After the chaotic ups and downs in the weather over the last couple of weeks, I’m relieved that a new box of hot sauces showed up on my doorstep this morning. Hot mulled wine and diabolically spiced sauces can take the edge off the wet, bone-chilling cold that creeps across Northwest Arkansas this time of year. It never stays, but it gets cold enough to kill plants and move on.
I also had to harvest all of my green late-season peppers today as it’s supposed to frost over this week. This was a more promising year for my garden than ever, but I am at the mercy of irregular growing seasons until I finally construct a greenhouse.
I’m also more hopeful for Fuego Box’s extra hot offerings after getting two sauces I enjoy and may even keep on hand.
There’s a less…explicit label for this sauce available on Primo’s site. I enjoy that Fuego Box did not opt for it.
Name: Swampadelic Sauce
Made By: Primo’s Peppers
Primary Pepper: 7 Pot Primo
It’s not unusual to find a sauce too hot to eat directly but flavorful enough to cook with, particularly when that sauce originates in Louisiana. Southern hot sauces range from mild, tangy vinegar to dab on fried foods to thick, dangerous concoctions better suited for flavoring chili a drop at a time than to eat in any great quantity.
The latter is true for Swampadelic Sauce, made with a hybridized 7 pot pepper known as the 7 Pot Primo. The 7 pot is a relative of the Trinidadian scorpion pepper and retains many of the same floral notes, but is more commonly used in military-grade pepper sprays than it is in food. So of course devious psychedelic rocker turned horticulturalist Troy Primeaux would choose such a caustic pepper to experiment with.
Primo, as he’s known, claims the 7 Pot Primo is the hottest pepper in the world, though the uniquely American decadence of racing to make the hottest pepper rushes on with the Carolina Reaper and Pepper X both fighting over the top spot. Primo’s creation clocks in at 1.5M Scoville so it is certainly high on the list and packs a delicious punch. Once you cross over to the million Scoville range flavor is often sacrificed for undiluted agony.
Swampadelic Sauce captures the daunting heat of the 7 Pot Primo but does so with actual flavor in mind. Berries are not included in the ingredient list but the moment you get a whiff of this sauce you’re struck by the sweet, cooling essence of blueberries. Primeaux’s horticultural expertise is on display as the berry essence derives from Aja Panca pepper powder — a relatively toothless fruit that adds body to many Peruvian dishes. In Swampadelic Sauce, aja panca confronts the 7 Pot Primo’s intense, floral heat with its subtle sweetness, making you think the sauce is sweeter, and friendlier, than it actually is.
This was entirely too much for one unsuspecting club cracker. I love how chunky Swampadelic is, however. Makes it perfect for cooking with.
Of course I wouldn’t recommend eating Swampadelic on its own, or on a cracker as I did. Once it hits the roof of your mouth you’ll struggle to break the film of capsaicin velveting your palate. Like eating fresh super hot peppers, the heat prickles along your tongue before consuming your senses, but not before leaving trace notes of fruit dancing along your taste buds. Once added to chili, or dabbed on a burger or other fatty protein, the 7 Pot Primo’s heat slacks enough for you to notice it’s there but enjoy the carefully balanced flavor profile.
I regret not adequately warning a coworker about how savage this sauce could be. While I was talking to them I could see their eyes glaze over as the heat wouldn’t slack. Few sauces linger like ones that put super hots at the fore. Primo’s Peppers certainly doesn’t skimp on the ingredients.
Typically I’d take one look at the packaging on this sauce and expect something powered by extract and the annoying marketing gimmicks I discussed in my previous sauce reviews. Swampadelic Sauce is refreshingly more than its appearance and leaves me curious about Primeaux’s pepper jams and unstable pepper cultivars. I feel he gets why people care about peppers and sauces, and his clever use of aja panca proves he’s out to not only craft the hottest pepper he can but deliver it in an enjoyable way. You’ll just want to add it to jambalaya rather than slathering it on tacos.
What a mature-looking label for a sauce imitating Taco Bell’s fire sauces.
Name: Smoked Ghost Taco
Made By: Jersey Barnfire Hot Sauce
Primary Pepper: Smoked Ghost Peppers
Gourmet renditions of plebeian favorites are not always as good as the makers would have you believe. Cheap staples lose something when you make them expensive or “premium” without considering a lack of polish might be what makes the original product so addictive. Jersey Barnfire set out to make their take on Taco Bell’s diablo hot sauce (at least that’s what I get from the flavor profile) and managed to actually improve on the original.
Ghost peppers are fruity but take well to smoking, much like jalapenos do. Unlike their less spicy cousins, ghost peppers retain that fruitiness but develop a much-needed umami that pairs well with acidic components like tomatoes. In Smoked Ghost Taco, ghost peppers show up somewhere in the middle of the ingredients list, with tomatoes, onions, and garlic rushing to the front.
And for Jersey Barnfire’s purposes, that’s exactly what you want. Smoked Ghost Taco hits with an addictively smokey, vegetal tang that melds with whatever it touches. Tacos, burritos, dips, anything you’ve ever ventured to squirt Taco Bell sauce packets on Smoked Ghost Taco will embrace with a greater depth of flavor and heat.
Smoked Ghost Taco is definitely thinner than Swampadelic because it serves a different purpose. You want to eat this sauce for the flavor and a generous pour won’t leave connoisseurs flooded with uncontrollable heat.
Every now and then I encounter a hot sauce I could stand to eat on its own and this certainly qualifies. The ghost pepper heat is present but doesn’t linger, making it ideal for topping food rather than part of the cooking process. It’s thicker than diablo sauce, but just enough that it clings to every bite and refuses to let you ignore it. You still need to be mindful of how your pour, otherwise you’ll empty the bottle before you realize.
So far I’ve put this on pizza, Amy’s bean and cheese burritos, and late-night microwaved cauliflower rice. It’s not the most complex sauce I’ve sampled but it doesn’t need to be. It delivers that cheap, cravable simplicity you want out of Taco Bell sauce without the guilt of ordering an after-midnight potato soft taco or crunchwrap supreme. Jersey Barnfire invites you to partake of an elevated version of your youthful indulgences without shame or question.
If you’ve ever asked for extra sauce packets at the drive-thru you are the intended consumer of this luxurious ode to frivolous intoxication. And now I’m off to put it on crispy shrimp tacos simply because I can.