Whilst taking a break from in interstate drive, at a place most picturesquely named ‘Snake Gully’ in NSW, I happened across a shop that had a few different hot sauces on offer. Never one to bypass a good hot sauce, and figuring a place named Snake Gully must have some really f’ed up ones full of rattlesnake venom or some shit, I purchased a few different ones. Here, after being tested on several different BBQ foods, are my thoughts on one of the several I procured – Crowley’s Flamin Bacon Hot Sauce.
Bacon-y
I should have looked at the back of the label where it said the product was Vegan. Because if vegan’s think this is how bacon tastes, no wonder they are vegan! I would be a vegan too if meat tasted this crap. You know that really bad fake bacon taste you get in a packet of Arnott’s shapes or a bag of potato chips? It’s that. It’s the ‘We’ve used as many different chemicals as possible to simulate what we think the taste of bacon is, without ever going near an actual pig’ taste. Disappointing.
Extra Smokey
Product says its ‘Extra Smokey’. Yep, I’ll give them that, it does have that nice double-smoked hit to it.
Extra Hot… not
Liars! No it isn’t extra hot. First of all, the bottle lists no Scoville level, and when I went to the company’s website, the product listing doesn’t list a Scoville level either. No really hot hot sauce worth its salt would be able to get away without listing a Scoville level; they would end up with a lawsuit from some guy who thought he could hack it but instead gave himself a mild stroke. At a rough guess I’d put the Scoville level in the low 5 figures, and for me a hot sauce isn’t worth it unless it hits the 6 figure mark minimum. The most this made me do was take a small sip of water – didn’t make me take a big cleansing gulp of H2O or go for the milk. And did my arse pour liquid lava at 5am the next morning? Nope – tame & lame
Worth it?
Look, for under $20 you aren’t going to get a great hot sauce. For me this hot sauce fails on the flavour with that awful faux-bacon taste, which is only slightly mitigated by the smokiness. The hotness is nothing to write home about, though that said I wouldn’t give it to my 7 year old. It’s great that more Aussie companies are trying their hand at hot sauces, but none seem to have hit the mark yet.
Recommended only for those who can’t handle a proper hot sauce, but want something with enough bite to try and impress other uninformed lightweights.