Review - Uncle Dennis Pepper Sauces
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Over five years ago, Dennis O'Shields hatched the idea of creating spicy products that met "dietary needs of a modern family" by introducing sauces that were very low sodium, gluten-free, made with all natural with fresh ingredients, contain zero calories, and have no preservatives or no artificial colors or flavoring. One may think that's a pretty tall order if you want to make a hot sauce truly taste great. But O'Shields, AKA "Uncle Dennis" was up for the challenge.
He had sent me three hot sauce of increasing heat levels to review: Smokin' Fire Sauce (medium heat), Ragin' Fire Sauce (hot heat), and Searin' Fire Sauce (extra hot heat).
Smokin' Fire Sauce
Aroma:
2.5 out of 5. Smokin' Fire Sauce smells tart, onion-dominated, with almost he faint hint of vegetables lingering somewhere in the background.
Appearance and Texture:
3 out of 5. There's a murkiness to this tan-colored liquid that I don't particularly care for. Nonetheless, the consistency is nice with medium-level viscosity and pourability. There's oodles of shreds of onions and chiles, with an occasional red pepper floating about.
Taste Straight Up:
2.5 out of 5. A low-key onion flavor hits your tongue first, and almost immediately I got hot with a bright vinegar twang. A generic chile pepper burn crept up but never rose above a mild singe.
Since Uncle Dennis prides his hot sauces with being "very low sodium", he should be proud of this one as Smokin' doesn't need the taste of salt in order to make it an interesting product.
Taste on Food:
3.5 out of 5. I tried this on some pizza, and thought that it was a bit too tangy for a slice of New York-style pie. Nothing terrible but it wasn't quite right for it.
Next was a grilled chicken breast, and it fared much better. I think Smokin' Fire Sauce would make an excellent marinade for poultry. In addition to bird meat, this sauce would probably compliment light, flaky fish and steamed or grilled vegetables.
Heat: 1.5 out of 5.
Even though this is the #2 heat level out of 4, chileheads will consider this to be very gentle on their tongues, with most of the bluster deriving from the whit wine vinegar.
From left to right: Smokin' Fire, Ragin Fire and Searin' Fire
Ragin' Fire Sauce
Aroma: 3 out of 5.
Very similar to the lower-heat Smokin' Fire, but with an added richness from extra chile peppers.
Appearance and Texture:
3.5 out of 5. Ragin' Fire Sauce is a touch darker overall with more red chile fragments, and is also a tad thicker than it's milder cousin. I think it looks and pours better and is more along the lines of what I would want from a hot sauce in this regard.
Taste Straight Up:
4 out of 5. I really dug this one. The onion presence wasn't as pronounced in this one, instead giving up plenty of stage room for the habaneros. This was much more balanced in juggling the distinctive characteristics of each ingredient, with a more rounded taste, faint sweetness and pizzazz.
Taste on Food:
4 out of 5. Ragin' excels as a sprucer-upper of Mexican food. On chicken it was good, and is even strangely flavorful as a dip for toasted ravioli.
Heat: 2.5 out of 5.
There's more burn in this one, enough to make it a comfortable medium. I noticed most of the heat on the roof of my mouth.
Searin' Fire Sauce
Aroma: 4 out of 5.
This hottest of Uncle Dennis' hot sauces takes the more chile-like fragrance of the Ragin' and introduces a beautiful smokiness from the dried naga jolokia powder. It really smells great and offers all those inter-mingling aromas without any single one being overpowering. I thought this smelled mouth-watering.
Appearance and Texture:
4 out of 5. Lighter but just as medium-thick as the Ragin' Fire Sauce was.
Taste Straight Up:
3 out of 5. Lots of tanginess from the vinegar with explosive heat from the habaneros and jolokas. The onion taste was even more subdued in this one yet still noticeable. Smokiness abounded in small amounts and carried through into the aftertaste of this tonic.
Taste on Food:
3.5 out of 5. Searin' Fire was great on chicken but left a funny presence after several bites of a burrito containing this. I'm confident that this is still a worthwhile sauce, but may perhaps be a bit more limited in its applications as the Ragin' Fire was.
Heat: 3.5 out of 5.
More heat, but more manageable despite it contain the ghost chiles. This would work as a table sauce-level fire for hardcore chileheads, yet may be a wee bit too incendiary for mild mouths out there.
Labels
4 out of 5. Crisp and handsome, in my opinion. It took me a second to decipher the fire and radioactive symbols and the heat level rectangles, but after acclimating myself to them they were a cinch to understand.
Overall
Smokin' Fire Sauce: 
Ragin' Fire Sauce: 
Searin' Fire Sauce:
All three sauces, plus spice mixes, can be purchased from the Uncle Dennis' Food website.
Related Articles:
Spicy Food Reviews - Hot Sauce Reviews, Hot Snacks, Hot Wings, Seasonings, BBQ Sauces, Condiments, and More
Comments
2011-02-25 12:48:48
We certainly appreciate the review!
Thanks!
2011-02-25 13:19:15
2011-02-25 13:35:44
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