Fire Ant Juice from Tropical Island Gourmet Company http://www.fireantjuice.com is offering a free bottle of hot sauce with any order until the end of July 2010.

This sauce rocks! Read on to find out how you can get yours!

I think the name “Fire Ant Juice” is funny, and the graphics on the label are a hoot. I know “fire ants” are a species, but Fire Ant Juice reminds me of when I was a kid and there were ants, and I had a magnifying glass…. oops! Sorry PETA, I digress.

This sauce has a lot of body and doesn’t run when you pour it out. It’s slightly chunky with bits of jalapenos, onions, and garlic. Very fine bits. And it holds its shape even after 20 mins on the plate.

Marilyn and I tried this sauce first on a spoon, then on tortilla chips, then on tacos.

When we poured some onto a spoon, it was hot. HOT. But after a few sips, the initial heat went away and we were able to discern its qualities better.

We then tried it on some chips to get the flavor:

Marilyn: I tasted the cayenne first, with a big hit of the roasted garlic. The mango smoothed it out a little for me, making it a very savory taste with a nice bite of heat.
Brian: I like the habanero profile – very unique with the mango. Hot, sweet, and very spicy – the garlic and salt really rounded it all out for me – and I love the roasted garlic in it.

Fire Ant Juice has plenty of heat with great flavor – on a scale of 1 – 10, we’d put it at an 8. But the flavor is what won us over.

Then we poured a lot onto some tacos made with our own taco seasoning.

Fire Ant Juice Gourmet Hot Sauce Ingredients:
cayenne peppers, jalapeno peppers, habanero peppers, onions, vinegar, mango juice, tomatoes, roasted garlic, salt

As you can see from the simple list of ingredients, there are no added sugars, no “parentheses” listing preservatives or the popular “xanthan gum” etc, … in other words it’s a straight-up gourmet hot sauce done right.
Fire Ant Juice Gourmet Hot Sauce is a keeper that we will have on hand at all times. We think you’ll love it as much as we do.

To get a free bottle of Fire Ant hot sauce, just place an order with FireAntJuice.com and in the comments section of your order, enter “Hot Sauce Daily” or “Hot Sauce Weekly” – owner Wayne Howey will take care of you!
Offer good thru July 31st.

And be sure and check out Wayne’s newest creation, Fire Ant Bite Jalapeno Sauce and his other products!

Update: Brian had the pleasure of interviewing Chef Wayne for the HotSauceWeekly.com Podcast. Check it out here: http://hotsauceweekly.com/hsw-024-fire-ant-juice/

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Bacon flavored ketchup from Captain Thom’s is a thick, smoky and slightly spicy ketchup that you use anytime you’d normally use ketchup. And it is a runaway success for Baltimore based Captain Thom’s Chili Pepper Company.

Captain Thom’s Slappin’ Fat Bacon Ketchup was awesome with some fries that I tried it on, and my son poured some on his hot dog and declared it delicious. (I know only “kids” put catsup on hot dogs… but he loved it.)

I plan to experiment further by adding some to the next batch of baked beans I doctor up… it should be a great fit.

“… if you like bacon and you like ketchup, this blend is sure to please… fish fry, hot dogs, burgers, even a topping for meatloaf”

Ingredients: ketchup (tomato concentrate, high fructose corn syrup, distilled vinegar, corn syrup, salt, less than 2% of onion powder, garlic powder, natural flavors), water, bacon flavored oil (sunflower oil, fractionated coconut oil, natural flavor), onion, red pepper

Taste: very sweet, tangy, smoky – with just a hint of spiciness from the red pepper. This really is a great tasting catsup. Great to keep on hand when you want that bit of bacon flavor added to your meals.

Now we here love Captain Thom and First Mate Nancy. And we love all their great sauces and products. But I do have 2 comments for them:

  1. Drop the “Slappin’ Fat” from the name. It implies unhealthy (which it’s NOT… more on that in a bit) and just emphasizes the fattiness that people associate with bacon.
  2. Get rid of the HFC… find a ketchup source that doesn’t have HFC. While HFC is a debatable subject, it has gotten a bad reputation lately.

Is this an unhealthy product? Certainly NOT. As you can see from the ingredient list, there is no “bacon” per se in it. And we know the HFC is debatable. There are natural sugars that would add the sweetness without the controversy, so I hope Captain Thom considers moving in that direction with his next “batch”.

As for the “fractionated coconut oil”, which sounds suspicious, it’s actually not. Wikipedia says: “Fractionated coconut oil is a fraction of the whole oil, in which the long-chain fatty acids are removed so that only medium chain saturated fatty acids remain.” Hey, works for me!

Finally, let’s compare the Nutritional Info between Captain Thom’s Bacon Ketchup and Hunt’s Ketchup (Serving size for both is 1 Tablespoon (17 grams)):

Bacon Ketchup: Calories 15, Total Carbs 4g, Sugars 4g
Hunt’s Ketchup: Calories 20, Total Carbs 5g, Sugars 4g

All other numbers being 0 (fat, cholesterol, etc), Captain Thom’s is actually better for you based on calories and carbs. (I know, it’s a stretch, but it was fun comparing the numbers.)

Do yourself a favor, and order not 1 but TWO bottles of Captain Thom’s Slappin’ Fat Bacon Ketchup ($6.50/12 ounce bottle) because it will not last long. Enjoy and tell Thom we sent ya!

{ 4 comments }

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