Welcome back, everyone. It’s time for another Hot Sauce Review. This will finish up my trilogy of sauces that I got at the Georgia Renaissance Festival from Garlic Festival. But, considering the large number of products on their website, and how much I’ve loved their sauces so far, I doubt that this will be the last. We’re finishing off with their Garlic & Chipotle hot sauce. I’m excited. You’re excited (presumably). Let’s get to it.
What goes into a Garlic & Chipotle sauce? Well, if you’re Garlic Festival, you’ll use: water, chipotle puree (chipotle peppers, water, salt, citric acid), distilled white vinegar, red bell pepper, lemon juice (water, lemon juice concentrate), sodium bisulfite (preservative), lemon dill, habanero pepper mash (habanero peppers, salt), cayenne hot sauce (aged red cayenne peppers), onion powder, garlic powder, kosher salt, cayenne peppers, olive oil, and xanthan gum.
Wow… ok… I gotta admit, after the pretty short list of ingredients in the previous two sauces, I was surprised to see quite the list here. I find it interesting that we have chipotle peppers right up front, then habaneros further down… and then cayenne hot sauce even further down. Interesting mix there. And instead of the roasted garlic powder, we have just regular garlic powder. It’s pretty far down on the list, too. We’ll see how much it plays into the overall flavor of the sauce.
As for the scent, the sauce smells… a bit smokey, as one would expect (chipotles, for those that don’t know, are smoked jalapenos) and a bit vinegary. It’s got just a little bit of a funk to it, too. Not quite sure what might be bringing that along to the party.
As for the flavor, the sauce comes in bright and acidic right at the start. I get the vinegar. I get the lemon juice. But, I have to say, it’s not a bad vinegar “bite” like I really don’t like. This is just the high acidity and not much of the flavor of vinegar. After the acidic burst at the start, I get the mixed flavor of all the peppers. Chipotle with its bit of smoke. Habaneros with their fruitiness. Even a bit of the red bell in there with the habaneros. And there’s sort of a lower, funky note from the aged cayenne. I’m guessing that’s what’s adding that funk note to the smell as well. I have to admit, I’m not getting a *ton* of garlic flavor in there. Maybe a little. I actually feel like I tasted the garlic more when I had a couple bites with my Ultimate Dipping Sauce. Not to say that I don’t get any garlic, but I’ve always been expecting to just sort of get punched in the tongue by the garlic and that’s never happened.
What about heat? As per usual, I had a rather heavy hand with my pour. But despite that, my nose is barely running and I’m not having to chew with my mouth open or anything like that. As such, I feel that this sauce might just be a touch below the heat level of an off-the-shelf sauce. I mean, the bottle lists it as Medium and I’d agree with that entirely. As such, if you’re ok with an off-the-shelf sauce, you’re probably gonna be fine here as well.
So, that’s all for my initial look into the offerings from Garlic Festival. I gotta say, they’ve really impressed me. I think, so far, their Verde has been my favorite, but these other two have been really good as well. They all taste like a good, premium pepper sauce “should” as far as I’m concerned. A hot sauce doesn’t need to be super complex or super hot to be good. These are just good sauces done right and the care shows through. As I said above, I really doubt this will be my last taste of a Garlic Festival product.
Suggested dishes: With the bit of smokey flavor coming in, I would put this on any kind of BBQ or a meal I wanted to make just a bit more BBQ-esque. Ribs, burgers, chicken, chili. All could be enhanced with some dabs of this sauce.
If you’re looking to get some for yourself, you can find it on their website here: https://www.garlicfestival.com/garlicfestivalgarlicchipotlehotsauce
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