|

Lucky Dog’s new Dia del Perro hot sauce

Dia del Perro, or “Day of the Dog” is a new salsa verde style hot sauce from the award-winning Lucky Dog Hot Sauce kitchen.

This is no ordinary salsa verde (green sauce).
01-2-labels

Using serrano peppers, tomatillos, roasted garlic, and even chile tepin (bird’s eye), creator Scott Zalkind adds his own signature flavor by smoking his sea salt with alderwood and toasted onion, and infusing that with habanero peppers. The result is a complex and flavorful sauce.

Scott says this is his “tribute to the taqueria-style verde table sauces of California and Mexico”.

We think he nailed it.

Heat Level: Rated 1.5 out of 5 Stars A mild-medium heat that everyone will love.

Overall Rating: Rated 5 out of 5 Stars Superb flavor! Best of the best!

02-texture

Dia del Perro salsa verde from Lucky Dog Hot Sauce

Ingredients: apple cider vinegar, organic apple sauce, serrano peppers, onions, roasted garlic, carrot juice, water, sea salt (alderwood smoked, toasted onion and habanero infused), dried tomatillos, carrots, lime juice concentrate, chile tepin.

Texture & Appearance: Very thick, and very pulpy, this olive green sauce takes some coaxing to get out of the bottle. Once you get things started, the sauce pours a little easier. The pulpy texture makes for a great “mouth feel”. Satisfying.

03-texture

Taste Straight Up: We smell the vinegar and “green” flavors up front, but surprisingly, the vinegar taste is not overbearing. Even the lime flavor is muted – a good thing for us, as we don’t care for verde sauces that have too much tang from the lime and/or vinegars.

And I already mentioned the pulp provides a nice mouth feel, which only adds to the taste experience.

Finally, I want to point out what we perceive as the classic Lucky Dog Hot Sauce signature flavor component – and that is the smoked sea salt. Infusing his sea salt with various woods and veggies and peppers is tantamount to sheer genius. And we don’t know of any other sauce maker that takes this step to round out their recipe or sauce in such a unique way.

We feel this step alone sets Lucky Dog Hot Sauces and specifically the new Dia del Perro sauce in a class all its own. Distinctive.

Heat Level: Rated 1.5 out of 5 Stars – The slight burn is a bit “sting-y” as Marilyn puts it – probably from the contribution the chile tepin peppers add at the very end of ingredients.

I disagree with the “sting-y” description. I find the overall heat level is simply “warm” – very middle of the road. Reliable.

Label/Graphics: With a unique departure from the usual look of his labels, Scott enlisted artist Robin Case for the “sugar skull” graphic that adorns this bottle. Familiar, as it’s still his beloved black lab Lucky as the model, yet artsy-fartsy. Bonus: if you’re in California, it’s available as a tattoo. Contact Scott for details. Impressive.

Taste on food

04-tacos

Tacos: We cooked up a big batch of Tacos using our homemade taco seasoning, and just went nuts pouring Dia del Perro sauce onto them. The fresh flavor of Dia del Perro was very complimentary. It blended well with the spicy meat, crispy tacos, and sour cream. Winner.

05-tostadas

Flour Tostadas: Again, the sauce rocked on these. The Flour Tostadas almost gave us a better picture of the sauce.

We could really taste the flavors of the Dia del Perro on our Flour Tostadas, even more than on the tacos from the night before. If you want to know how to make these, just shoot us an email or use the Contact Us menu. Fresh and bold.

Where to buy

All of Lucky Dog’s Hot Sauces are available at http://luckydoghotsauce.com/

Tell Scott that HotSauceDaily sent you!

Similar Posts

15 Comments

  1. Thank you for the kind words and I’m thrilled that you enjoyed this sauce! It’s my pride and joy right now and I am so so so in love with the label. Much appreciated on the timely review!

    Scott

  2. I can’t wait to receive mine. They sound wonderful. I just wish I could get more than two bottles through Kickstarter (hint, hint). Something tells me they will not last long once opened. And Brian, you’re right, Kickstarter is a gem.

  3. Nice review Brian, this sauce sounds great! That bottle design is genius too, would make a great tattoo but will settle for a tank top!

    1. Hi Maria!

      The tank top reward is “sun’s out, guns out” and comes with a couple of bottles of Dia del Perro!

      (Unless you want a tattoo like mine, in which case I know a guy? Hahaha)

      Thanks for your support!

      Scott

  4. This is a really good sauce, evidenced by the fact that the bottle is practically empty after just two meals consumed by just two people! (Yeah, not sharing this one with the neighbors….. sorry folks!)
    Great job, Scott. Thanks so much for giving the world another stellar product!

    1. Thanks so much Marilyn! I’m really glad you enjoy it! I had a lot of fun making it, and the label was a constant inspiration. Making microbatch prototypes isn’t always fun – that label kept me motivated so those days I felt like “good enough was good enough” I kept pushing myself to make it better. I love the end result.
      🙂

  5. I love good quality verde sauces. Thanks for the review.
    I am off to Kickstarter to help out!

    1. Thanks for your support Devin! I’m sure you’ll dig it – there are a ton of great and fairly priced rewards. I’m just under 60%, so spread the word!
      🙂

  6. This sounds like another green one that I’ll like. Right now I’m still crushing on Crazy Good sauce and powder but I might go ahead and get this in the pantry.

  7. Hi.
    For someone who comes from Denmark, but who wants to support and try some of your hotsauces, what opportunities are there? I mean, do you ship to Denmark? 🙂

    1. Hi Per,

      I don’t, big iBurn will ship anywhere in the country! They’re out of Houston and they have all 6 of the original varieties of Lucky Dog.

      For Kickstarter international was a bit too complicated since it’s a different price for every country and every reward was a different weight & size – I spent a bit of time and just decided I couldn’t determine a fair median price for international. No matter what I came up with some people were getting screwed.

      Best,

      Scott

Comments are closed.