to try to use a hot sauce review blog to lay out intertextual puzzles and connect-the-dots meaning(s) between images and representations of peppers and what it says about life and the universe as we know it.

I will, however, say that the picture I used for an editor photo here does look an awful lot like a complex labyrinth and is fitting for my experience on the night of January 2nd. That's the night I went to Buffalo Cantina in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and completed the Seppeku challenge.

The serrano peppers, fresh habaneros, and pour after pour of fine-ground red pepper is negligible in the face of a (not so) healthy capfull of habanero extract. Think about how delicious vanilla extract smells, but how awful it tastes. Pepper extract is used in commercial pepper sprays and even mace of bear spray. The stuff isn't really meant for consumption.

With a group of 6 friends cheering me on and dozens more concerned back in Iowa, I tore into the toughest physical challenge of my life. 12 wings drenched in killer Seppeku sauce, needing to be completed in 3 mere minutes. After 4 wings I couldn't taste anything. After 7 I couldn't swallow. With tears in my eyes and a burning charred throat, I powered down the final three wings in the last 30 seconds and tipped my chair over in victory. The thrill was short lived, however, as I downed half a gallon of milk and cup after cup of water (note to spice novices: never drink water to relieve pepper pain. It just pushes the spice further across your tongue and offers temporary relief. It's like struggling in quicksand). What followed was a ringing in my ears and horrible agony just beyond the layer of skin I call my face while an uncomfortable silence fell over the restaurant.

The stomach ache afterwards was the worst, though, and for a few minutes I wondered if I would ever really feel OK again. It was a like I had a brick covered in glass dust wedged between my sternum and intestines, simultaneously cutting my innards and blocking the ensuing flow of blood. I never vomited, but I did sleep from 1 to 5 AM, intermittently waking to go into the bathroom in brutal stomach pain. At 5, I realized I wasn't going back to sleep. I had a plane to catch home and needed to be up at 6. But as I watched the sun rise over the small buildings in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and cut ashen lines from the cables of the Verrizano Bridge, I came as close to a reconciliation with mortality as I think I can ever come.

I did the challenge because I wanted to realize my mortal boundaries as best I can in this lifetime. I'm not in good shape, and training for an athletic contest and succeeding might take me a long, long time. But I have a high threshold for pain, and I really pushed it. I would say that completing spicy food eating challenges is fanfare for the average person looking for a rock-star rush: a restaurant cheering you on, an endorphin rush to succeed, and a brutal capsicum-induced crash. That'd be the rock star OD'ing after their big show.

The Good Hurts editorial team (read: my girlfriend) is hard at work on compiling the footage into a magnum opus video. Until that's up, enjoy the sauce reviews and our twitter page.

Happy New Years,

Russell

It's Saturday night...do you know where YOUR Good Hurts editor is?

2010-01-02T17:35:00.001-06:00

I'm doing this.

Queen of Farts: Live the medieval war between sweet and salty

2009-12-27T22:58:00.000-06:00

If you love blasting violent explosions out of your ass, you might want to just cut out the hot sauce middle man and do what the lowliest lifeforms on Earth do. For the rest of us, there's Queen of Farts, a goofy sauce whose silly name and bottle art may deter normals from understanding the complex war of flavors happening under the innocent plastic cap. Is this Queen worth bowing down to? Will she ever learn to control herself?

Let's look at the facts: The second I found this sauce, I said to my girlfriend, "I bet a goofy guy in a pepper Hawaiian shirt made this sauce." True pepperheads can see each other in our fiery dreams. Sure enough, friendly CaJohn of Columbus, Ohio states: "CaJohns is about getting together with friends and family, enjoying great stories and lots of laughter over some delicious fiery food. We hope our hot sauces and fiery foods help you make your gatherings even more fun!" If you're not interested in swapping stories of lives and times in the gaseous monarchy, CaJohns makes tons of cool looking sauces for true pepperheads. It's refreshing to see such a down home business with such variety. Clearly, Queen of Farts is about fun, plain and simple. Funny name, funny bottle. Niche market. I found the sauce in an "As Seen on TV" store. It's a funny stocking stuffer or gag sauce for the hot freak in your life, but I believe there's more beneath the surface. Combinations of some of my favorite hot sauce traits are all under one cap, but they battle each other a bit more than they may need to.

Good Hurts: This sauce promises a "gentle heat, enjoyable for everyone." This is one of the sauce's highest points. It's not too hot, so even though it's clearly made for hot sauce aficionados, friends and family can gather round and sample it without worrying about severe face peeling or ass blorting. It's a comparable heat to a big gulp O Tabasco sauce. Hey, the world only needs a handful of things like Blair's 10000 skrillion reserves or Pure Cap.

Flavor: Like many wars between feudal kingdoms, this hot sauce's polarized flavors constantly try to scale one another's moats and co-opt their territories. Papaya, guava, pineapple, passion fruit, and banana. Lemon, passion, and guava fruit juices. There's no reason this sauce shouldn't be the sweetest heat in all ye lande. However, the savory armies of salt, garlic, white vinegar, and, leading the charge, curry, put up a formidable fight against insurmountable odds. In between this war is the fair maiden habanero. Curry is the most powerful flavor, so you get a little sweetness after what tastes like a yellow curry. However, it's not the tropical blast it probably could be. So much fruit is hidden by the thick armor of vinegar, salt, and curry. It's a hybrid of the Babysauce and Curry Fire made by the Peppermaster, but the two don't seem to blend as naturally as mere mortals may dream.

Availability: CaJohn's good ol' website has this sauce and more at your beckon call. But guess what?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!???!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!? This sauce has Christmas miracle-like distribution. Novelty stores and As-Seen-on-TV/gourmet chef stores. If you can find a food-friendly outlet store, you might get lucky and find this sauce.

Good for: I think it's best with rice dishes, since it seems very curry like. And the curry is good! But it's not the sweet treat you might think it is. Indian food, especially yellow curry, would work with this sauce, too.

Review:

Heat: *

Flavor: ***

My Review: 6.9/10

It's a tasty curry sauce, but this Queen may need to lighten up on the farts and "let them eat fruits."

Tabasco Sauce: A special Christmas review of the All-American hot sauce

2009-12-26T16:46:00.000-06:00

New Years is a time to reflect upon one's year; recognizing flaws you want to fix and new ground you want to cover often paints the landscape of the start of another all-too-short 365 days. 2009 was a good year for Good Hurts. It started! Sauces were eaten. (A) Reviewer(s) went to bed sore-stomached and smiley-faced after long nights of sampling. But Good Hurts has missions:
-To become the definitive hot sauce review site.
-To develop our own special blend of 10/10 sauces.
-To sign a hit TV show deal (hopefully right before Jersey Shore comes on...can't miss a second of Snooki's foppish antics).
Most important of all:
-To remain completist, never elitist.

In keeping with the spirit of America's favorite holiday, Christmas (besides, perhaps, the Superbowl, or Thirsty Thursday), Good Hurts prepares for a great 2010 with the hot sauce that defines a nation: Tabasco.

Tabasco sauce is a watery, light red Louisiana style sauce. That means big vinegar, Tabasco/cayanne peppers, and salt, salt, salt. And after vowing many times not to review sauces like this, why do they keep showing up on Good Hurts? Here's why: Tabasco has transcended the pantheon of excellent hot sauces; it's traversed the hierarchy hall of hottness. Tabasco has become an iconic hot sauce clearly symbolic of the American dream, intertwined more with our values, history, and consumer culture than it is a regular ol' hot sauce from Lo'sianna.

Let's Look at the Facts: I can't rewrite their mind-blowing history page...I just don't have the time or web design doller$. But you really should check it out. Long story short: The McIlhenny Company started making the hot sauce in 1886 to spice up the reconstruction South's bland food (haha, it's never too late to rise again. -Ed.) Edmund McIlhenny, a banker, aged his Avery Island, LA crushed red peppers in a "mash" with salt. After 30 days in crockery jars, the mash was mixed with French white wine vinegar (they use distilled white vinegar like most Louisiana sauces now) and aged for another 30 days. Boom! Tabasco sauce, the first major commercial hot sauce, was born. Please note the ties to the class-rising, multi-chance American dream of finding passion in unconventional places between the hardscrabble lines of life in our free-market democracy. Paul McIlhenny, the 6th in a line of McIlhenny company presidents and Avery Island residents, runs the company today. But beyond the mild heat and tangy flavor lies the secret of its success: unmatched longevity and drive to be the best...perhaps it isn't the hottest or best tasting, but it's everywhere and it worked hard to get there. It's the story of so many American business juggernauts: a website designed to look young, fresh, and like a vibrant concert also contains a long section about the antiquated tradition and steadfast adherence to unchanging recipes and business values. Like Coca Cola, Tabasco pioneered an entire food industry and has reinvented itself again and again to change with the times. They build their image in the long shadow of their own American mystique: a family with dreams, land to cultivate, and traditional beliefs. Most importantly, Tabasco is everywhere. Like any die-hard capitalist company, Tabasco slaps their name and product any and everywhere, as a great way to learn about something is repetition, repetition, repetition. If you're reading this site, you have probably eaten Tabasco sauce.

Good Hurts: It's actually spicier than you might assume. Even the most cynical and stone-hearted of pepper freaks can dump gallons of the sauce on a single bite of food and get a back-of-the-throat heat. This humble editor must admit that the main reason for this review is a Christmas with my girlfriend's mom, who doesn't keep any hot sauce in the house. Yet my heart grew three sizes when I poured a generous puddle onto a single corn chip and could feel the burn I've nursed in my mortal mouth since I founded this site. Is it as hot as the killer world of death running the hot sauce niche today? No way. But it is a hot sauce! There IS a heat.

Flavor: Tabasco is really tangy. I actually think that its flavor has a lot in common with its place in the legendary lore of American foods. The proud USA is still a tad over 230 years old, having split from the Brits who colonized our country. Notice that those Brits can't get enough of vinegar and salty foods...from Fish n' Chips to Marmite and Vegemite, salt and vinegar go hand and hand. Here in the USA, McIlhenny developed a sauce down south with a comparable vinegar tang that pairs well with the mild sweetness of cayanne pepper and fresh Avery Island salt. While the image and ubiqitousness have huge hands in the Tabasco brand, flavor--and ties to down-home Louisiana, Southern spice, and stringent, painstaking hand-crafted tenderness--is just as important. This is America's loud answer to salty foods across the pond: tangy zings and spicy exclamation points, even if they aren't hot enough for true hot freaks.

Availability: This is probably the first and only time I'll ever say this: This sauce is available everywhere. Grocery stores. Gourmets. Gas Stations. Restaurants (I've even seen it in some dumpy Chinese joints). This sauce is literally everywhere. The hot sauce world's answer to Coca-Cola is cheap and easy. They even developed their own little hierarchy of various flavors and online-exclusive "special reserves." Because Tabasco is older than any person on Earth and has been successful for longer than most political regimes are in place, their name will always lend itself well to the masses. According to their website, "Tabasco" is a word of "Mexican Indian origin believed to mean 'place where the soil is humid' or 'place of the coral or oyster shell.'" For many, "Tabasco" means "hot sauce."

Good for: Tabasco originated something I think is a brilliant concept: it says that it's good on everything and actually lists all the foods it's good for. Pizza, salads, eggs, subs, steak, chili...the list goes on and on. You can even download recipes using the sauce onto your ipod. Topical! As a card-carrying spice beast, I have to say that this sauce is remarkably good for everything because of its generalist nature; not too hot, not too tangy, not too salty, not too sweet. I prefer to diversify, adding different hot sauces to different foods, but I would never turn down the salty zing of Tabasco on my eggs. This sauce is made for regular Americans by not-so-regular Americans working and living on Avery Island who'd probably like you to believe they're down-home folks just like yourself. They are actually factory workers and CEOs.

Review:
Heat: *3/4
Flavor: **3/4
My Review: 5.5

As a poet, I can compare Tabasco hot sauce to Walt Whitman. I hated him growing up! I hated him as a poet obsessed with the avant-garde! But as I matured as a man, I began to understand the significance of Whitman's place in poetry. His "collective consciousness" and lesson-like stream of realizations was instrumental in the development of the poet's creative, off-the-cuff comprehension and analytical approach to writing and the world. Tabasco's collective consciousness appeals to the little part of EVERYONE that loves spice, but some of our little parts are actually pretty big.

Merry Christmas from Good Hurts!

2009-12-25T18:45:00.000-06:00

Love, the Good Hurts editorial team: Russell (content writer, editor, spice-eater, sauce-aficionado) and Becky (video editor, stock footage master)!

Nando's Chickenland Hot Peri-Peri Sauce (and some others): Savor the flavor that outweighs the sauce

2009-12-16T21:09:00.000-06:00

I'm a big Twin Peaks fan. I was hooked from the very intro to the first episode, when Pete Martell, a fisherman, finds the washed up body of well known Twin Peaks high school student, prom queen, and mystery-woman extraordinaire Laura Palmer washed up on the beach wrapped in plastic in the small (fictional) Washington town the show is named for.

What's the significance? That lifeless body leads into a world of mystery, murder, motives, and the metaphysical like you wouldn't believe.
What's the point of this? Nando's Chickenland sauces remind me of Twin Peaks, in a way. A huge box of sauce arrived at the top-secret Good Hurts hot sauce cavern miles beneath the Earth's crust. Inside was Nando's Hot Peri-Peri Sauce (regular and Garlic flavor) and a slew of cooking sauces. Is Nando's Chickenland Hot Peri-Peri Sauce culinary murder? No, but it's the weakest sauce in a box of delicious flavors. Take or leave the hot sauce; Nando's has some die-hard followers, but their cooking sauces might just be worth the hype.

Let's look at the facts: Nando's is a huge mega-company with over 700 locations worldwide. Look at some of these locations. Unless you have the internet, you probably won't find too many restaurants selling their hot sauces in Cyprus or Botswana. However, they only have 2 restaurants here in the land of the free. They have a die-hard fan base in the UK; after reading over some reviews on Amazon, I wasn't surprised. The hot sauce is very salty, but their cooking sauces are sweet and robust, flavorful and the perfect accentuation to various foods. I'll talk about some of them along with the review of the first hot sauce!

Good Hurts: This sauce is not very hot, plain and simple. It has a very slight tangy spice to it. Like many low-heat hot sauces, it kind of rolls around in your throat. There are some little chunks of peri-peri peppers, African birds eyes peppers valued for their spice and delicious flavor. I think that heat is a bit lost in the thickness of the sauce; the other sauces I got, cooking sauces, aren't hot at all. These are sauces meant for savoring flavor and cooking with.

Flavor: I think, again, the flavor of this hot sauce is a little too salty. I think it tastes a little chalky, but not inedible. It reminds me of some Trappey's sauces. Before I get into that, however, let me introduce this new friend:

This Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil marinade tastes like a rich, slightly spicy pizza sauce. It's the best thing in the world for pasta and salads. Astoundingly, this sauce made of African ingredients is ideal for Italian food. Now, please direct your attention to this brand new pal:

This is the Roasted Reds Cooking Sauce, which is its own unique meal for the whole family (or just me). Cut up some veggies, cook some rice, and enjoy the heat and flavor of this roasted red pepper amalgam. It's a delicious mix of naturally smooth red peppers and a mild heat. This sauce could take the place of a curry or an Indian/Chinese food sauce; it's the kind of thing that, with the right meats and veggies, could really make a meal. I mean, it's called Chickenland...add some chicken!
Am I trying to swerve away from the hot sauce? Not really. I just think it's really important to say that while I don't like the hot sauce enough to gush about it, I think their cooking sauces are really, really amazing and must-buys for any do-it-yourself chef!

Availability: Warning: DO NOT view this website if you can't handle loads of animation or you're really, really high on drugs. Nando's makes a hot sauce that might not be above the cusp, but their cooking sauces are really, really incredible. If you're an international Good Hurts reader, look up your nearest Nando's locale. If you're in NY or Washington DC, you can probably find a restaurant around somewhere. For the rest of us, the website will have to do as the global takeover silently envelops our homes like the blankets of snow effortlessly tumbling down on this Iowa City hot sauce reviewer's home.

Good for: I think this hot sauce has the Brits excited because it's salty; they seem to like salty stuff over there. I don't think it's flavorful or hot enough to really go far here. The Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Marinade would go great on Chicken, salad, or pasta. I might even put some on steak or fish. The Roasted Reds cooking sauce is ideal if you're a big fan of Earthy, down-home bell pepper flavor stir frys filled with chicken and veggies.

Review(s)
Nando's Chickenland Hot Peri-Peri Sauce:
Heat: *
Flavor: *
My Review: 4.0

I'm not reviewing the cooking sauces as hot sauce, BUT:
Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Marinade:
My Review: 8.1

Roasted Reds Cooking Sauce:
My Review: 8.9

The hot sauce has some die-hard fans, but this reviewers says that the cooking sauces are really what's special.

Peppermaster Pepper Fire: Third sauce not necessarily the charm

2009-12-09T23:33:00.000-06:00

The Peppermaster's third sauce in the trifecta of delicious gourmet sauces I'll be reviewing is the weakest of the three, but still a damn good sauce, first of all. Don't be fooled by the "fusion" label; the one I have is called Pepper Fire. Simple name, but surprisingly the least simple sauce of the three.

Let's look at the facts: There IS a hot sauce universe, and, of course, it's filled with nebulous galaxies. One galaxy is the realm of the Peppermaster, filled with exotic planets and asteroids of goat pepper goodness. If the master himself is at the center, I think of Babysauce as the closest planet in orbit, sweet and warm. I'd call the far-east inspired Curry Fire far out in orbit, filled with a sharper spice and unique flavor. In the middle is Pepper Fire. It's not quite sweet, not quiet savory...it's more garlicy. Not very spicy, but more garlic-spiced. It seems like garlic has overwhelmed some of the ingredients, but what you get is still yummy and definitely worth eating.

Good Hurts: It has a more unique type of spice than its bigger and littler brothers. The Curry Spice hits you right away and lingers; the Babysauce trickles in and stays with you. This sauce builds up over a few bites, stings, and fades quickly. It reminds me of the kind of spice garlic gives you if you eat a clove (or 10, like I like to). A lot the ingredients are exciting, but they get a bit in the way of the fresh heat of a goat pepper.

Flavor: Exciting is the right word, and I already said that. But just look at the bottle: pineapple. Fresh lime juice. Molasses! That should be really exciting right there, but it's all just a little lost in the galactic churn of the garlic. The slow drawl of the molasses, combined with the lime juice, sort of tastes like a more savory cola flavor. This isn't a bad thing...just less sweet and robust and more salty and garlicy.

Availability: Same as the last two. Here's the site. You know what to do. I'll leave you to it.

Good for: I think, like the Key West Lime hot sauce I good hurt-ed earlier, this would make a solid marinade for beef or chicken. The little tiny bit of sweet, garlic, and sort of salty cola notes would go really well with the smoke of a summer grill and your favorite meat. I think it's a little to heavy for just chips, and might overpower a lot of salsas. A little garlic, after all, goes a long way.

My Review:
Heat: *3/4
Flavor: ***
My Review: 7.0/10

Not the best of the three sauces, but definitely worth eating, buying, and snuggling up with during any season, on any planet.

SNOWED IN

2009-12-09T14:43:00.003-06:00

JPGfun.com

Peppermaster Mango Fire: Babysauce

2009-12-08T16:12:00.001-06:00

Another near-instant classic by Quebec's Peppermaster Greg Brooks, but in a starkly different way. Does this sweet (sweet, sweet, sweet) sauce measure up to its Indian counterpart, Curry Fire?

Let's look at the facts: You already know everything you need to know about Peppermaster foods and their amazing ability to create some of the best, most flavorful sauces out there. Their website paints an interesting picture:
Finally, the all-natural table topper you've been waiting for: Mango Table Topper is the perfect condiment for the kitchen or restaurant table: Stable enough to not require refrigeration. You'll never go back to that other brand. Designed by the Peppermaster to deliver crisp heat and refined fresh flavours that enhance many global dishes. This is real pepper!
Table Topper? Never go back to that hot sauce? The throws of spice addiction are thick as lasso ropes...I doubt any pepperhead would ditch their regular sauce for what I have christened "Babysauce." But it IS an interesting take on a fruit hot sauce, and it's remarkably good!

This is a cute baby. Say hello. In the world of hot sauce, it's Peppermaster Mango Fire. Why? Let's look at the facts: Babies are cute. Babies are sweet and silly. Babies are innocent. Babies are little bundles of joy that are blissfully, wonderfully unaware of the cold, harsh, vicious world around them that they'll grow into. Why, it's just like Mango Fire! Outrageously sweet, a tiny bit spicy (as if still learning), and unaware of the painful world of hot sauce it has, through no fault of its own, entered.

I also think "Babysauce" sounds better than "baby sauce."

Good hurts: Babysauce is not the wimpiest sauce out there; in fact, it's hotter than Cholula and pretty much any Tabasco-style sauce commercially available. It's burn is a low murmer; it's like a baby version of a serious hot sauce. It will give you a lil' tongue tingle, but the teeny-tiny heat is probably pretty serious for novice spice eaters. Again, Peppermaster is rockin' the goat peppers, but not to the extent of the Curry or Pepper Fire sauces.

Flavor: I'm a big fan of the American version of "The Office." There's an episode where Michael (Steve Carrell's doddering, incompetent boss role) waits in line to get a hot pretzel and ends up getting the works: 18 different sugary toppings, from crushed peppermint to caramel drizzle to sprinkles to powdered sugar. Babysauce works on a similar principle: cane sugar, mango, pineapple, citric acid and lime juice. Also, sea salt, habanero peppers, and onions stand like wallflowers around the sugary dance floor. Amazingly, this sauce has 1 gram of sugar per serving! It's a Christmas miracle for sure. Babysauce tastes just like the yellow/orange sweet n' sour sauce at many Chinese restaurants, but it has a well-rounded halo of spice that follows each bite. It's also really, really syrupy, so be careful when pouring. One unifying factor I can think of that keeps everything on Earth connected is sugar. Animals love it. People love it. Plants...well, they make it, so they probably love it too. Everything loves sugar, including me. So by default, I love this sauce. I found half the bottle gone almost immediately, and my face and hands dyed a mysterious orange color.

Availability: What I said about Curry Fire applies here...go ahead and order it from their site.

Good for: Like the Cheech Mango, this sugary delight is good for fruit salsas, fish, rice, and livening up Chinese food or sweet meats. Mango is a remarkable fruit, sweet and juicy, and the slight hint of sea salt makes it more utilitarian. I really recommend taking whatever prior knowledge you have culinary use of mangoes and expanding it to this hot sauce.

Review:
Heat: **
Flavor: ****1/2
My Review: 8.6/10

Babysauce isn't for everyone. In fact, this review may be controversial for some hot freaks. But I stand by the fact that sweet n' savory goes a long way, so grab your babydaddy and down a bottle of Babysauce right now.

Peppermaster Curry Fire: One of the best from unsuspecting Quebec.

2009-12-07T19:53:00.002-06:00

When I think hot sauce, a few places come to mind: the spice-crazy Caribbean islands; the "spice belt" of Southwestern American states filled with hardcore hotheads; the downright satanic levels of spice rockin' India. Yet in a little place called Quebec, north of the USA and just south of the brutal Canadian tundra, there is some of the best, must-eat hot sauce any hot freak must know about. For the next three days, I'll be examining three humble gourmet sauces from Peppermaster foods.

Let's look at the facts: Memorize this face:

THIS is the intimidating smile of a true pepper master! This is the hat of a flavor expert! This is a hot sauce maker who speaks at least two languages!
Peppermaster foods, the brainchild of Greg Brooks, has been cranking out goatpepper hot sauces since 2003. Besides being the executive chef of Apple Tree Landing Restaurant, Greg is a fire expert who grew up in the jungles the Bahamas and acquired a taste for searing spice and top-notch flavor. Goat peppers, habanero cultivars, are the central point of Curry Fire sauce. What a sauce it is! Full of spice and flavor...AND the reverse side of the bottle is in French (or should that be the reverse side is in English?)! Unique and delicious is a great combination.

Good Hurts: The tropical goat pepper lets loose a throat tickling, mouth busting burn. It's almost the perfect level of heat: hot enough for even jaded chili-brains, but tasty enough to completely change (most likely for the better) a meal. This sauce, though Canadian, is rife with the essence of India: curry spices mesh perfectly with the hot peppers into a thick, rich sauce. It won't kill you; it's slightly less hot than the habanero/ghost pepper organic sauce division, but it certainly will knock you around as spice builds bite after bite. The best part about it is the lingering, sharp spice that other hot sauces can't keep alive for long enough.

Flavor: It's a welcome (and needed) addition to the acidic and vinegar-y world of hot sauce. Rich, sweet-hot Indian spices, sugar, onion, ginger, thyme, guar gum (for thickness), and fresh hot peppers come together masterfully. Imagine the aromatic sweetness of creamy, fresh yellow curry, filled with savory, juicy veggies. Somehow, Brooks has crammed that flavor into a hot sauce using fresh, fair-trade ingredients. It's so unique and so simple: the perfect one-two punch.

Availability: This sauce is, according to the website, available commercially in the US and Canada. You can order it from their home page, obviously, as well. Where it's located is something I just can't answer; haven't seen it anywhere. They use the same (fun looking) label for their sauces, so make sure you read and make sure you're getting the right sauce! However, it needs to be mentioned that they will make special hot sauces for you! Design the label and name, and all they do (!) is make it for you! It's a good idea for promotional gifts and fun personalized stuff.

Good for: This amazing sauce is a must have for Indian food, rice, naan, and can add an Eastern kick to pretty much anything delicious: chili, salads...yes, I have put some on hot dogs. Think Indian chili dogs: kidney beans, onions, spicy mustard, and thick helpings of this sauce! The sky is the limit for such a unique-yet-versatile mastery of yellow curry.

Review:
Heat: ***3/4
Flavor: *****
My Review: 9.8/10

It's the holidays. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, or just want to tip your straw hat to the Peppermaster, order this sauce. I'm not gettin' paid from them...I'm just a hot freak who loves a great hot sauce. Don't delay: order it now!

Good Hurts heats up MySpace!

2009-12-02T11:05:00.000-06:00

Yes, nearly a decade after MySpace became really popular, Good Hurts has caught up!
Check out the XXXXXtra hot MySpace page:
http://www.myspace.com/511079361

Of course, add us as your super pals, and invite us over for the Holidays. We'll bring the sauce. You print out the fancy invitations.

Green Bandit Basil Serrano: Secret Sauce for Surprising Snacks

2009-12-01T14:20:00.000-06:00

Good Hurts is the name of the site, but real good hurts include anything that hurts good. As an English teacher, my natural instinct not to explore the definition using the same terms reversed, but it's just plain true. Good Hurts, however, dedicates itself to the taste-oriented world of "good." No, you won't see any good hurts on this site like getting pleasure out of a vicious spanking, but you WILL see a wider variety of hot, spicy, and painful treats beyond the average hot sauces we've come to know and accept.
Green Bandit's Basil Serrano hot sauce is, well, a sauce that's hot. But is it a hot sauce as we've come to define hot sauces? This bizarre sauce lurks in secret shadows behind your taste buds like the no-good varmint on the label. But is it worth challenging to a duel?

Let's look at the facts: Made in sunny Fairfield, NJ, Green Bandit Basil Serrano is proudly "stolen from a secret family recipe." The bottle even includes a fun story about how the hot sauce artisan's dad earned the nickname "Raging Abe" because he stole his hot sauce recipe. Then he asks, "can I come home now, dad? Be creative and try it on everything!" Choice words...less so about furious father everywhere and more so about trying this sauce on everything. How right he is!

Good hurts: For formatting sakes, I'll put this first and THEN flavor. But flavor really comes before everything here. Yes, it's hot. It doesn't have the kind of lingering kick or burn that most hot sauces have, though, even though it uses habanero peppers; the Serrano pepper is a lot more full-bodied and juicy than a habanero, and gives you more of a fresh sting than a long tongue scorching burn. This sauce is all about the kick it has. Not a big one, but more than you'd find in a typical dressing or vinaigrette, which this sauce resembles.

Flavor: This sauce is two things: weird as the wild west and delicious.
It's weird because it's a green sauce, which means it's filled with all kinds of herbs and spices and is usually pretty good for vegetables. However, apple cider vinegar, serrano peppers, lemon juice, olive oil, and the all-important basil are a lot of acidic flavors you won't find in most hot sauces. The ginger hints are subtly significant, and you may find yourself licking your fingers after consuming. This thin, basil-chunked sauce feels light and tangy, which leads to point number two: it's interesting blend of zesty, garden fresh flavor makes it able to go places other hot sauces can't. Unless you're a total hot freakomatic, you aren't going to put Dave's on salads or pesto pasta. Yet Green Bandit can sneak into unsuspecting, surprising foods. This "hot sauce" is a lot more like a spicy salad dressing or vinaigrette. It might belong more in your condiment section of the fridge or spice rack than hot sauce collection!

Availability: Like I've found with most hot sauces on Good Hurts, it's easy to find on the internet and available in hot sauce stores. However, I say to you: demand this sauce! Grocery stores would be remiss for not acknowledging a hot sauce with the power to blast a salad and fresh veggies (or even more acidic fruits!)

Good for: This is the first sauce I've eaten that I think is designed with salads in mind. Whether it's simple greens, tuna, chicken (or chicken salad), or tortilla, I think this tart sauce is meant to accompany savory greens and lighty sweet fruits. It won't leave you rolling on the floor burning, but will add an emphatic kick to your healthier meals.

Review:
Heat: **
Flavor: ****
My Review: 7/8/10

This unique sauce isn't quite versatile enough to pour on chips or burritos...and it's a bit on the watery side. It is, however, unconventional, bold, and brave. And it's a very good (light) hurt.

Melinda's XXXXtra Reserve: A reserve for the rest of us

2009-11-30T17:20:00.000-06:00

Ah, yes. The world of "reserves." Whether it's music, booze, gourmet foods, or anything, really, when you slap "reserve" on it, it just gives it that special tingle of joining a secret club or being told a really juicy secret. Hot sauce companies know all about double secret reverse special reserves. Dave's, Blair's, and some of the biggest and baddest companies out there make special reserves, promising outrageous levels of spice and even more outrageous prices. Even Tabasco got in on the reserve action, selling hyper-pricey bottles of their special "Avery Island" reserve sauce. Melinda's Hot Sauce, run by the Figueroa Brothers, have tossed their hat into the not-enough-for-everyone-only-those-with-a-big-wad-of-bills game, making a reserve that's bountiful enough for everyone!

Let's look at the facts: Their website claims: From time to time, optimal growing conditions can produce Habanero crops that yield extremely fiery chiles, Melinda's ages these select chiles to make our new XXXXtra Hot Reserve. It is made with the same fine ingredients present in our famous Original Habanero Recipe. This is the hottest Melinda's. Limited Quantities available. Luckily for us, the growing conditions were just right to get plenty out to gourmet stores and in massive quantities online! Sow hat makes it a reserve sauce? Here's my checklist:

-Special gold emblem proclaiming the hot sauce's "Special Reserve" status and year (a la fine wine [2009])? Check.

-All aboard the natural foods bandwagon? Check.

-Party stopper*? Check.

*I call this devilish contraption a "party stopper." It's a little plastic ring you put over your hot sauce bottle to prevent people from pouring out too much. In fact, it adds a twinge of restrictive elitism; this stopper prevents the buying from pouring out too much sauce at once, subtly enforcing the idea that the sauce is so hot and special that you only need a little. For true pepperheads, this is the equivalent of a palsy one-slice limit at a great pizza party.

Good Hurts: It's got a good, solid habanero burn. Probably too much for the average person, but hey, this sauce is RESERVE! Only the golden may touch the spice. Honestly, it's a solid heat that will do you proud on food and lingering on your tongue, bite after bite. Habaneros are obviously (if you read this site as much as I hope you do) a reoccurring theme in hot sauce, naturally hot as hell and dependable for heat.

Flavor: The best part of this reserve sauce, special or no, is the fact that it uses all natural ingredients and vegetables as its base. No coloring, no science-gums; nothing but carrots, onions, lime juice, garlic, and the usual suspects: vinegar and peppers. You can really taste the carrots and salty garlic. There are hot habanero (and ghost pepper sauces) with less ingredients that taste even better, however. As far as regular people go, this sauce really is something special. The acid and veggies work together here well enough for everyone.

Availability: I'm a huge pro wrestling fan, so work with me, if you will. The WWE has three separate shows with three seperate rosters: Raw, Smackdown, and ECW. Raw and Smackdown have the biggest stars, the top belts, and the most exposure. ECW is on Syfy, the former Science Fiction channel, and has the smallest amount of viewers. It also has its own title, which is really cool, but less exposed and prestigious than the WWE or World Heavyweight titles on Raw and Smackdown, respectively. Melinda's XXXXtra Reserve is the ECW title of reserve hot sauce. It tastes good, has a solid heat, and is available in gourmet and specialty grocery stores. Blair's 3 AM and Dave's Special Reserve are REALLY expensive and hard to find, but deadly hot. This is a special reserve, but cheap and easy to find in many places.

Good on: The flavor is a little too veggie-heavy and garlicy, I think, for a lot of different cuisines. Mexican is a must, and salsa-livening is suggested. Basically, if it's a standard item you'd put hot sauce on, Melinda's XXXXtra Reserve is for you.

My Review:

Heat: ***3/4

Flavor: ***1/2

My Review: 7.6/10

For a reserve for the rest, don't shy away from Melinda's XXXXtra Reserve, the hottest of the Melinda's brand.

"Meanie Sauce: A Taste to Fear": Far from the Main Event

2009-11-29T16:02:00.001-06:00

Alright, alright...I know I said I wouldn't review more Louisiana style hot sauce, filled to capacity with vinegar and tabasco peppers, but this hot sauce couldn't escape my radar. As a die-hard professional wrestling fan, I couldn't resist something featuring ECW original Blue Meanie. And as a lover of all things hot, I had to see if this habanero-based sauce could push the paradigm of generic Louisiana sauce into a new arena. Does it soar to the Main Event? Or will it remain a novelty curtain jerker in a world of hardcore hot sauce?

Let's Look at the Facts: Brian Heffron, AKA The Blue Meanie, is a comedy wrestler known for his chunky white frame, cut-off t shirts, bright blue hair and beard, and drawn-on thick glasses.

Who wouldn't trust this man to decide what they put in their bodies? He moonsaulted (top rope backflip) from the dingy, overcrowded tiny venues of Extreme Championship Wrestling to the mega-arenas of the then-WWF throughout the mid to late 90s. The 2000s were a little slower for the Meanie in the ring, as he bounded back for cameo appearances in the dying ECW and then briefly back to WWE. However, the 90s saw Meanie venture into the hot sauce world...or at least his likeness did. Released by Hot Sauce Factory, this sauce has the simplicity and novelty to make it worth trying, but the tired convention to count it out from the great match of flavor.

Good Hurts: Because this sauce uses hanaberos, you can be sure it edges out most watery red sauces in terms of heat. For hot freaks, it's too little. For the rest, it's a decent level of spiky heat that will trump a regular Louisiana sauce any day of the week.

Flavor: The habanero has an odd sweetness, but you won't taste it here. The garlic and salt are pretty much all you can taste. It's also quite watery, and they've added vegetable gum to sort of thicken it up, but without it it would be a little glass bottle o' water. Is it a taste to fear? If you have a problem with a big cup of ocean water and some slightly-off tasting garlic, then yes, it is a taste to fear. It honestly isn't awful. I wouldn't blame the Meanie for this one...I would blame the world of Louisiana novelty sauces that are easy to make and even easier to slap a picture on. Hot freaks know to maneuver around these sauces, and you should, too.

Availability: Relatively obscure. Lots of websites have it, and any novelty hot sauce store will, too. Don't be afraid to step in the ring with Hot Sauce Factory to order it right from the maker, either.

Good for: As with most sauces like this, I say dump it liberally on subs and pizza. If you like drowning your food in this type of sauce, you can kick up the spice with a hint of garlic right here. I usually dump some in a pot of chili, usually. Usually. That's the thing...the overall "usual" nature of this sauce is just a little to "eh" for someone like the ECW original, the Blue Meanie.

Review:
Heat: **3/4
Flavor: **
My Review: 3.7/10

Unless you're a member of the Blue World Order, an ECW die hard looking for all things hardcore, or a member of the Meanie's immediate family, I say avoid giving your taste buds a pinfall or submission loss to this disappointing sauce.

Good Hurts Video Kaboom: Trip to Atomic Blast Sauces

2009-11-26T00:42:00.002-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy a spicy holiday with Russell and The Godfather!

Two Flaming Arrows Hot Sauce: All American, All Natural!

2009-11-25T22:42:00.001-06:00

The immortal question posited by legendary rock band The Shaggs was "who are parents?" In their case, "parents are the ones who really care." But in my case, parents are the ones who bring you back fresh, all-natural hot sauce from their trip to New Mexico. The bottle says that it's for BRAVE people, but it is brave enough to run the Good Hurts gauntlet and survive?

Let's look at the facts: Made by Navajo run Nizhoni Keyah, Inc foods (and just in time for Thanksgiving!-Russell), Two Flaming Arrows prides itself on its bold Southwest roots, images, and flavors.
Their website drops you right into its rich depiction of its territory:

Imagine a vast expanse of desert terrain, where yucca, cedar, and cottonwood trees dot the

deep red sedimentary rock and golden multi-colored sandstone mesas stand in deep contrast

against the sky.

That is exactly where you are when you take a taste of "PFS" Salsa & Sauces for our Food

products are traditionally inspired and uniquely Southwest!

Like many of our favorite hot sauces, one company owns another, which owns another, etc. PFS stands for Pueblo Food Specialties, a special branch of Nizhoni Keyah dedicated to the best in the Southwest: salsa and the hot stuff.

Good Hurts: Forget Custer, trade whiskey, and man-eating cacti. What would the Southwest be without its legendary spice? This is a really great hot sauce for the above average man. While it's an average heat for real hot freaks, it leaves a lingering, lip tingling heat that will never disappoint. The magic lies in the combination of vibrant red chili powder, pequin peppers (a must for Mexican picante hot sauces), and habanero powder. But the real place the arrows nail the target is on flavor.

Flavor: Ah, yes. For a flavor as bright and thick as Adobe walls, you can't miss this New Mexico must. Orange juice, flavorful cayenne peppers, honey, tomato, and garlic leave you with a traditional garden-of-vegetable sauce without the kidney punching saltiness of too much vinegar. Best of all, the ingredients are fresh and delicious. It's a well-rounded tomato flavor, sort of like a (Southwest) chili, which overpowers some of those sweeter ingredients. Don't be expecting a tropical fruity blast (or small explosion) in this one.

Availability: Their website humbly requests that you "Give the Gift of the First Americans." However, just because it's Thanksgiving doesn't mean this sauce will ever be out of season. This sauce is New Mexican made, proudly, and is available throughout hot sauce emporiums in the state. Of course, their website has plenty for the rest of us.

Good for: One thing about this sauce is that it's proud of the fact that it won't tear a hole in your stomach or remove industrial driveway stains (oooh, burn, Dave's!), but this sauce is really good for snack foods and, in this reviewer's opinion, chicken salads, burritos, chili rellenos, and other flavorful Mexican dishes. If you have some New Mexican food handy, you better marry it to some New Mexican authentic goodness.

Review:
Heat: **1/2
Flavor: ***3/4
My Review: 8.7

This is a really great American sauce that is made my Braves, claims to be for the brave, and bravely stands behind its natural flavor and pleasant heat. This is for sure a New Mexican treat.

Cheech Mojo Mango Habanero Hot Sauce: Up in Sweet

2009-11-01T22:58:00.000-06:00

Richard "Cheech" Marin made a name for himself with his stoney comedy and pie-faced, grunting Mexican immigrant character, but has long since traded his rolling papers and doobie truck for the expensive rustle of Hollywood TV scripts and the comforts of the golf cart. The omnipresent, clef-lipped face of Hispanic stoner humor has plastered it on this Costa Rican (!) hot sauce, but is it worth the association? This hot sauce reviewer says yes, but don't get too excited about a knock-your-socks-off hot sauce. This is way more sweet than heat.

Let's look at the facts: Who are the mysterious Figueroa Brothers (Inc.)? What do they want? And what is with their corporate-speak laden website, filled with smiling faces, easy-on-the-eyes colors, and dozens of hot sauces distributed from their Dallas, TX HQ?
Greg P. Figueroa, CEO, and David O. Figueroa, Jr. are two men with big, big dreams: while this hot sauce is (overall) tasty and enjoyable, their website provides insight for a deep rabbit hole...these men may very well be the ones to introduce the fiery habanero pepper to mainstream American mouths. This novelty hot sauce from Costa Rica bears a Cheech Marin likeness, but lacks the smoked-out hempy flavor it's namesake probably tastes like. Like the Figueroa Brothers' master plan of top-level hot sauce contendership (they're basically already there), this sauce is accessible but could push their proud habanero a bit more.

Good Hurts: This hot sauce has a little bit of a spike to each bite based on the habanero flakes and flavor in each bottle. However, that heat dissipates fast because the sauce is thick and sweet, quickly bursting with a citrus syrup and overwhelming the hots. For regular folks, this hot sauce might do the trick if they're in the mood for a hot sauce devoid of any salt or vinegar, but for seasoned hot sauce vets, this mango sauce might not be worth the the trip beyond Cheech's smiling face on the outside of the bottle.

Flavor: A thick syrup, this yellow sauce has the fantastic aroma of ripe mangos and sweet habanero chilies. The lack of salt flavor is a welcome edition to the hot sauce world, but the carrots, onion, and tomato paste that the ingredients mention are all but vanished against the slow, thick wall of lemon and citrus. The flavor, like a sweet chewing gum, is quick and intense but vanishes fairly quickly. An interesting sauce for sure, but it's sweetness might be a bit overpowering for some traditional hot sauce welcoming foods.

Availability: While this gimmicked sauce is easy to find online, it's really walking into precarious territory. It's made, undoubtedly, for fans of Cheech and Chong and their oft-hilarious munchies. It's not a necessity for anyone; the Figueroa Brothers know that, too. Melinda's is their main breadwinner, more easily available, and less goofy.

Good for: This sauce might not mesh well with beef tacos or burritos, and definately not anything with a rich tomato or cream sauce. This is the kind of sauce that clashes with other sauces...imagine putting sweet n' sour sauce a burrito suizo covered in cheese and tomato sauce. It's designed for munchies, perhaps, but that doesn't mean normals can't enjoy it too. Fresh fruit salsa would welcome this mango sauce, as would fish dishes and salads. Be ready for a mango mission if you want to eat this sauce.

Review:
Heat: **

Flavor:***3/4
My Review: 7.5/10

The Figueroa Brothers understand that when it comes to hot sauce distribution, many fingers in many pies means more flavors for more hot freaks. This sauce might be novelty in spirit, but the Texas brothers understand to that build a great hot sauce empire, you need foot soldiers in every nook and cranny of the battlefield.

Russell vs. the Brick Lane Curry House Phaal Curry Challenge

2009-10-29T20:52:00.003-05:00

Yes, Adam Richman of Man vs. Food is a hot freak for life. If he wasn't, why would he murder his precious innards by challenging the most brutal curry in the USA? Using a deadly blend of peppers. the fearsome Phaal needs to be prepared by a gas mask wearing chef and requires a waver to be signed before it is ordered.
So of course, I had to eat it.

After braving the crushing, overwhelming, nose-smashing, throat roasting spice (and taking the worst photo of myself in the history of image capturing devices), I reached the final bite. With all my American pride, I mustered my muster and reached one last glob of curry and one forkful of rice to my lips. It was so momentous that I had to record the very last bite before I flipped the kill-switch!

What challenge would be complete without a shoutout to my online all-acceptance, no-rejection poetry journal, O Sweet Flowery Roses? Yes, there was a time before Good Hurts dominated my internet use.

TRUE GLORY WAS MINE!

AND I got a free* beer and certificate** of completion!
If you're on the lower east side of Manhattan and you love to destroy yourself, you've got to check out Brick Lane Curry House. Tell them Good Hurts sent you! As long as you can survive the $2.50 porno music in the background, you can learn all about their delicious restaurant and Phaal challenge here.
Make sure you check out the P'Hall of Fame, where I am eternally e-shrined.

*for the cost a massive curry, plus my girlfriend's meal (I am very nice).
**the greatest achievement a human being can hold.

Sgt. Pepper's El Chipotle Picante Pumpkin: It's flavor season!

2009-10-28T10:59:00.001-05:00

On my spiritual journey to Mason City, IA's Atomic Blast Hot Sauces, I picked up this sauce when the owner, Dan the Godfather, suggested it after I requested some more unique hot sauces packed with flavor. I was not disappointed; when you're good to the Godfather, sure enough, he's good to you. This little gem comes from Sgt. Pepper's out of Austin, TX, where they like to keep it weird. Sure enough, the mad blend of sweet and savory spices, pumpkin, and cider vinegar is the pinnacle of mad genius and what makes me love what I do (well, what I do for free in between teaching, eating, and sleeping).

Let's look at the facts: Sgt. Pepper's is, despite the low level of heat, a true hot freak's hot sauce; made in the back of the Tears of Joy hot sauce shop, it's a true "American Dream" hot sauce: one man (J.P. Hayes), one commercial kitchen, and one mission: flavor and heat...not just the hot freaks, but the foodies in all of us. I can safely say that this is one of my favorite hot sauces ever. After plowing through a bottle in about a day, I can only urge you to gather your tired, your hungry, your poor stomachs and taste buds yearning to be free of the vinegar tang too commonly tied to hot sauce and let flavor ring!

Good Hurts: This sauce isn't meant to melt your skull down the back of your throat, but make no mistake about it: this velvety smooth blend of southwest and sweet spices is a hot sauce through and through. It leaves a sort of a low murmur of spice accentuated by the fact that this sauce is meant to be eaten bite after bite, again and again. Chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce (actually a blend of onion, vinegar, garlic, tomato paste/sauce that helps the chipotle stay flavorful in a can) are usually pretty serious on their own, but some of the more exciting ingrediants like pumpkin, garlic, and cinnemon actually cool down the heat a bit.

Flavor: Pumpkin is, of course, one of fall's best flavors. This sauce, however, is made for every day, all year round. The rich, picante flavor of smokey chipotle pepper, onion, cumin, and garlic perfectly marries the sweet cinnemon, pumpkin puree, and apple cider vinegar. This sauce is, in a way, like Thanksgiving in a bottle: sweet and savory combined in one bottle that is packed to capacity with mouth-watering flavor. I've never tasted a sauce so delcious that I felt could go on so many foods. Not to sweet, not too salty, but just right; Sgt. Pepper's has clearly earned its rank as a true commander of hot sauce.

Availability: I had to know where this sauce came from and where I could get it. I found it at a hot sauce store in Iowa City, where they offer other unique flavors, like Tejas Tears and Blackberry Balsamic. The Tears of Joy website can help you out, but many other online hot sauce sellers have it too. If you're in Austin, don't just enjoy the music...live the sauce. If you can't find the sauce, demand it!

Good for: The sky is the limit with a sweet, smokey, spicy, savory sauce like this. Slather it on corn chips, tacos, burritos, or any traditional Mexican or Tex-Mex food. Add some fall flair to salsa or marinade. This sauce is aware of its amazing range...they recommend putting it on cheesecake! Sure enough, it was a real winner. Ice cream, too. This sauce is a must have because it adds new dimensions of variety to the world of hot sauce. This sauce may use pumpkin, but it really is the sauce of all seasons.

Review:
Heat: **
Flavor: *****
My Review: 9.7/10

This hot sauce is a must have because it adds new dimensions of versitility to a market overcrowded with sauces described with words like "death," "insane," or "inferno." A thousand bottles of those sauces come and go, but Sgt. Pepper's Pumpkin Picante is one in a lifetime.

Key West Key Lime Hot Sauce: Set sail for meat island on a tide of marinade!

2009-10-26T20:13:00.000-05:00

This rare sauce surfs the back currents of the internet sauce community waiting to be found. With a compass on the cover, is this sweet, thick lime hot sauce worth discovering? Ahoy; it be delicious.

Let's look at the facts: Hot Shots Hot Sauce is the island of hot freaks; bring your tired, your hungry, your bizarre, your crazy hots...they will distribute them. Its mystery shrouded in origin, this sauce claims to be "straight from the keys," though its overlord distributor, Hot Shots, operates out of Charlotte, NC. While its humble beginnings may be unclear, its flavor and sweet-hot is definitely clear.

Good Hurts: This sauce has a spicy lil' linger that does what sweet heat does best: step out of the way of taste but work hard enough to support it. It's like the bass player in the band; sure, it may not have the most on-stage bravado, but its magnetic hum will make sure you're moving. Not hot enough to make you plow through the ceiling, but definitely leaves you a spicy splash.

Flavor: The chunkier texture and use of key lime juice and fesh lime zest come tearing through in every drop. Flavorful, moderately spicy serrano chilis and apple cider vinegar (such a great substitute for regular vinegar in typical hot sauces) mix with ancho chilis and roasted garlic for a combination that eats more like a marinade than a hot sauce. Oh yes, it tastes quite good, and you'll be licking your fingers for sure. However, the peppery, garlicy sweetness would really compliment beef or chicken on the grill, or maybe even shrimps. Bottom line is that this sauce was meant to elope on a romantic Key West cruise with its love partner, Meaty Meat.

Availability: You're gonna have to find it on Hot Shots or some of the other hot sauce web page, unless you're ready for a deeply meaningful sojourn deep into the hot sauce canals of the American food subculture (AKA driving out to remote hot sauce emporiums) to find this one. But is that really a bad thing? Yes, this sauce is yummy and keeps me wanting more. But the chili flavor and heat is definitely standing behind, not next to or in front of, the citrus, garlic, cumin, and apple 4 horsemen of the taste-pocalypse.

Good for: From one grill fanatic to another, this is a grilling sauce. Slather it on ribs, steaks, pork chops, salmon...the sky is the limit, as long as the sky is filled with meat. The sweetness and fine chunks of garlic and lime in a velvety, chinese-food-sweet-sauce-like consistency won't match the variety hot sauce has with things like chips, crackers, noodles, pizza...this sauce won't upset you when paired with those things, but it will overpower, not mesh with already delicious flavors.

Review:
Heat: **
Flavor: ****
My Review: 7.1/10

Get this sauce and proceed to marinate everything in sight.

Good Hurts Video Kaboom: Trip to Los Portales, spice capital of Iowa City

2009-10-25T12:20:00.001-05:00

Grace Scotch Bonnet Sauce: One of Jamaica's best exports.

2009-10-23T11:12:00.001-05:00

Immediately below is my review of Grace's Hot Pepper Sauce, which ranked in at a tragic 2.6. This sauce, however, blows its baby brother away with a raw, firey world of Scotch Bonnet flavor. This is about as basic as you can get, though it does seem to straddle the line a bit between hot sauce and condiment. When the sweet (Jamaican) smoke is cleared, however, this is not only a hot sauce, but a great hot sauce that's made to be enjoyed.

Let's look at the facts: I already said a lot about Scotch Bonnets in my last review of Grace Foods and their hot sauce lost in an overwhelming list of products. Scotch Bonnets are relatives of habaneros, but if habaneros are the serious, hard working pepper plugged into so many independant American hot sauces, Scotch Bonnets are their laid-back island cousin, just as hot but more relaxed and sweeter towards the worlds of spice and flavor. Scotch Bonnets would rather look silly and taste tropical than merely kill you with spice. This sauce, a colorful yellow, is Grace's best condiment by a long shot. The simple mashing of Scotch Bonnets (with some slight flavor accentuators) really captures the heat of the islands and flavor of a solid hot sauce.

Good Hurts: In the description on their website, Grace promises a challenge. "Add a drop or two to food for a truely serious pepper experience," it claims, though hot freaks may need to up this number by a few shakes of the bottle. This sauce does have a minor tropical blast (which you can see a major version of in my Dave's video) which won't floor you at once, but provides a long lingering burn cycle that will continue as long as you keep eating the sauce (well, duh, I guess). You will, however, still be able to taste your food-- a plus in a world of dangerous, murderous sauces lurking around every corner. It's hot enough to hang with some of the bad boys, but the flavor outshines the heat in the end.

Flavor: This is where the sauce gets unique. Sweet, rich, hot, and delicious, this sauce will absolutely not dissappoint. The double-punch of cane vinegar and cane sugar/citric acid give the sauce fruity tropical hints and a tangy, acidic flavor. The sauce becomes tricky when you factor in the fact that it contains modified starch and ascorbic acid. These ingrediants thicken the sauce, gelling it a bit so that it seems like crushed peppers in a sauce the consistancy of a heavier BBQ sauce. This is not a bad thing at all, but be prepared to feel like you're eating a hot sauce masquerading as a thick condiment. Flavor is spot on, but consistancy is a bit unnatural for a traditional hot sauce.

Availability: Like its little brother, the plain ol' Grace hot sauce, this sauce will show up where there are Caribbean folk to enjoy it. Grace seems to be a major supplier of groceries in the islands and that carries over to this country. Big cities (particularly NYC) are a good bet, as well as, of course, on the Grace Foods website.

Good for: I love this sauce on cold pizza and pizza crust. However, because it has such a bright, sunshine taste, I think it can replace/accentuate Caribbean dishes which tend to use jerk spice (also made from Scotch Bonnets). If you have a sandwich with sweeter ingrediants, this sauce is for you. If you have a mango or pineapple salsa, this sauce is a must-have tag team partner.

Review:
Heat: ***
Flavor: ****
My Review: 8.4/10

Skip anything else from Grace with the words "hot" or "sauce" in the title. This simple crushed Scotch Bonnet blend is bliss.

Grace Hot Pepper Sauce: Not Jamaica's best export.

2009-10-23T10:30:00.005-05:00

Grace Foods proudly wraps itself in a blanket of of Caribbean pride. And why not? Producing foods from their central location in Kingston, Jamaica, Grace promises "Genuine Caribbean Taste, Enjoyed Worldwide." They have a heavy double edged sword to carry, however; on the one hand, Jamaica's climate makes it ideal for growing some of the hottest, sweetest, craziest peppers know to man. On the other, Grace Foods doesn't have its heart and mind in hot sauce, but rather spread thin across a wide selection of typical grocery items; it seems that without a strong focus on hot sauce, this "very hot" sauce falls very flat.

Let's look at the facts: Scotch Bonnet peppers are a cultivar of the habanero. A cultivar is a plant that has been given a unique name based on unique characteristics but is still part of a specific family. Pepperheads may know this, and also know that it usually runs between 100,000 and 350,000 Scoville units. That killer heat comes fresh from the Caribbean islands, where the pepper's unique sweet heat gives flavor to many traditional dishes from the area. These tropical goodies have nothing to do with their namesake dark, rainy Scotland; they actually get their name from their odd resemblance to Tam O'Shanter hats. Never wear a Scotch Bonnet on your head. Grace's "very hot" hot sauce claims that it has peppers, cane vinegar, water, and salt...yet the bottle has a bounty of Scotch Bonnet peppers bedazzling it with their bright colors and promise of serious burn. Do not believe this filthy lie! Grace Foods is far more interested in making mediocre foods for the masses than concentrating on a really great hot sauce for, well, hot sauce lovers.

Good Hurts: None here. This runny sauce is almost a carbon copy of Tabassco, which will get no love here on Good Hurts. The spice is a wimpy drop in a salty, watery bucket. Very conventional, very boring, and, unfortuantely, a flavor that's dramatically overexposed here in the USA already.

Flavor: Too much vinegar and water with anything can produce a bit of a stinky foot smell, and that's what you get when you open this bottle. The spice is weak, the sauce is little thicker than water, and you won't taste any sweetness of Scotch Bonnet. There's a chance they just used a pinch of cayenne pepper like Tabassco does and subtely advertised otherwise.

Availability: What is interesting about this otherwise bland sauce, however, is that where you find Caribbean communities, whether small neighborhoods of Haitians, Trinidadians, Caymanians, or Jamaicans, you are bound to find Grace products. Some other time I'll review Grace's Scotch Bonnet Pepper Sauce, which is actually quite good! I found this sauce in Brooklyn (Bed Stuy) in a little bodega. Grace's Caribbean pride seems to work its way into any solid area that might be looking for Caribbean pride. Of course, they have a very generic website as well.

Good for: I feel that hot sauces like this, Tabassco, and lousier Louisana sauces are best when the flavor is as muted as possible and the little spark of heat can add the oh-so-slightest kick for spice beginners. I'm thinking Bloody Marys, pizza sauce, or party dips packed with tons of flavorful ingrediants.

Review:

Heat: 1/2 star

Flavor: *

My Review: 2.6

Grace makes this and one other OFFICIAL Scotch Bonnet Sauce. Get that one. This sauce isn't worth your time, efforts, or taste buds.

Salsa Huichol: Git outta Dodge, Cholula...there's a new sheriff in town.

2009-10-19T21:25:00.002-05:00

Salsa Huichol might not be the sauce of your dreams, but it's certainly a sauce that has big dreams of it's own. Their humble Mexican website outlines their aspirations to become the leader in Picante hot sauce. Just what is Picante hot sauce? According to America's internet single parent, Wikipedia, "Picante is a Spanish adjective that derives from picar, which means 'to sting.'" This sauce brings some sting, but goes head to head with another classic Mexican hot sauce, Cholula. Does this sauce rise to its own challenge and live the (Mexican) American Dream?

Let's look at the facts: Picante, a word often associated with salsa, usually describes a tomato-based hot sauce. This traditional Mexican hot sauce culls from a variety of indigenous peppers, including Piquin, Cayenne, and Arbol peppers, along with garlic, tomato, and vinegar. It's a proven combination of Mexican flavor. More importantly, the Lopez family has been making the stuff for generations since 1949, and the sauce hit America in 1982. Their honest, down to Earth web page portrays a family hot sauce trying to break out internationally...and guess what? They deserve to.

Good Hurts: With the same kind of tangy spice that toasts the tip of your tongue that Cholula has, you can't go wrong with this sauce, whether you're a spiceaholic or a pepperhead just lookin' for some flavor. Not too hot, but it won't let you down.

Flavor: The strange, almost metallic, reddish-brown milky color smells of rich ripe tomatoes and chilies.The flavor is thicker and bolder than Cholula, tastes like the peppers are fresher and perhaps roasted, and brings a rich mellow to the niche dominated by Cholula in the USA. This is a sauce you get for flavor, not searing heat. I strongly recommend it!

Availability: It's not easy to find here. Their site boasts that they've made it all the way to France and Spain, but I wonder how easily available the sauce really is in those locations and around the world. Their site isn't translated well, and thus makes ordering hot sauce a bit more challenging than the average late-night hot sauce buy. If you can find this stuff, demand it! Ask your local Mexican joint where to find this elusive flavor goldmine.

Good for: Everything Cholula can do, this sauce can do better. Pizza is a must, burritos are a plus, and the flavor really mixes well with beans and rice. This sauce is more well rounded and flavorful than Cholula, so the sky is really the limit.

Review:

Heat: *

Flavor: ****2/5

My Review: 7.1

While the bite isn't quite enough to push it into seriously hot territory, it's bold, exciting flavor could easily knock your Cholula bottle off the shelf and into the toilet, assuming you keep your hot sauce over the toilet. Strongly recommended!

Hawkeye Hot Sauce: Yes, YOUR school can have that Louisiana vinegar flavor!

2009-10-19T17:53:00.001-05:00

When you live mere blocks from the University of Iowa campus, you quickly learn what comes with the territory. Besides the reputation of the writing department, the agricultural science opportunities, and the baskets of corn on every corner when it isn't cold out, you see that little yellow and black hawk face plastered on anything with more than a square inch of room. Sweatshirts, sweatpants, hats, glasses, beads, and creepy Leatherface-like yellow and black overalls are just some the adornments students and townies alike stumble around in day in and out in Hawkeye territory. But why stop with adornments? When I saw Iowa Hawkeye hot sauce it my local Hyvee, the black and gold in my blood boiled to fever pitch and $3 later I was at home, cracker in hand, ready to support my (by proximity) home team!

Let's look at the facts: People love big universities here. If they didn't, Hot Sauce Harry's would be out of a job. Hot Sauce Harry's figured out that plastering school logos on hot sauce might help sell their very normal, down to Earth blends. However, they have a wide array of bizarrely named hot sauces, though many sound, beyond their names, sound like a handful of batches under thousands of different labels. But they don't need to worry; hundreds of thousands of people, from students to parents to creepy alumni with frosted tips and goatees shell out money for any and everything Big U logo. That's why Hawkeye Hotsauce will always have a little market all nice-and-cozy set up (like a nest?) for it here in Iowa City. But does that make it special anywhere beyond the reach of the campus Hawkeye bubble of influence?

Good Hurts: This Louisiana hot sauce tastes like what Louisiana hot sauce should taste like, and has a little spike of heat, as Louisiana hot sauce tends to have. Using cayenne peppers will only kick so much for hot freaks, but it's more about the vinegary goodness that these traditional sauces use that makes them so iconic. Don't get this one for the heat...get it because you want at least one bottle of Louisiana hot sauce and you go to the University of Iowa.

Flavor: My first sentence about pretty much sums it up: vinegar and peppers combine for a classic flavor you'll find in any decent sub shop or diner. Better than Tabasco, but akin to a solid Trappey's Louisiana sauce. It's a hair less liqudy than some others, which is a plus for me. This is, I believe, what America came up with to counter the unique chips-and-vinegar combo from the UK; our Louisiana hot sauce adds a little kick but a vinegar saltiness for more tang and enjoyment with pretty much any type of food.

Availability: Hawkeye Hot Sauce is all over University of Iowa. But the actual Louisiana sauce they make is everywhere under a myriad of labels. This is 3000% novelty, but at least it's a solid, dependable novelty you can eat.

Good for: One of the pleasures of this hot sauce is that it's truly made for everyone and has ascended to the top of the pile of hot sauces for regular, college-lovin' folks. Even the most hardened pepper head would admit that Louisiana sauce is good for hung over mornings and black coffee, chips as a snack, burrito dinners, and pizza, warm or cold. It's pretty much just a tangier take on vinegar, after all. The consistency is just a little heavier and, therefore, more like a real sauce.

Review

Heat: *

Flavor: **1/2

My Review: 6.0/10

May this Louisiana hot sauce stand for all others until I find one significantly different, better, or more unique. The Hawks may not know it, but Hot Sauce Harry's is the bat in the proverbial Aesop war between the beasts and the birds; it plays every college with the same recipe, but isn't worth turning away from if you have school spirit and don't mind your iconic school mascot staring back at you from the shelf, always judging.

First ever Good Hurts Video Kaboom: Dave's Insanity Sauce + SAVE THE PEPPERHEADS!

2009-10-17T17:05:00.001-05:00

Looks like a hot freak may be headed to jail...and over Tabasco, no less! After putting Tabasco in her soda and letting autistic students drink it, Maria Tagle may have transgressed the the student/hot sauce obsessee line.
Now's the time to rally behind this victim of injustice! Raise your hot-sauce-addled soda cans to the heavens!

Amana Colony's "Mean Jean's Hot Sauce": In quaint, historic Amana, there lies an average hot sauce

2009-10-15T21:02:00.000-05:00

The historic Amana Colonies in Middle Amana, Iowa are home to an old (founded in 1854), closed German society. Like many Amish or Mennonite communities, their connection to the outside world was commerce...buying and selling their own wares and, well, ingredients to make their own wares.

Flash forwards to 2009. It's a cute little tourist community. There are walls packed with baked goods, jams and jellies, cheese, and wine. And yes, there is hot sauce. This one is made by "Mean Jean" (Jean = a quint German woman, not the famed pro wrestling announcer.

Let's look at the facts: In a community where they make beer, wine, cheese, jams, jellies, candy, fudge, and countless other items, I was really surprised by the generic, factory-manufactured flavor and feel to this green pepper/jalapeno based sauce. Should you head into their general stores, enjoy the fact that they make hot sauce, but it's probably best to leave it within the comforts of its own closed society of mediocre foods.

Good Hurts: While I found it exciting to buy a hot sauce from this unsuspecting general store, "Mean Jean's" disappointed me. The bottle (and I can only trust the bottle; the actual website is just a general grocery store page) says it contains jalapeno pepper, habanero powder, and capsicum. I was pretty excited for a surprising shock, but this sauce is like a thicker, more gelled green salsa with only the slightest wimper of a spicy kick.

Flavor: It tastes slightly above average, with little notes of sweetness and jalapeno-ish herbs you might get in a salsa verde. However, Mean Jean's has a ton of ingredients, many of which have their hands in the pockets of science's sinister labcoat. Sodium Benzoate? Bisulfate? Polysorbate 80? FD&C blue #1? I think most hot sauces fanatics would frown on so many artificial colors and preservatives. The texture is also syrupy and needs to be refrigerated, which doesn't make it horrible, but subtracts points. It's also surprisingly bitter and subtly medical tasting. It says on the bottle that they use sweet onions AND cane sugar...where did those go? If simplicity is bliss, you're far from it here.

Availability: If you live in the middle of nowhere in Iowa, you're in luck! Amana colonies is only 100 miles away in any direction! Unless you order the stuff from their online grocery store, you'd be hard pressed to find this sauce anywhere outside of the formally Lutheran commune. It's probably best left there.

Good for: This is another drawback of this sauce; why smother your pizza or nachos in this palsy excuse for a hot sauce when you can get a fresh Mexican salsa verde anywhere easily? Smooth, syrupy texture vs. chunky, fresh salsa is the only read difference between this hot sauce and what composes a standard, mild green salsa.

My Review:
Heat: 1/2 star
Flavor: **
My Review: 4.0/10

This sauce may be rare, but that doesn't make it good. The other Amana Colony sauce I purchased is much, much more interesting.

The Boulder Hot Sauce Company Smokey Serrano: mountains of veggie flavor

2009-10-15T19:29:00.002-05:00

There's a school of art called Dadaism; it uses surreal, child-like images and motifs that came out of Europe in the post-WWI period as a reaction to the brutal "reality" of war; by achieving a state of simplicity, Dadaism revolutionized art for decades to come, leading to movements in painting, poetry, music, and sculpture. The Dadaists formed a tight, positive community where they shared ideas and based their lives and livelihoods around the idea of blissful human simplicity and our creative childhood urges.
The point: when did hot sauce become so murderous and violent?
Yes, there's true art in violence; hot freaks like me enjoy the meditative, muster-testing blast of pepper's, nature's sweetest weapon. But Boulder Hot Sauce Company, run by Harry Robertson, is on a mission: to bring the joy of flavor into a hot sauce world of pain.

Let's look at the facts: Don't let my long ramble about Dadaism fool you...this sauce isn't child's play. It's a complex mix of vegetable flavors with enough heat to let it compete with serious hot sauces. Oh yes...they have a catch phrase, too: "I always sweat like this!" I may not be soaked in sweat after eating it, but you better believe I'm happy with this sauce.

Good Hurts: I chose the Serrano sauce because it's unconventional...many hot sauces these days have jalapeno, cayenne variations, or murderous amount of habanero. The heat is one of the most enjoyable I can describe; like a raw Poblano pepper, Serrano heat's there, lingering, tingling, and lasting along with a smokiness you just can't beat. A lot of sauces claim to use a smokey flavor/pepper, but this one does it without Chipotles or Anchos (smokey tasting peppers) and they do it without relying too much on roasted tomatoes or corn as a base. That can sometimes bring your hot sauce into the realm of salsa, and make no mistake: this thick, chunky sauce IS a hot sauce.

Flavor: Flavor is Harry's best friend with this sauce. He makes a habanero sauce I've yet to try, but this Serrano pepper/vinegar/vegetable sauce successfully walks a fine line many sauces tumble off of. While the sauce is chunky, I strongly advise you to shake before you use every single time...the hot liquid that tends to collect at the top like in any thick hot sauce or salsa won't do this sauce adequate representation. Sometimes I get sick of roasted tomato salsa or hot sauce quickly, but this sauce has so many other flavors--you can taste the carrots, the sweet Spanish onions, (and there really is an awesome sweetness here) and, most importantly, the Serrano peppers. If you want a flavorful sauce, this is a must-buy for your hot sauce shelf.

Availability: The best thing about Harry's (besides, well, the sauce itself) is their American-Dream-like obsession and dedication to customer service. You can, of course, order it on their website, but I found it in a little grocery store here in Iowa City. If they don't have it, ask for it. I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that Harry will ship it anywhere that asks for it within seconds.

Good For: I can't say this as much as I'd like to, but you can literally put this sauce on anything. They invented the word "robust" for this sauce. I bet it would make pasta sauce nice'n spicy; I believe it would make a meaty sandwich more smokey and Earthy; I bet it would spring salads to life. Because it's so veggie-heavy AND includes a smokey pepper flavor, I'd say add it to any veggie dish you can think of.

Review:
Heat: ***
Flavor: ****1/2
My Review: 8.4/10

The heat is decent, but the flavor is what you'll come back for. I'd call this sauce a best buy. Make sure you shake the bottle, though! You want to get every chunk'o flavor you can.

Pain is Good Batch 114 Jamaican Style: wacky story, solid sauce

2009-10-13T16:06:00.001-05:00

If you were to follow the self-aggrandizing mythology on the "about us" page of their website, you'd go down the rabbit hole of a long winded, oft whimsical story of a handful of crazies with dreams of making the perfect sauce (etc.) from all walks of life (etc.) who showed up mysteriously one day (etc, etc, etc.). If anything is to be extracted from the story, it's that Original Juan's specialty foods (undoubtedly the cash cow behind the decent distribution, cool bottle shape, and neato bottle art, complete with wincing, screaming faces) wants to let you know they are dedicated to making good sauce. And for a company from Kansas City, MO, they sure want you to know a lot about their background in the fine arts of hot sauce. If you've driven the highways of America, and seen your share of license plates, you know Missouri is the show-me state. Does this sauce put up and shut up?

Let's look at the facts: Kansas City isn't famous for their hot sauces, but they are famous for BBQ here in the US of A. Sure enough, solid BBQ elements work their way into this sauce. For a website dedicated to so many gourmet foods, recipe ideas, and drink mixes, when the dust settles there is a product that's really worth eating and enjoying in a slightly less conventional way than insanely hot sauces out there.

Good Hurts: This sauce does something I've rarely seen with any hot sauce: it actually downplays how hot it is! Sure, there's a screaming guy on the front. But their spice level is right smack in the middle (as shown by a thermostat drawing on the bottle art). There's a smokey heat, but not like a Chipotle smokiness; this smokiness reminds me of something in a smokey tomato sauce or BBQ sauce. And the sauce is hot! It's one (again, unconventionally) that is overtaken by the flavor...that is, after the heat subsides.

Flavor: This robust, thick brown sauce at first seems somewhat fruity smelling, but more like savory fruits (figs come to mind). You can definitely smell that roasted onion and garlic, too. And there's a twinge of sweetness too. What is that dominating flavor? Just look at those ingredients: "Habanero peppers, tomato paste, pineapple juice concentrate, water, garlic puree, lime juice concentrate, spices, lemon juice concentrate, onion powder, salt, jerk seasoning. No added preservatives" That's the one...last, not least. That jerk seasoning really stands out beyond the other ingredients. It adds a sweet, habanero BBQ element to the sauce and a savory flavor. However, the consistency and rich sweet-spice make it more like a hot sauce than a BBQ sauce, too. The flavor of habaneros is really accentuated, too. If you're a fan of solid barbecue, this is a must-have sauce.

Availability: It seems like Original Juan's foods go beyond gourmet stores and into more upscale grocery stores and bodegas. Their strange, random selection of grocery stores is a bit odd; I found a bottle in a hoity-toity gourmet grocery in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, but also at a run-of-the-mill Dominick's Supermarket in Northbrook, IL. If you don't bump into it (something you can't really plan anyway), the website has got your back.

Good for: Unlike many of the other hot sauces that will break down the fortress of the food they are paired with and assault your taste buds, this sauce would work really well on a sandwich, particularly a pulled pork sandwich. If you can smother it in BBQ sauce, you can smother it in Batch #114, as long you're ready to handle a hot sauce that keeps burnin' while you keep eatin'.

Review:
Flavor: ****

Heat: ***3/4
My Review: 8.2/10

JD's South Philly Pyro Pineapple: tropic thunder

2009-10-13T10:37:00.004-05:00

I came across this humble sauce for a mere $3 (USD) at Brooklyn's Chili Pepper Festival in September of 2008. In the corner, a tall, friendly guy peddled his wares, certain that if I tried his sauce cheap, I'd come back. It's a year later, my sauce is long gone, and I have more bottles on order. This sauce really stood out at that day because of its hands-on approach to the American Dream (small business, confidence in product, all natural, etc. etc.) and its remarkable heat and flavor.

Let's look at the facts: JD's South Philly hot sauce company takes pride in their simple craft and the innovation behind it. Their website states, "Pyro Pineapple is different from most hot sauces on the market because it contains no vinegar. J.D. uses a base of citrus fruit and vodka blended with honey and select herbs and spices. This keeps Pyro Pineapple low in sodium and sets it apart from those watered-down, vinegar-based sauces." Hot sauce is a super-duper low calorie food; it does, however, often contain way, way too much sodium, something that can lead to heart problems and liver/metabolism issues. By creating a great hot sauce that keeps it simple and steps outside the traditional box, JD's creates a winner. True enough, the best phrase for this sauce is "a damn good hurt."

Good Hurts: JD's will not disappoint. This searing heat will put tears in your eyes and leave your mouth lingering in pain. It's also flavorful, but the flavor is understated by the heat. When I saw the bottle said Ho Ho Hot, I thought it might be joking around. Like Santa Claus, "ho ho" is no joke. It's time to give the gift of serious heat.

Flavor: It's tropic thunder, a wave of fruity flavors, though pineapple is more understated than they say. It uses a vodka base (a clever innovation), but it's similar to vodka pasta sauce, which tastes like tomatoes and cheese rather than booze. This sauce has the subtle tartness of vodka lurking quietly beneath the surface, but what it really tastes like to me is sweet chutney that's more on the savory side of the sweet scale...think mango or fig chutney. That taste does wrestle a little bit under the weight of its own flavor, however. But not enough to cause any problems...unless you dislike being burned badly, in which case you should leave this site immediately.

Good for: Because the sauce is thicker and more hearty, it works really well to liven up fruity salsas. I think it goes really, really well on corn chips, particularly Fritos. The fruit, salt, and serious Scoville goodness mix really well.

Review:
Flavor: ****
Heat: ****
My Review: 8.6/10

This sauce is a classic; simple innovation combined with something hot enough for pepper heads and tasty enough to add some well-roundedness to your sauce collection.

Bufalo Jalapeno Very Hot: one step above miserable

2009-10-12T23:18:00.003-05:00

Let's get one thing perfectly clear: Bufalo knows how to make hot sauce. They've been doing it in Mexico since 1933, and their Chipotle hot sauce, which is the same consistency as A-1, is smokey and awesome on any Tex-Mex food you can think of. This sauce, however, falls flat fast.

Let's look at the facts: Bufalo seems more intent on flavor than heat, which is fine with me, and most likely fine with mainstream hot sauce eaters. They have such a wide variety of solid sauces, but this one is worth avoiding. With hot freaks, however, this sauce is like glorified ketchup; sugary, tangy, and a festive neon red, this thick sauce seems to be made of a mysterious salty gelatin

Good Hurts: The smell is just like the Trappey's Chef Magic Jalapeno, and if you can get over that Play-Doh like rush, you might be in for a minor, minor treat; it's sugary and salty at the same time, but the short shot of spice isn't enough to really have this sauce measure up to something built to burn.

Flavor: The odd mix of sweet and very, very salty runs thin quick; the smell, texture, and color run thin even thicker. I didn't mind the semi-sweet taste at first, but soon started feeling like hot peppers may not have had a hand in the equation. All the ingredients, including red 40 and an army of unpronounceable preservatives, detract from the overall experience.

Availability: Easy to find in many grocery stores, but omnipresent in Mexican groceries across the nation and in Mexico. Bufalo has really proven themselves with so many sauces and condiments, but this one felt like they just sort of mailed it in.

Good for: Cold pizza, and cold pizza pretty much exclusively. This sauce would overpower a salsa or dish not just with it's texture but with its flavor and smell. It might go well if on its own with rice, perhaps.

REVIEW:
FLAVOR: *
HEAT: *
MY REVIEW: 2.0/10

Avoidance is the best option with this lackluster sauce.

Trappey's Chef Magic Jalapeno Sauce: a (not so) hot mess

2009-10-12T22:45:00.005-05:00

Trappey's has a history more interesting than it's product; imagine a sea anemone stuck to a coral reef. It struggles and struggles to get off, and after years of minuscule movement, it breaks free, only to tumble onto another coral reef nearby. This is the history of Trappey's hot sauce.

Tabasco sauce--one of my least favorite hot sauces--is headed by the McIlhenny family from Louisiana. The company was founded in 1898, when Louisiana entrepreneur (and former McIlhenny Company employee) B.F. Trappey began growing tabasco chilies from Avery Island seed. Note that today Tabasco releases an expensive "rare blend" of hot sauce called "Avery Island Reserve" (review forthcoming).

B.F. Trappey founded the company B.F. Trappey and Sons and, with the help of his ten sons and one daughter, began producing his own sauce, which he called "Tabasco." The McIlhenny family, makers of Tabasco brand sauce retaliated against their former employee by receiving a trademark for their Tabasco brand in 1906. Nowadays, Trappey's has been absorbed by ultra-mega conglomerate B&G Foods, Inc. It enjoys national distribution, but at what cost?

Let’s look at the facts: Trappey's makes "Louisiana Hot Sauce." They conceded the Tabasco name to the McIlhenny family. What is this mysterious blend of sauce from the Bayou state? It refers to a simple blend of vinegar, peppers (almost exclusively cayanne or jalapeno), and loads of salt. My good friend xanthan gum is often added to thicken it up and give you your daily dose of science, something those absent minded nutritionists accidentally left off the food pyramid. Trappey's Chef Magic Jalepeno Sauce's only magic seems to be a complicated name and awful product.

Good Hurts: I don't believe for a second that this Simpsons-plutonium-rod-green sauce is over 2,000 Scoville units. It's not hot at all. A quick jolt of spicy tang, but that's about it. Trappey's sauces, I think, cater more to people who like vinegar and salt more than spice.

Flavor: This is what the magic really is: a plasticy, industrial-lacquer like pulpy green liquid that kicks more like a goat's salt lick than a hot sauce. The jalapeno, a pepper with a distinct herb flavor and sweet, searing heat is totally absent here. It tastes terrible.

Availability: If you like horrible excuses for hot sauce, you're in luck! Trappey's Chef Magic Jalapeno sauce is totally ubiquitous despite all its shortcomings. I found some here at my local HyVee in Iowa City, about as far from the Bayou as you can get. Guard your children...it lurks.

Good for: Nothing, really. A sauce with a flavor like this will in fact detract from a meal. I'd only really give this sauce points for having a fun color.

REVIEW:

FLAVOR: NO STARS

HEAT: *

MY REVIEW: 0.2/10

If this site is about rating the best, you must define and acknowledge some of the worst. Shame on you, Trappey. Average Louisiana style hot sauce is one thing, but this chlorine-smelling liquid isn't fit to be called hot sauce.

Rectum Ripper XXX1/2: more does not equal better

2009-10-12T20:41:00.000-05:00

My friend Joe bought me this sauce for my birthday. It's the first sauce I'm reviewing that represents a vast cross-section of small batch hot sauces with crazy, vulgar titles. These sauces often use wacky names to appeal to wacky people who'd want to eat them; often made my hot freaks, these sauces appeal to other hot freaks and few others. This sauce is no exception. While you might not find this silly-named, grim reaper flashin' sauce in grandma's fridge, it's unique flavor earns it a serious look.

Let’s look at the facts: Made by Tahiti Joe's Hot Sauce out of West Palm Beach, FL, this sauce refuses to adhere to the belief that simplicity is bliss. Habanero Peppers, Apple Cider Vinegar, Crushed Tomatoes, Key Lime Juice, Clam Juice, Worcestershire, Honey, Carrots, Mustard, Ginger, Garlic In Water, Onions, Spices, and Tic Gum all come together in a, well, unnatural combination of flavors. Does it work? I'll try to be the judge for you...

Good Hurts: It is what it says it is: a sauce made for hot sauce fanatics, and indeed it's about a 3.5 out of 5 on the spice scale. Too much for an average run-of-the-mill hot sauce, but not in the same destructive league as something like Dave's Insanity Sauce. The spice level will not disappoint you, but it won't actually scythe your ass off, either.

Flavor: The flavor is the real mystery behind this sauce. Just look at all those ingredients! I've read reviews that claimed that the Worchestershire sauce overpowers the sauce (true), but I think it's actually the clam juice that's the proverbial straw that breaks this camel's back. When I was a kid, my dad (for some reason) would let me mix all the ingredients we had into a big slurry. It was fun to do as a kid, but it ended up with an overpowering thick salty mustard smell. This sauce brings back those memories. While it doesn't actually taste awful, it's too much of fishy Worchestershire sauce to really showcase a simple flavor. You'd never be able to identify all those other interesting ingredients. More is not always better, Rectum Ripper.

Availability: By merit of ass-blasting name, Rectum Ripper is lurking in novelty hot sauce shops and, of course, on the internet. Their official website and countless e-sauce markets carry the stuff.

Good for: Another tricky question. This sauce has too much of a powerful condiment flavor to really just liven up chips or kick up a salsa, but might bode well on a sandwich as a replacement or addition to a hearty brown mustard/anchovy sauce. I try it on cold pizza sometimes, but it tastes a little unnatural, like the reaper himself.

REVIEW:

FLAVOR: *

HEAT: ***1/2

MY REVIEW: 5.9/10

Dave's Insanity Sauce: the legendary standard bearer of American good hurts!

2009-10-12T12:25:00.001-05:00

The legendary heat. The lingering stigma. The controversial reception. The current embrace. The capsaicin extract.
These may be just some of the ideas that blast into your mind like the sauce blasts your mouth into the burning abyss when you hear the name of any sauce associated with Dave's Gourmet.

Let's look at the facts: Dave's is often immitated and...often duplicated? Yeah, I said it, and it's true. Dave's made history in 1993 (editor's note: Dave himself read this blog and pointed out that it was 1993, not 1995, as I had stated earlier) when it became the first hot sauce to be banned from the National Firey Foods Show for being too hot. This fear-rendering stigma was only a gauntlet to be challenged by hot sauce fanatics, and in 2004 Dave's was offically surpassed by other hot sauce manufacturers claiming to use more capsaicin extract. Dave's retalliated, releasing hotter and hotter "reserve blends."
Long story short: with 180,000 Scoville units (Tabasco is 2,000), Dave's didn't just cross the line...it invented the line. The way hot sauce has become defined was changed forever by Dave's. Pure extract from hot peppers is what goes into pepper spray and some industrial varnishes. Now it was food. Hot Freaks continuously look for a way to top the sadistic heat in Dave's. Dave's is the trail (pardon the pun) blazing forerunner to hot sauces based on murdering you with spice rather than showcase a pepper's flavor and spice.
Good Hurt: Some normal readers looking for a solid review will call me a masochist. Some hot freaks may call me a sissy. But Dave's gets a 5 out of 5 when the nuclear fallout has cleared. A dark red color, Dave's uses habanero peppers for an intense and lingering blast. Be careful about getting this spice on your lips or in your eyes...they are not joking when they say it can remove stains from your driveway. Dave's should be treated and used like a fun chemical by spice heads. I personally find the spice somewhat meditative, provided you're ready for it.
Flavor: Look for a youtube video about this sauce, but Dave's is just like the nuclear tests in the 50's on Bikini Atoll. A tropical blast of flavor briefly preceeds an atomic explosion guarenteed to make your taste buds feel like they are suffering the aftereffects of radiation. Dave's flavor becomes muted against its own spice quickly, but that tropical, fruity blast at the beginning is distinct enough to earn it at least a few stars from me.
Availbility: Since the original insanity sauce is indeed too insane for mainstream USA, Dave's is often found in niche hot sauce shops or in gourmet markets that cator to eclectic tastes. Of course, Dave's is also available on their website, located right here.
Good for: Addendum to this section: this sauce is not good on anything for people unprepared for serious burns. For the rest of us, Dave's is best when either put on something to test your might as a spice aficionado (no, I do not advocate being a youtube jackass and drinking cups of it), but utilitarian spice heads will use Dave's to liven up mild or medium salsas or to add searing heat to a chili or soup. A little of Dave's goes an awful long way.
Review:
FLAVOR: **2/3
SPICE: *****
MY REVIEW: 9.0/10
In keeping with my theme of starting with generally well known hot sauces, Dave's is the measuring stick for insanely hot sauces and spicy food challenges. Dave's lays down a whole new law by using pure hot pepper extract, something really dangerous and different from the traditional method of boiling down spices and vinegar. I give it a 9.0 because it's one the best ever, the granddaddy of'em all, so to speak...but it can be beaten. There is, undoubtedly, a hot sauce out there that can provide solid flavor as well as searing heat. Time and taste will tell.

Cholula: one of the best ubiquitous hot sauces

2009-10-12T11:01:00.002-05:00

My first ever review will focus on a fine sauce for fine people. This sauce is Cholula, and I have to say it's one of the best easily available hot sauces for regular people with normal tolerance for spice.
Let's look at the facts:
Cholula is hecho en Mexico...peppers are versitile little beasts, but many good ones grow south of the border. FUN FACT: many Mexican peppers actually originated in China and were brought over and cultivated there!

Good Hurt: Cholula uses a blend of arbol and piquin peppers. Piquin peppers are actually very spicy, so I'd imagine that the amount of pepper per batch is fairly low, because this sauce has no spice at all for Hot Freaks like me, but a decent little kick for regular civilians. I would compare the spice to a low-level, mild kick, similar to a standard Tabasco sauce or vinegar/cayanne/arbol pepper combination. Often times, easy availability of sauce means that, like an American President, say, it must appeal to the masses as much as possible. That means no vulgar names and a palatable level of spice.

Flavor: What it lacks in burning heat, however, it makes up for in solid flavor. Like basically all hot sauces, it has a tangy vinegar base but contains a generous amount of spice for a robust, smokey tomato sort of flavor. Piquin peppers, raw, are very flavorful as well as being hot. I think they did an excellent job of retaining flavor, even if they downplayed the spice.

Availability: If you live on the planet Earth, you're in luck! Cholula is available near you. I'd honestly like to push for this sauce to become the go-to hot sauce instead of the less flavorful, just-as-spicy Tabasco sauce. This sauce's wooden cap makes it stand out just a bit more than the standard hot sauces gracing the shelves of grocery stores and bodegas.

Good for: pizza (I prefer cold), salsas, chicken, steaks, sandwiches...with xanthan gum thickening this sauce, it works really well as a strong alternative to ketsup or mustard without being like either one of those.

RATING:

FLAVOR: ****

HEAT: *1/2
MY REVIEW: 6.8/10

Don't let this rating fool you, however! If you are looking for flavor more than spice, this is a great way to go and I highly recommend it! As far as commercially available hot sauces go, Cholula is a top contender.

Guide to peppers and a capsicum cultivars scale

2009-10-10T23:57:00.000-05:00

One more post will complete the trefecta of postings for the day.
This Wikipedia entry shows accurate analysis of various hot peppers. It even goes as far as to break down the capsicum scale based upon heat of certain peppers. Remember: eat a ghost pepper, eat 1/5th of what goes into pepper spray that the cops spray at the baddies.

Here's the link to it.

Enjoy! Reviews will be here tomorrow, as well as links to youtube reviews.

Spicifically,
Russell

Good Hurts Spice Scale

2009-10-10T23:04:00.001-05:00

Here's the score, Hot Freaks:

I'll be reviewing hot sauces using the patented, simple system of suffering: Let's look to the stars.

* * * * * = FLAVOR

* * * * * = SPICE
My overall review is out of 10. This is not a combination of flavor and spice stars, but is weighted by them.
Yes, these are the 10 stars of brutality. The 10 stars of torment. The 10 stars of ultimate good hurtin'.
I will give sauces a review out of 10. 5 stars go towards flavor...what's the point of a hot sauce or spicy food if it's just blinding spice? It's like a bucket of paint vs. art on a canvas. Why, we'd just eat ghost pepper extract if that's all that mattered. But yes, spice is still critically important. I'll be giving 5 stars for spice as well. These numbers combined will determine the overall rating of the sauce. A 10 means it's really a great hot sauce and I strongly recommend you go chug it immediately.

Remember, I do take requests--and how! Email me at hotfreakrussell@gmail.com for your spicy needs!
Feel the burn, hot freaks!

Welcome to Good Hurts!

2009-10-10T22:29:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Good Hurts! These peppers will be your spirit/flavor guides on your journey through reviews of hot sauces for Hot Freaks like me (Russell, editor and spice aficionado) and for regular humanoids as well.
I want to set up some important information right now:
Yes, there will be reviews.
There will be videos of hot sauce samples.
If you know of a hot sauce you'd like me to locate or try, please email me: hotfreakrussell@gmail.com.
Stay tuned for lots more!