Jolt Country

Toxic Tonic can be found, among other places, here.

I received Toxic Tonic in the shipment that arrived last night, which included the deadly Black Mamba, and some other stuff which I'll discuss later. Right now, let's just focus on Toxic Tonic.

TT is produced by "Three Hot Tamales", a NJ company started by three chicks what liked to make saucez. We can get behind the "homemade startup" thing. We can also get behind that it's an all-natural sauce, no preservatives or stabilizers. There's plenty to get behind here.

The best way to reviewz this saucez is to explain that I unwrapped the bottle from the bubble wrap at 7:30 PM last night, and it is now 8:30 AM the next morning, and there is less than half the bottle left.

A more addictive legal substance, I am having a hard time thinking of.

The color is a deep, vibrant reddish brown. The texture is chunky enough to show actual ingredients, and grip whatever food it's placed on, but fluid enough to pour perfectly.

The sauce is a blend of peppers (habanero foremost), with black pepper, liquid smoke, and various other spices. The aroma and initial taste are deep with black pepper, with the fresh chiles and smokey tang adding several other dimensions, leaving not a tastebud without something to do and enjoy.

The heat level here is generous, but very manageable, leaving the sauce a perfect candidate to just be slathered the hell over anything you can think of. Last night I had it on little spinach/cheese puffs in phyllo dough. This morning on a bagel with cream cheese. It worked equally well (and spectacularly) in both cases. I can imagine it doing the same on tacos, burgers, chicken, fish, rice, chips, fries, quiche... anything.

In short, a sauce you just want to crawl inside and bathe in. Brutally addictive. All-purpose. Beautiful.

Perfect.

I give Toxic Tonic FIVE STARS.

So, these broads put out a good sauce.

Are there any lessons to be learned from your own sauce making ventures? Anything you can steal from them, in terms of production values or whatnot?

Yes. I will put black pepper in my sauce.

Now is to be the reviewing of a new sauce, also by the Three Hot Tamales. Can I have some time to review a sauce, please? Can I have some time to review a sauce?

The sauce's name is Make Me Moan Mango. Oh, those provocative sauce-making tarts, they really know how to appeal to the traditionally sexless, lifeless, depressing world of the true hot sauce aficionado. I'll prove this rule here by pointing out that my sauce collection began well in advance of my relationship with savvyraven.

I am reviewing this sauce for the sole reason that I opened it last night, and had the largest single-meal consumption of hot sauce in my history. The 5oz woozy was full to the top when I opened it, and now at least 4 of the 5 ozes are history. There's a pitiful little lump of it left at the bottom of the bottle, praying that I don't come home tonight and finish it off. Which I will.

The humble meal I chose to accompany it was reheated chicken fingers and french fries, leftover from a trip to Wood Ranch BBQ over the weekend. Can this low-brow, pitiful little meal actually provide some sort of satisfying eating experience?

If you dump 80% of a bottle of Make Me Moan Mango on it, it sure can.

The taste is this unbelievably addictive, tangy, sweet mixture of mangoes, pineapples, and ketchup of all things, with a backbone of habanero fire which keeps things lively -- not blisteringly hot, but will definitely get your attention, and after the attack on it I launched, my mouth was definitely left afire.

In many ways, this is what I had pictured when I first set out to make SpicyKat hot sauce. The Tamales have shown me that I still have much to learn.

The inclusion of ketchup in the ingredients list was initially a turn-off -- I want hot sauce, not Heinz 57 -- but conceptually it makes sense. Vinegar, tomatoes, sugar, these are all standard hot sauce ingredients, they just put 'em all in at the same time. Whatever. The sauce is a pleasantly bright orange, so unless you read the ingredients (or this review) you'd never know.

As I feverishly dumped more and more of the heavenly concoction on fry after fry, chicken finger after chicken finger, my increasingly concerned lovely noted that it might be my favorite sauce ever. As my thoughts throughout the day continue to lazily wander back to the bottom shelf of my fridge where that last little ounce of joy sits waiting, it's difficult to argue with that.

Without question, I give Make Me Moan Mango FIVE FUCKING STARS.

It should be noted here that I have review two Three Hot Tamales sauces so far, and they're both five stars. They only have one other, which I also have, and which I might only give 3.5, 4 stars, but which won the 2006 Scovie award for best habanero sauce.

I guess what I'm saying here is, you absolutely cannot go wrong with what those ladies are throwing down.

Is there any news for your hot sauce company? I have been checking its website.

Also, what are your top three or four hot sauces, so far?

My current favorite four sauces (and by sauce, I mean, non-additives, like a Final Answer or something) are:

Three Hot Tamales' Toxic Tonic
Three Hot Tamales' Make Me Moan Mango
Blair's After Death

The fourth is up for grabs. My latest SweatNSpice order ended up containing so much great stuff that it's hard to choose, but the one that's emptying out the quickest is:

Danny Cash's Bottled Up Anger

...a flawless, gorgeous mixture of serranos, habaneros and tons of garlic.

You can't go wrong with any of those. Except for After Death, which is way, WAY too hot for anyone reading this, except for that guy who said he liked it.

pinback wrote:Danny Cash's Bottled Up Anger

BWA-HAHAHAAAAAAAAA

He was so hoping all his exes were reading his website when he came up with that one. He hopes they are feverishly clicking to see if, in the meantime, he's come out with 'Danny Cash's Cash - She Took All Of Mine', 'Danny Cash's Hotter Than She Is', and 'Danny Cash's This One Puts Out'.

I don't get it. Regardless, it's relatively unlikely that that was really the case.

pinback wrote:I don't get it. Regardless, it's relatively unlikely that that was really the case.

She was making a joke about how Danny Cash got to that name. Come on now, can't we all joke with each other? Sell each other's material? Like the good old days?

Man, eff this. I am relaxing with some melba toast and a half-bottle of Danny Cash's Her Tits Are Perkier.

Oh, I get it now.

I totally won this one.