[ianadmin]

I just got a shipment from a BC hot sauce producer called Denzel's Hot Sauces, six bottles of his best - habanero sauces with all sorts of blends. His list of available sauces has ten blends, some very interesting as mixes go. I'm glad to see such creativity in sauce makers of late.

I've just started on one this week - Pineapple Crush (habaneros with pineapple), rated six out of eight for heat. Not very hot by my standards, but very tasty and a nice accompaniment with rice, vegetables, fish and pastas. I don't recommend it with anything too spicy or already flavourful (like a curry or a strong garlic dish) because you'd lose the subtle fruit here. For those you need more of a brute-force hot sauce.

I even tried it on a salad with a light balsamic & oil dressing. That works - gives the greenery a little sparkle. But again I caution a stronger dressing might obscure the fruit.

I would classify this bottle as medium, not a challenge to anyone with some experience of hot foods. Thick sauce, too, not runny, which is nice because it doesn't run off food like some more watery sauces do.

I will be opening another of his higher-ranked sauces this week to test and see how it stacks up against some of my other 'terminator' sauces. And I have a shelf full of the competition just waiting for the punch-up...

What I like about Denzel's is that a company in Canada can produce hot sauces that rank up there with the best of them. They've won 13 international awards for their products. You usually don't see Canadians competing in hot sauce competitions - we're more a maple syrup-type nation (yes, there IS the popular Thornbury Chili Festival held every year in neighbouring Blue Mountains, but that's an uncommon event for Canada). But Denzel's proves we have the right stuff.

I'll post a few follow-ups as I try the different sauces and let you know what I think. In the meantime, hunt around for a bottle or two and post your own thoughts.

[ianadmin]

About 1/2 way through the first bottle and really enjoying this Denzel sauce, very sharp without being blistering, all-natural ingredients and nice flavour. This weekend I'll open another and compare them.

[ianadmin]

Finished the pineapple and now working my way through his Dangerous Goods sauce. Much snappier, very piquant with a nice bite and good flavour, quite hot without being overwhelming.

This is a comfortable heat for me, but the sauce is very thick so it's easy to drop a large glob onto the food, so anyone still working up to the joys of volcanic hot sauces has to be careful. Even for me, it can bring moments of lip-numbing, tongue-searing pain if applied too vigorously. But it's always worth it.

This is a great all-purpose sauce that can be used in a wide variety of foods. Tasty, it doesn't get lost in food or take them over. I've had it on pastas, fish, salads, pizza, chicken, roasted corn and others and have yet to find a food with which it doesn't work well.

I expect to have this bottle finished in another week or so, then I'll start on a new one. So far, I'm very impressed with Denzels' sauces.

[ianadmin]

My bottle of Dangerous Goods went down well and was consumed quickly, about two weeks from start to finish. A very nice sauce, although a tad thick if you're used to some of the thinner sauces. The thickness means you tend to glob on a lot at once, so be careful. On the other hand, it's obvioulsy and visibly rich with ingredients.

I didn't mind the heat, but it's certainly not for beginners, but nothing an experienced chilehead couldn't handle. Tasty without being overpowering, although it does add to the meal's flavour.

Next on the list: Fire Hazard. Started it this week and had it on two meals already. First impressions: hotter than Dangerous Cargo, but not as tasty, since it lacks the roasted peppers and garlic. Good, but probably too much for anyone without a lead-lined mouth (and other orifices...). It's not volcanic like some of the ultra-hot sauces that are more for show than eating, and this is certainly edible. You can taste the peppers in it, which is a lot more than I can say for some of the ultra-hots.

Not quite as thick as DC, but still a lot thicker than many.

On Denzel's web site this is described as...

Quote

Due to popular demand, I broke down and made a really, really, really, hot sauce. It's basically like my gourmet habanero hot sauce, only with twice as many habaneros. I even add extra habanero powder during the cooking stage. The flavor is uncompromised even though this stuff looks like it'll burn ya.

Well, I'm surviving, but then I like it HOT. This appears to be Denzel's hottest sauce, too, so I hope the others don't disappoint me because they're all milder. On the plus side of that, Susan may even try some.

These three sauces really got my attention and earned my respect for Denzel's line. We don't have a lot of Canadian hot suace makers up here, so it delights me to have not merely some national hot sauces, but really good sauces as well!

My only disappointment: Denzel's sauces are not listed on Chilly Chiles - my favourite Canadian hot sauce supplier and mail order outlet.

[ianadmin]

With Fire Hazard almost at an end, I opened the bottle of Colonel Corn last night, Denzel's chipotle-corn sauce. Very nice! A bit sweet, with the rich flavour of chipotle. Ingredients: Vinegar, corn, chipotle, garlic, salt.

As described on Denzel's site:

Quote

This is a Denzel’s newest sauce. It’s a roasted corn chipotle hot sauce that goes great with Mexican food. I especially like it on fajitas or burritos. It also is great in soups or just straight up on a steak. It has a real sweetness to it that is contrasted by the heat of the chipotle peppers. Proudly made in small batches in Enderby , BC.

If you're not already a chipotle fan, this will make you one. Chipotle is a smoked, ripe jalapeño pepper, which imparts a woody/smoky flavour into any sauce. Jalapeños are possibly the most popular hot pepper in North America, but on the Scoville scale, they're pretty mild when compared to habaneros.

Nonetheless, even though I and other chile heads eat them like candy, many Norteamericanos find jalapeños hot enough, sometimes too hot for their tastes. Susan tasted it and it's about the heat level she can tolerate, although she liked the taste.

Chipotle sauces I've found are usually milder than straight jalapeño peppers, but sometimes the hotter serrano pepper (smoked) is used in the mix, making the sauce spicier too. This sauce seems to be straight jalapeño. however.

Mixing in the corn makes this sauce somewhat like a corn relish - good on the burgers - but nowhere near as sweet as the store-bought glop that passes itself off as the popular condiment. The added sugar (usually excessive amounts) in most relishes turns them into candy, which I find inedible on a meal. So Denzel's sauce is a welcome change. Corn has it own innate sweetness that needs no enhancing.

The mix of chipotle and corn, with that added touch of garlic, blends into a really nicely balanced sauce, although the rich flavour threatens to overwhelm anything mild like fish. While most smoky sauces are recommended solely for robust foods like burgers or steaks, I like the smoky flavour so much I use it on a lot of other foods, especially steamed veggies and rice. I suppose that's why I like good mezcal so much. But not everyone likes that smokiness - Susan's comment was 'too much hickory' for most dishes.

Like the other Denzel sauces, this is thick stuff, but you don't need to be as careful when shaking it on because it's nowhere near as hot as the previous sauces I tried. Well, for me anyway. I added a dollop of Fire Hazard to my meal because I missed the heat.

[ianadmin]

Wow. Colonel Corn didn't last long. I guess it was too tasty for its own good! Gone in just over a week. Must have been that chipotle flavour. Maybe Denzel should make this one available in a larger sized bottle...



My next bottle is Denzel's Kamikaze hot sauce, described on his web site as an oriental-style sauce that adds ginger and sesame oil to a habaerno mash. Well, perhaps Oriental in taste, but not in thickness. Another one of his signature thick sauces - I've tried a lot of Oriental sauces and never found one even close to this thick. Most are runny and thin.

As for flavour: most Oriental hot sauces I've had - in fact all of them now I think about it - are too salty. Denzel's isn't. I don't eat a lot of salt in my food and we don't even have a box of table salt for household uses (a small container of natural sea salt has lasted three years now...). So I don't care for Oriental-style sauces in general because they're far too salty. Not so Denzel's Kamikaze. Nice!

I'm a real ginger fanatic too (I keep a jar of candied ginger on the counter so I can eat a couple of pieces a day). There isn't a lot of ginger here - for my tastes it could be increased a bit to bring it out more, it's subtle but it really accents the habanero nicely.

Hot enough to send neophytes screaming into the kitchen for water (rated six out of eight flames on Denzel's page), it's well within my personal comfort level and shouldn't bother anyone with some experience. Which means it's a bit hotter than most oriental sauces as well.

Asian brands generally use Thai, cayenne or other peppers - medium heat, not usually as hot as habaneros. That's going to be an issue with anyone still trying to become comfortable with other Asian sauces, because the combination of habaneros and the thickness means there's a lot of heat concentrated in a small space. Ah, if they can't take it, that just means more for me!

Overall another winner. Really nice flavour, thick, and a heat that (for me) doesn't overcome the food while still packing a smart punch. This guy really knows how to make a good sauce! Every bottle I open turns up my appreciation of his art a notch. Now I really have to find a source in Ontario because I don't have many left and I need to order more (although their web site doesn't show it, maybe the Salivation Company's store on Danforth Ave. wil have some? Have to email and ask before I make a trip down there...)

[doctoragave]

Ian,

Glad to hear that you're such a big fan of the Denzel's sauces, as I am as well. Besides making some great, natural sauces, Denzel is a pretty great guy and my wife and I have been in email contact with him quite a bit due to the hot sauce/spicy food blog we run. You may wish to check out these writeups we've done:

Gourmet Jalapeno Hot Sauce

Molten Mango hot sauce

A big set of reviews

As for me, I really like the Kamikaze, Pineapple Punch, and Gourmet Jalapeno. That said, I still have a bottle of Colonel Corn to try that I think will be fabulous.

Cheers!

[ianadmin]

Ah - another fan of Canadian salsa picante! Great!

The jalapeño is my last bottle, and I will be opening it by the weekend. I'll have to order more, now I've become addicted... my favourites are still the hotter two (Fire Hazard and Dangerous Cargo) but I haven't found one yet I don't like.

I go through most sauces in three-four weeks for the standard bottle size, less if I really like it or it's relatively mild for my taste, and longer if it's a real zinger - hot but not very tasty. Since most sauces are thinner than Denzel's they last a bit longer, but I really prefer the thicker salsa, so I'll accept the shorter lifespan.

I haven't had a chance to try his sauces with ice cream yet, however, but maybe I will this weekend. It's surprisingly good - that hot/sweet/cold mix. And it's great on peanut butter and toast too (you have to use real peanut butter, oil and salt only, not this crappy junk food peanuts-with-sugar candy crap that's in most jars labelled "peanut butter").

I'll check your write-ups...

[ianadmin]

My mistake - it wasn't the Gourmet Jalapeño I have as a last bottle - it's the Gourmet Habanero.

Just first impressions: hot but not as hot as I anticipated. Habanero sauces are always at the top of the heat list; this one rates as 6 out of 8 (Dangerous Goods was 7 and Fire Hazard 8). I've had a lot of hotter sauces... this one stops well shy of stripping the skin from your mouth. It's still too hot for Susan (she maxes out at about 3 out of 8 on Denzel's scale), but easy for me.

Denzel says,

Quote

This sauce is very similar to what you would find on any kitchen table in the Caribbean.

Ummm... most of the Caribbean sauces I've had blend various ingredients like mango, mustard, carrot, fruits and herbs to add extra flavour. I'm not sure what else Denzel puts in this, and since my first taste was on food that had its own distinct flavour, I couldn't tell if there was more than habaneos. I'll try it again tonight to see what I can taste in it.

I love most Caribbean sauces but they are generally so flavourful that they are not well suited as general application sauces. They're best for bland foods where they add the flavour - rice, beans, steamed veggies, potatoes, plain fish, and so on. I wouldn't use one in a curry, for example, to crank up the heat level, while I would use a basic habanero sauce. The flavours would conflict.

Again it's his typically thick sauce - and expecting it to be stubborn I really shook the bottle. The result was way too much hot sauce exploding out of the bottle onto my plate. I had to spoon some of it back into the bottle!

I'll have to try this one further and report back.

[ianadmin]

Well, after using it on a few meals, I have to report this is the least interesting of all the sauces I've tried from Denzel. It's okay, but has neither the flavour nor the heat of his other products. His other sauces I tried simply were better for me.

I like the thickness, but I end up using a lot in one meal because I want more heat. Its flavour simply doesn't stand out from other products, even his own.

Ah well, I can't complain - I've had five great sauces from Denzel that spoiled me. Had I started with this one, I might have liked it more. It's not that it's bad - just that I seem to have started with his best. I plan to order some of the others that I haven't tried and will write them up as soon as I have a chance to try them.

[doctoragave]

We polished off half a bottle of the Colonel Corn (with the obligatory review on our blog) over the weekend, and I must say it's one of Denzel's better sauces. It's simple, but really damn good. I'm not even half the chipotle fan that my wife is, and I really enjoyed it a great deal.

Next up for us is the Peaches & Scream sauce. It may be a while, as we have many other sauces to try ahead of it.

Stay tuned!!

[ianadmin]

Much to my disappointment, I had to open another bottle of hot sauce last night - my last Denzel sauce must have evaporated. I cracked open a bottle of Screaming Rasta in a Molten Lake - or is that Burning Lake? I used to really like this sauce, but find it thin and less flavourful than the Denzel sauces. I think he spoiled me... I think I may have to order some very soon - I may want to take with me on my next Mexican trip, and let my friends in Zihuatanejo enjoy it too.

[doctoragave]

Ian,

If you're looking for some other hot sauces that are also Canadian in origin, let me make a recommendation. Check out:

Peppermaster

Greg & Tina Brooks are the owners, and hail from Quebec. Their sauces are entirely all-natural and wonderfully made. Their Straight Jerk and Jerk Curry are sauces that my wife and I have decided that we must always keep some in the house at all times.

If you have to have the heat, try the Fusion Fire or Hurricane Mash sauces. They're both simply out of this world.

They are a little pricey compared to some sauces on the market, but you definitely get what you pay for with these products.

Enjoy!

This post has been edited by doctoragave: 15 October 2007 - 11:50 PM