Hot Sauce Review

It would seem, I am not alone in liking hot sauce. I know people that cannot handle it, but I love the burn. Ever since I was young when I took a dare to bite into a pepper, I've liked the experience. It's eye opening, brings out a sensation that awakens, nerve pinching, and just off sets your balance with tears and even some sweat. It's nice that I have a colleague/friend that shares this light interest. I myself am no expert but I follow and know the basics. The measurement of a hot sauce's heat (how hot it impacts the nerves and senses) is measured in the units of Scoville(s).


-----The overly popular island aged fermented Tabasco pepper sauce I refer to as week vinegar sauce because it is made of peppers. Tabasco pepper sauce is not high on the Scoville scale. I don't favor it, it has too much of a vinegar taste.

Flavor: Vinegar
Heat: 1 Points
Affect: No linger, no impact on senses


-----The second and my favorite (though a bit of turn off due to it's bright redness) is the Vietnamese Sriracha hot sauce. It is also a light weight hot sauce, low on the Scoville scale. Sriracha is made of chili peppers also and has a lightly sweet and garlic taste to it.

Flavor: Sweet garlic with the pepper
Heat: 2 Points
Affect: No linger except that garlic after taste, no impact on senses


This is where I am going to draw some points on judging hot sauce and notate that flavor is an important aspect of hot sauce in addition to heat. Whenever I rate hot sauce in the aspect of why I like it, the above two counts most importantly. There is a third and it is how longer it lingers. I will add a fourth but is also should be included as part of how hot it is and that is: which senses it affects, does it clear up the sinuses, bring out tears, give sweat, make you run to the kitchen for milk or water (my favorite reaction from my homemade).

The following are not pepper as the main ingredient but the lines of habanero pepper, which the pepper rates higher on the Scoville scale than chili peppers. Again, I am no expert and I am not going to go as far as adding viscosity, how liquidity, smooth, etc, etc, as part  of my judging. Just those three or four.

(Photo and sampling courtesy of my buddy S.S.)

-----My friend likes Baron West Indian Hot Sauce, I do not favor it either because it has no taste, he says it does. I let it sit around my mouth for 20 seconds before swallowing. Yes, it does but a hint of the pepper note and then it gets heated for a minute or two then that's that. I did feel chucks of the seeds with the half teaspoon that I sampled for two rounds.

Flavor: Habanero
Heat: 3 Points
Affect: 2 Minute linger of heat, no impact on senses except for heat


-----My friend also has a bottle of Gray's Authentic Jamaican Habanero Pepper Sauce. This is the second time I heard of this hot sauce. When I asked a West Indian friend of mine what's his favorite hot sauce he mentioned this brand. It had less of a kick, little bit of a hotter note and I detected spices in the mix. Less of the pepper taste than in Baron brand hot sauce. Could freshness also be a factor?

Flavor: Equal ratio of Spices and Habanero
Heat: 2 Points
Affect: 2 Minute linger of heat, no impact on senses except for heat


-----El Yucateco is a Mexican founded habanero pepper based hot sauce. Now I am describing it from a few years back (remembering I liked it), it's not so fresh in my head, I mean I could go buy a bottle for $2 but I will leave it off for when I really need it. As of right now, I recall a kick, with a short/light taste in habanero and yes a lingering and tears in the eye and a light sweat/blush. Now, this was a few years ago and my senses have become better acquainted with heat since then. Or as someone in my family says "you have no taste buds"; wrong! my taste buds are fine, they are just better evolved than yours and stronger too!

Flavor: Habanero, not much other flavor
Heat: 3.5 Points
Affect: 5 Minute linger of heat. Blushing with light tears and light sweat


-----I have never made hot sauce before and actually learned quite a bit from my first experience. My Homemade hot sauce was a suggestion from someone who brought in a little mason jar to use in the office. It was a hit and had heat and a kick. It didn't have much flavor except for a bit of a heavy habanero taste and a light sour taste. I asked if he put vinegar and he said no. This is where the previous reaction came from: the "make you run to the kitchen for milk or water". I wanted a very heated hot sauce without the bells. I bought a pound of Habanero from my local market they label Scotch Bonnet and made my own very simple mix. I kept it simple with no water and two other ingredients. It was a pure, puree.

Flavor: Habanero/Scotch Bonnet not much other flavor
Heat: 3.5 Points
Affect: 5 Minute linger of heat. Blushing with light tears and light sweat


You can research the ingredients for the commercial brands on your own.


Tags: Tabasco Hot Sauce Review, Sriracha Hot Sauce Review, Baron Hot Sauce Review, Gray's Hot Sauce Review, El Yucateco Hot Sauce Review.

Superfoods

I was reading up on health. Particularly the benefits of consuming Acai berries because Acai is the new health rave. Acai berries contain more or less (depending on what form they come in) polyphenols, amino acids (proteins), fatty acids (good essential fat), one of the highest providers of antioxidants (like Potassium) and other nutrients. Heck, to top it off, naturally sourced are sugarless. I think it can even make you fly. How do Acai berries taste? I wouldn't know because I read that once harvested they lose their nurtitiion content so fast that they have to be mashed down as the locals eat them, to be exported they are frozen or preserved, maybe even processed. But the organic frozen paste bars (which I assume taste the same as the berries for the paste is just the mashed down version) have little taste/flavor. The Acai mash has no sweetness and no tartness unlike many berries like the strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, etc... I only detected a very slight flavor note and buttery texture.

Then I came across the Goji berry. I never heard of the Goji berry before until lately. Just like the Acai berry, it's only become a recent health rave, in the United States that is, along the lines of Chia seeds, Maca root, Flax seeds, Spirulina and the like, well to my ears anyway. Coming across images of the Goji berry, they looked familiar. Ah! indeed these are it. What's it? These little red fruit like berries I would find in soup my father had been making since I was a little kid. Reading up on the origins of how far Goji berries date back: thousands of years and I assume that's where my father got the usage in cooking them from, back from the ancestors that passed down using the Goji berries in cooking to sustain health.

I was also reading the Bloomberg article on 'Superfood'.

Similar nutritious values go for the Goji berries. My father has incorporated Goji berries in a few dishes all my life. I had no care or knew of what these berries were until the marketing made them a 'Superfood'. I always referred to them as the given Chinese name my father called them, not "Goji", I guess that's the dubbed American name for them. He always told me they were good for me and particularly good for the eyes. I just always thought of them as simple little football shaped... not veggies... not roots... not spices... not animal but fruit in soup and a few other dishes. Now onto my hot drink with a leaf in it. That also has antioxidants.

These photos are taken by my own camera.
They are not copyrighted but if you do use one, ask me.

Organic Cubes

Just for the sake of Eye Candy and adding to my previous post on Gastronomy I decided to put up one of the many photos I have related on this area of interest because I am an active participant in regulating what goes into my body and how much of it. I am all up for organic and a natural way of living. Though, being a raised city boy, it's not always a route I can take, especially in an environment that lacks that resource.

These Chunks of Energy (Organic Cacao w. Goji) are made by Dancing Star LLC. But I didn't order them through their website: https://chunksofenergy.com/shop/cacao-goji/

I bought them for eight or nine dollars a pound at my local organic (natural foods) catered store. They're pretty good, not too sweet and I can taste the cacao, goji flavor and nuts. It's a bit of a weird mix. I'm just posting an interesting find.

Ingredients:

Organic dates, organic sunflower seeds, organic raisins, organic apricots, organic rice flower, organic cacao powder, organic goji powder, organic sesame seeds, organic coconut, natural flavors (gluten free).

Of Belgium and Imported from Columbia

"Is there a billionaire or a despot anywhere on earth who at this precise moment who is eating better than us?" -Anthony Bourdain

Not exactly... but perhaps I will reuse that line when the time comes I indulge in truffles and foie gras made by a great French chef.

Nor did I ever plan to incorporate what others have labelled their blog as a "Foodie" blog.

But for the sake of Gastronomy and exploring Culture here is some eye candy:

Columbian Coconut Candy: Super Turron Supercoco

 

This is an all natural Columbian candy I discovered from a friend. Maybe because it's non-domestic that gives it a tastier than many other candies I have tried. There is another called Big Ben in a coconut flavor that was tastier but I could not find it.

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Belgium Trappist (Monk) Beer

 

Foolish me, yet not so. I lugged back a six pack of this stuff in my luggage and gave them out as gifts on my recent backpack trip to Europe. It's better than giving (or that is getting) shot glasses like usual. Instead of lugging them home I wondered if they are available here in the United States. Yes, the Belgium Trappist (Monk) brewed beers are available in select few markets but I am reading they can be ten dollars or a bit more a bottle. I paid a bit over two euros a bottle. I guess that goes the same for most select market beers like paying eight dollars for a Duvel or Delirium at a European restaurant here in the United States.







January 2014

Sometimes I forget what my closest friend tells me: that you can omit personal details. But what's a friend without being an open book? I write sometimes as if it were my personal journal. And when love tells me it cares it reminds me of memories I prefer to avoid. Leading into the new year was rough. The all so real $16,000 hospital bill for a night in the Emergency Room and two nights in a three patient room was funny when I forgot to hand them my health insurance, lab tests, a scan and some medicine, those blood suckers. This is why America is broke when people can't pay their medical bills or America suffers when one has no medical insurance. Couple weeks out and I'm hit hard again. Emotionally down and as I lay there about to pass out thinking I was dying, I thought of my life and all the warm things, then smiled. A little girl I helped raise that I'm not sure she'll remember my name, but for the better and an older one with a dream, that is my dream in reach but far away. I open my eyes, a month later, and get up, recovered, like a good soldier, I have responsibilities and a mission to finish. One more round, a little more wounded, one more smile. I reminisce of better Sweet November days but it's February.

Ave Maria Ark of the Covenant Cigar Review

Winter has halted my cigar smoking because I don't smoke in the house and it has kept me from doing so in my backyard or front porch. I'm not a big fan of cigar lounges because of the extra incurred cost or minimum required purchases, in most cases. I rather just not smoke. It's the first week where temperatures have reached 90(F) degrees here in New York City and summer has not even officially began.

I was pondering as I sat back with my cheeseburger pairing in hand and re-thought of why I smoke cigars knowing of all the terrible damage it can do to my body. Let's put it this way, reiterating from past comments: I am not a habitual smoker, I enjoy it and it has helped me hone in on varying taste.

The first cigar I pulled out of my humidor after 8 months of not smoking anything is the vitola size: Ark of the Covenant, an Ave Maria.

Vitola: Gordo (4.5" x 60RG)

Price: $4 stick

Wrapper: Ecuador (Habana)

Binder: Nicaragua

Filler: Nicaragua

Aged in Humidor: 9 months

Appearance and Construction:

The band is the most impressive and one can be lured in by that marketing aspect of it.

The cigar looks like every other Habano wrapper toned cigar I have smoked:caramel brown. It is constructed smooth with no veins and no blemishes. It seems I have aged it well for 9 months. I don't feel any dampness or softness or dry areas. The cap is even with the body, nothing coming apart. I aged it in the cellophane wrapping. I toast it evenly with my Ave Maria torch.

Draw: Not tight, not loose, right in the middle

Aroma: Medium to Strong, average, stronger if brought 4" to nose

Ash: Not very nice looking with irregular tone, freckly grey and black

Fumes: Only when lit initially or relighting, it produces an even stream for the first third and begins to fade after

Burn: Uneven and inconsistent, but only by a little. Maybe it was my sticks but the wrapper burnt uneven and though it did not go out it got almost to that point where I had to torch it up again and again

Boldness: Medium to slightly above mid-range
Harshness: Two short "considerable" points throughout the entire cigar
Strength: Medium
Complexity: Not very much so

Tasting Notes:

The scent that it emits out of the hole on the foot while the cigar is still in the clear cellophane cover is of tobacco leaf, one would say barnyard like. The cold draw is similar with a tea note. On lighting, it produces notes of brownie and raisin.

1 cm in: charcoal, it is reminding me of grilled meat. With the charcoal note, is a hint of bitterness but not in a bad way.

1 inch in: like it's original light, at this point a retrohale like a slightly over baked brownie note.

The first third consists of neutral to medium dark brownie like tasting profile. In the range of change I could also detect a hint of similar to a raisin cookie note along side the brownie like tasting profile. Seeing that this is not a very long cigar, only at 4.5", somewhere at the end of the first third, I began removing the band and that's when the first of the ash dropped.

The second third had a bit of harsh bitterness but lasted only a few seconds. Overall, same as the first third but also detected a tiny bit of spice in between the first and second third. In it's changing profile, I also detected notes of: dark oak, another wood-like profile, a very distinctive cigar tobacco from that region and a raisin in the mix.

By the final third, like most cigars, it began to mellow out. Many of those tasting notes went away and profile at this point became neutral. It retained it's medium boldness, though. It's the best part, not getting so much brownie, but the profile is still there and it's turning into what a decent cigar should be. I didn't nub this cigar, I only smoked to a little under two inches left because I had to go but I didn't want to, I had to drop it. It took about an hour and thirty minutes, if I had finished it, I would guess a little short of two hours.

My opinion is that since the Ave Maria Ark of the Covenant only had two points in the entire cigar with slightly harsh bitterness and the questionable coming and going of those raisin-like notes which is a profile of preference (I can go either way of liking or disliking that raisin-like note), I give it a liking in my book, though I can't give this a 90+ rating. I've enjoyed far better and this wasn't the first of the Ark of the Covenant. So I am not rating this 87 cigar based on one smoke. I have a few more so we shall see. The band is gives this smoke an example of where the cover is better than the reading material.

Security Hinders Freedom

...But security maintains order.

In this small aspect: The company I work for has two main entrances: the front and back. Each entrance has a building front desk receptionist and would be security officer manned at the location. All the other side entrances are locked. I'm sure this is the case for all buildings. On a working weekday, people who work in the building can enter and exit at both entrances. However, on the weekends the back entrance is locked because of staffing is only provided infront. I work weekends also and I drive to work. The back entrance is where all the parking is located. It's locked, so on weekends I have to walk all the way around the building with very long streets in order to get into the building. Unfortunate for everyone else that works weekends also has to walk all the way around the building, about two and a half long streets just because of those security (or we can be blame it on staffing) reasons. The fact that the back entrance is locked on the weekends is a deterent that is a hassle to me.

Mid range aspect: About two and a half years ago, I owned a BMW. All modern German (that goes for a handful of other countries as well) cars are required to have an Immobiliser installed. An Immobiliser is basically a electronic device in the car that won't start it if a code in the key doesn't match the encryption in the electronic device in the car. I fount this out the hard way when the Immobiliser light went on as the battery died one winter and I couldn't get a new battery installed for a few days. Basically after a few days when I got the new battery installed the car not having a charge for a few days set off the BMW's Immobiliser. Fortunately for me, the light did go away. However, I have read stories where people could not start their car because of this issue. They had to go to the mandatory trouble of going to the dealer to have a copy of an encrypted key sent from Germany in order to hopefully get their car started again. It's purpose is to deter theft. Yet, sophisticated thieves have fount a way around it. So does the troublesome aspect out weigh the benefit of it's intent? I think it does.

Mass aspect: Airport security can be a bit of a nuisance if you don't learn to keep it simple. I once had a bottle of 32oz Cocoa Butter in my carry-on because I was traveling with a healing injury. The security lady delayed my bag and sent it through again, then explained in a very rude way that such a larger liquid item was not allowed. Yes, the situation wasn't an ordeal but a minor hassle. This was years ago but everyone once in a while, I read in the news of a similar incident where people are harassed or violated of their rights because it doesn't fit into security protocol.

I understand the need for safety to filter out what shouldn't be there but security features only hinder and block freedom to be as we are.