Review - Scoville Brothers Rockin' Red Hot Sauce and Heavy Metal Heat Hot Sauce
Digg
Share
Music and Hot Sauce? Now there's a combination I can always go for! If you know me well, then you'd know I'm a past and future guitarist (if that even makes a lick of sense) and well naturally gravitate to anything having to do with guitars ans stinging fretwork.
The Scoville Brothers are comprised of Doug Lins and Jeff Young and together they rock Indiana as a fiery acoustic duo. They're also hardcore chileheads and have been diligently working at producing three different hot sauces. I'll review two of these products for you today - Rockin' Red Hot Sauce and Heavy Metal Heat Hot Sauce
Scoville Brothers Rockin' Red Hot Sauce
Ingredients:
Vinegar, water, dried red cayenne, dried red habanero, dried red jalapeno pepper, salt, xanthan gum.
Aroma:
3 out of 5. The smell is similar to a smooth, habanero-kissed Cholula. It's not sprightly vinegar-esque like a cayenne pepper sauce might be, but it does display signs of traveling down that road.
Appearance and Texture:
3.5 out of 5. Rockin' Red's deep crimson look will do your dishes justice, and the medium-thin consistency allows for easy pourability and clinginess to food without it being too watery.
Taste Straight Up:
3 out of 5. There's not a whole lot of kick from the vinegar, but it is there. The dominant thrust I noticed first was the blend of dehydrated chiles. I could tell right off the bat that they possessed the earthy bitterness that dried peppers provided. I prefer fresh chiles to be used in sauces. That having been said, Scoville Brothers' Rockin' Red is not inferior by any means. In fact, I think they did a superb job at making this hot sauce tasty with the ingredients contained within. It's just that there is not an abundance of originality with the flavor profile. If you're a spice fanatic, this will seem it's like a hundred other products you've tried before; thankfully this one rises above most of them.
Taste on Food:
4 out of 5. I doused this on pizza, on tacos, and on a deli sandwich for starters. Rockin' Red was music to my taste buds! It was a great fire and flavor additive to a homemade burrito with seasoned beef, refried beans and shredded monterey-jack cheese.
Heat:
2 out of 5. Rockin' Red has a smidgen of burn. The habaneros don't have a chance to peak, and lets the more subdued heat levels of cayennes and jalapenos. It's fiery enough to provide a kick to mild mouths and just warm enough to please chileheads to use on a regular basis.
Scoville Brothers Heavy Metal Heat Hot Sauce
Ingredients:
Vinegar, water, bhut jolokia pepper, red habanero, salt, xanthan gum, capsaicin extract.
Aroma:
2 out of 5. A quasi-watery, bright jolt from smoked bhut jolokias dominated the smell, but certainly isn't enough to knock one out. Somehow it doesn't strike me as being very appetizing.
Appearance and Texture:
3 out of 5. Heavy Metal Heat Hot Sauce is a shade or two darker than Rockin' Red, and has the same medium-thin, smooth consistency.
Taste Straight Up:
2 out of 5. There's more twangy punch from the vinegar in this one, along with a strong performance from the smoked ghost chiles and a touch of fruitiness from the habs. There's a cumulative, moderate blast of tartness and heat, but I couldn't help but wonder if everything that could be here was actually present, as Heavy Metal Heat tasted somewhat watered down.
I love the flavor of smoked chile peppers, yet I think it's easy to misuse and overuse. In my opinion the Scoville Brothers went too far with the dried, smoke jolokia taste and because of this made a lopsided hot sauce. I would have upped the red habaneros in this to sweeten the blend and to balance things out.
And what about the chile extract flavor, characterized by the trademark bitter, chemical-like tones? It's there on the sidelines but still noticeable.
Taste on Food:
2.5 out of 5. It fared only slightly better on pizza, adding a smoky burst of flames. On a burrito, it proved to be a decent compliment, yet I could have thought of a couple dozen sauces I would have preferred to be on this.
Heat:
4 out of 5. Depending on how much of this you ingest, Scoville Brothers' Heavy Metal Heat Hot Sauce can range from smoldering to outright hellish. I dumped a healthy amount on bites of my burrito and this condiment lit me up big time from the heat of the bhuts and the extract.
Labels:
4 out of 5. I really like the look of these. The center graphic is of a pair of peppers playing an acoustic guitar and a mandolin, with descriptive text surrounding it. I think the Scoville Brothers' graphic person took a cue (no pun intended) from another music-oriented sauce maker, Steve Burnham of Blues BBQ and paced some vertically-configured lettering, this time for the Scoville Brothers' name.
Overall:
Rockin' Red - 
Heavy Metal Heat - 
Rockin' Red is fine if you are on the lookout for a general table sauce with some comfortable familiarity to it. I would recommend it. Heavy Metal Heat, on the other hand, needs some tweaking before it's to be considered a really killer sauce.
You can purchase 5 ounce bottles of Rockin' Red and Heavy Metal Heat for $8.95 and $9.95, respectively, at http://scovillebrothers.com.
Related Articles:
Spicy Food Reviews - Hot Sauce Reviews, Hot Snacks, Hot Wings, Seasonings, BBQ Sauces, Condiments, and More
Comments
2011-04-09 15:53:11
2011-04-10 08:43:56
Based on your review, I'd go for the Rockin' Red. Perhaps if they reformulated with fresh ingredients, they might come up with an even better sauce. The dried peppers are a turn-off.
2011-04-10 15:12:14
2011-04-12 20:36:05
How's it stand up to Michael Anthony's line of hot sauce? And then you've got to wash it down with a Sammy Hagar Wabarita!
2011-04-13 17:21:40
Add Your Comment: