Review - Pit Bull Hot Sauce
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Pit Bull Original Hot Sauce was concocted by Long Islanders Manny Ortiz and Lisa Anziano as many sauce makers first do, in their home kitchen and for the benefit of friends. What subsequently unfolded fit the mold of the often-told story of family and colleges encouraging the couple to sell the sauce at local New York festivals and fairs. Fast forward nearly a decade later, and Manny and Lisa boast several products, including other sauces and spice rubs which they sell at over 150 regional brick-and-mortar location as well as on the interwebs.
But back to Pit Bull Original Hot Sauce. I had sampled the product a few years back but had never given it a thorough run-through until now. Here are my findings and opinions...
Ingredients:
Chili pepper, water, sugar, garlic, salt, distilled vinegar, honey, red tabasco peppers, potassium sorbate and sodium bisulfite as preservatives, and xanthan gum.
Aroma:
2.5 out of 5. Dang, is this stuff ever pungent. It's got a very sharp, sour, bitter and edgy tone to it, but it's not exactly what I call appetizing just by taking a whiff of it.
Appearance and Texture:
4 out of 5. Pit Bull Hot Sauce possesses a great medium fluidic consistency. The bright scarlet color and smooth texture make this pleasant to look at and a breeze to pour out of the bottle yet sticks wonderfully to food. No spices, large chile fragments or seeds are to be found.
Taste Straight Up:
4 out of 5. I quick lick from the crook of my hand revealed what I had forgotten long ago: this sauce, if classification was dutifully necessary, would fall in Thai-style territory when it comes to overall taste. Yes, in my estimation it's closely related to the Srirachas and Extra Pedases of the sauce world with it's pungent flavor profile.
The first second on my tongue revealed an odd and heavy salt/garlic/vinegar amalgamation where the unified taste is strong, bitter and strangely horseradish-like...almost. I sensed this same bizarre sensation when I reviewed the popular Huy Fong Sriracha, only it's subdued quite a bit here by comparison. A second or two later, a pleasant sweetness came to the forefront along with a bold peppery taste and heat. In the long stretch of an aftertaste, the flavors combined nicely into one big bitter, sweet and burning hot feeling.
Yet, after experiencing all of this, I came to a conclusion that this wasn't a sauce I would care to come back more than once in a blue moon. Pit Bull does this type of flavor with extreme virtuosity and perhaps is the best of its kind, but I simply am not a huge fan of this Thai style of pungent condiments.
Taste on Food:
4 out of 5. I made a toasted sandwich with chicken breast pieces, monterey jack cheese, and grilled green bell peppers and onions. While fine and respectable on its own, this lunch needed some zing to make it really memorable.
Pit Bull Hot Sauce certainly fulfilled this mission with ease. After an initial pouring on of the sauce on the toasted bread edges, I henceforth dipped the sandwich into a pool of Pit Bull on my plate. Bite after bite, I liked the sauce more. Hmmm, was this stuff growing on me? If anything, Pit Bull might have been turning me around to this style, slowly but surely.
Heat:
2.5 out of 5. It's a middle of the road burn that chileheads would consider warm and comfy and mild mouths would find zesty and hot. You feel the heat a couple of seconds after ingesting it, then it builds to a medium fire and lingers for about one minute.
Label:
3.5 out of 5. Very clean and pristine in appearance. I think this because of the white shrink wrap and the predominantly white label (at least on the front of it). It made me think of fresh white gloves worn by a prom queen than some down n' dirty, face-in-the-mud, rough and tumble pit bull dog.
It also has a eye-grabbing "Pride of New York" sticking affixed to the bottle neck. The phrase "It's All About Flavor! Not Just Burn!" sums up Pit Bull's philosophy concisely, at least for this sauce.
Overall:
I might just be warming up to Pit Bull Original Hot Sauce. Who knows? A few more applications and I may be hooked.
If you don't reside near one of the New York-area stores or restaurant that stock Pit Bull, you can purchase a bottle on their website.
Related Articles:
Spicy Food Reviews - Hot Sauce Reviews, Hot Snacks, Hot Wings, Seasonings, BBQ Sauces, Condiments, and More
Comments
2010-04-08 05:16:53
JBJ
2010-04-08 17:23:40
2011-12-29 23:17:30
Thanks for your reply.
Mike
2011-12-30 18:19:54
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