Review - Dat'l Do-It Datil Pepper Hot Sauce
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Created at Barnacle Bill's seafood restaurant, this St. Augustine classic uses the Florida-indigenous datil chile peppers for its heat. If you're familiar with the wonderfully-tasting datil, you'll know that it can carry a lot of fire (usually around 100,000 to 300,000 scoville units). But Dat'l Do-It Datil Pepper Hot Sauce takes only a "dab" (a dab'll do it...er...did it, I assume) of the chile's fire and instead uses it mainly for it's habanero-like flavor in this uniquely-flexible liquid.
Ingredients:
Ketchup (Tomato Sauce [Water, Tomato Paste], High Fructose Corn Syrup, Vinegar, Salt, Spices, Natural Flavors), Onion, Peppers (Bell and Datil), Brown Sugar (Sugar, Cane Molasses), Red Vine Vinegar (Red Wine Vinegar, Water, Sulfates Added to Preserve Color), Worcestershire (Water, Distilled Vinegar, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Salt, Contains Less Than 2% of Caramel Color, Natural Flavors, Sodium Benzoate [a Preservative] Contains: Soybean), Crushed Red Pepper, Sodium Benzoate (as a Preservative).
Aroma:
3.5 out of 5. A whiff of this and you'll sense tomatoes and onions, like a more-than-fancy ketchup (which is, of course, the main ingredient). Nothing wrong with this, as it might appeal to a broad audience. I also detected a pickle relish-like scent plus a bit of peppers to round out the aroma.
Appearance and Texture:
4 out of 5. It's a thick condiment, brownish-red in color not unlike a barbecue sauce. It contains large chunks of peppers, both bell and datil.
Taste Straight Up:
3.5 out of 5. A sweet condiment that's a dead-on combination of ketchup and BBQ sauce. Underlying the satisfying base flavor is a small fire from the datil chile peppers.
Taste on Food:
4.5 out of 5. I had a beef and bean chimichanga that needed sprucing up, so I put on some extra shredded cheddar cheese and had a nice little puddle of Dat'l Do-It Datil Pepper on the side for dipping. I was really impressed with the sauce. A part of me thought that the sauce's flavor might have "cheapened" the overall taste of the chimichanga, because I admit, that as much as I love good ol' tomato ketchup, I consider it to be a flavor destroyer with it's overabundance of simplicity. But it actually made me want more, and I sopped up generous amounts of Dat'l Do-It and poured more and more on my plate.
Suggested Uses:
All-American staples like hamburgers and hot dogs would benefit from this sauce, as would a wide array of seafood dishes.
Heat:
1.5 out of 5. Sure, there's some capsaicin sting. But it's relatively mild; and if you, your dinner guests, your children, or your dog don't mind a touch of heat, it won't be an issue.
Overall:
I recommend it as an all-around good sauce for anything that you would normally apply ketchup, barbecue, or a general Louisiana-style hot sauce to. Your kids will probably like it, and you could do far worse in an all-purpose condiment.
At Dat'l Do-It's online store at http://www.datildoit.com/hotstuff.htm, you can pick up a 7 oz. bottle of the hot sauce for $3.75 plus shipping.
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