johnb

From the bottle, “Extreme Karma is the perfect hot sauce for fire-tongued daredevils that want to enjoy their food. The world’s hottest peppers are rounded out with butternut squash for everyday enjoyment”

Quite a feisty sauce as you’d expect from something comprised of bhut jolokia and scorpion peppers. The starting flavours are mainly from the butternut squash and cider vinegar with a following touch of sweetness from the honey & then giving way to the pepper burn and tingling tongue.

It’s not something I’d use too liberally, given the heat level, but neither is it something that is too scary.

6/10 – I like it, but it doesn’t speak to my soul.

OK, so I wasn’t a huge fan of the Hot Headz piri piri, but this I like!

Not particularly hot, but really well balanced smokiness, heat and acidity. Quite mellow, in fact. To be used liberally on many things!

8/10 – Colour me impressed

“Lovingly Made in the Fens of England”

Quite a lively sauce, not overpoweringly hot but heat increases over time and there’s a pleasant tingling after burn. Add a dollop of acidity to balance, lace with a little spice and we’re off. It’s not complicated, but it is good.

8/10 – One that sits between the “pour liberally” and “treat with caution”.

“Boldly Crafted for Meals that Matter”

Nicely flavoured (butternut squash and apple underpins the beli and habanero), a little sweeter than most (hello honey). Not particularly hot; the habanero is most noticeable in the middle of the flavour development, but fades quite quickly with only a tiny residual after burn.

6/10 – All in all, nice but unremarkable.

Get yer BBQ fired up and get pouring!

In my opinion the rich, sweet flavouring of this sauce makes it the perfect accompaniment to typical BBQ cuisine.

You can certainly taste the bourbon and this sticky sauce has quite a restrained heat payload. The smoke from the chipotle peppers fuses well and the habanero makes an appearance, rising out of the other flavours to deliver some subtle burn.

8/10 – It’s good, but in my mind it’s not an everyday sauce. Best reserved for complimentary food pairings.

I picked some of this up in Japan on the recommendation of a colleague.

This stuff’s just amazing. It’s an oil rather than a sauce, but it’s packed full of crunch garlic bits (that the garlic remains crunchy after being in the oil so long is truly a wonder).

Quite a few ingredients, including soy & sesame, which can certainly be tasted. It’s not particularly hot, but it’s a real flavour explosion. Awesome on a fried egg.

10/10 – At the moment, buying it imported means that it’s not particularly cheap, but it’s utterly worth it.

Undeniably, this is a smokey sauce. You can smell the smoke when you unscrew the lid. Your tongue is assaulted by smoke when you consume it.

Smoke smoke smoke smoke smoke.

I’m a bit torn by this one. On one hand, I do like strong smokey flavours, however I think that in this sauce it dominates anything that you might use the sauce on (unless you’re being very sparing.. And what’s all that about?).

It takes a while for the smoke flavour to give way to a very pleasant but not overwhelming heat with a bit of acidity in the tail.

7/10 – Good, but needs careful food pairing to avoid smothering other flavours.

According to the label, this bottle contains 30 portions…

I have absolutely no idea how many portions it provided for me, but I think that’s the first time I’ve noticed a portion size written on a sauce bottle.

Not a terribly hot one this, 5% arbol and piquin being second on the label. The ingredients also intriguingly list “spices” (presumably the nature of said spices are on a strictly need to know basis).

Gotta say, I really like this sauce. It’s not the one to reach for if you want to set your mouth aflame, but the flavour is superb. Great taste from the peppers backed up by the sharpness of the vinegar and spiciness of the… well… spices.

8/10 – I see more bottles of this in my future

This one managed to get pushed to the back of the cupboard so was out of circulation for a while

Caribbean flavours you say? Chilli you say? Yes, yes, I’m listening (well, purchasing and consuming to be more accurate)!

14% habanero, 1% ghost chilli, but you the ghost doesn’t hide. The ginger complements the peppers and mango nicely, with sweetness from the apple and sugar; definitely a tropical edge to the fire.

6/10 – Nice, but they can’t all be winners & fruity sauces are probably never going to be my personal favourite.

Picked this up as I thought it would make a good dipping/burger sauce – relatively viscous compared to many other sauces.

Right off the bat, this one is a disappointment. Ingredients indicate 0.6% habanero (so barely a tickle for any chilli head) and so much sugar. Really. This sauce is so sweet that whereas I thought I’d be liberally spreading it on my burger bun I’m instead using it sparingly (and not for the usual reason that I’d hold back on a chilli sauce!).

Taste? Very sweet tomato ketchup with a barely detectable tingle. Sorry, Epicure, seriously unimpressed.

3/10 – Going to take me a while to finish this bottle…