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Battle of the Bottles IV™- HONEY, I Shrunk the Peppers!
By Buddah | October 27, 2008 |
Once again this Battle of the Bottles is being introduced by our main sponsor and loyal friend at, Jungle Jim’s International Market. In particular, the man behind the successful Chilehead event Weekend of Fire, Bret Vitek. Thank you very much for all you do Bret. So without further adieu…
Jungle Jim’s International Market of Fairfield, Ohio is proud to present, Battle of the Bottles IV™-Honey, I Shrunk the Peppers! A war of Honey Habanero Hot Sauce unlike none other. Into the Cage of Condiments™ they go. Locked like animals, and only one will come out of the cage victorious. Scarred perhaps, maimed a possibility, but a winner nonetheless. Let there be sauce!
Battle of the Bottles IV™-Honey, I Shrunk the Peppers! is a knock ‘em down fight between two honey habanero hot sauces. The first one is a veteran in the Chilehead community, Bee Sting Honey ‘n Habanero Pepper Sauce by the Half Moon Bay Trading Co. With their headquarters located in Atlantic Beach, Florida, they get their inspiration and ingredients from their tropical home of Costa Rica. The man behind the company, Tom “Nooge” Nuijens answered the challenge when I contacted him and told him what we were doing. There was no hesitation, and in between travelling he sent out his products to the judges within a few days after our original contact.
From Nooge at the Half Moon Bay Trading Co. website:
“I’d been going to Costa Rica and neighboring countries for like 25 years… surfing, fooling around and eating spicy things that the FDA would turn over to OSHA for testing! I’ve always been delighted with the various table sauce concoctions that you’d encounter at these little open air joints everywhere, they’d vary regionally depending upon the predominant local cuisine, and decided to create a series of condiments that would remind me of those special places… the smells, the sounds, the tropical sights… the fresh road kill. Now look at me… I’ve since built a company around this flimsy excuse to travel, surf & eat spicy things. Ooops, gotta go… I have a board meeting at low tide, I mean 11 o’clock! Pura vida baby!”
I, for one would love to live that lifestyle. Go Nooge! Thanks again for coming through on the challenge. Let us take a look at your competition…
Zane and Zack’s World Famous Honey Company’s Three Brothers Hot Pepper Sauce, a 2007 Golden Chile winning honey habanero hot sauce. It was the hot sauce maker/beekeeper/father of 4 boys, Sam McCanless who wanted me to find a worthy challenge to go against his hot sauce. I am not sure he wanted to go against the most renowned honey hot sauce on the planet, but if you know Sam, he is probably psyched for the battle. Only in the business since 2006, Zane & Zack’s, (named after Sam and his wife Tina’s first 2 boys, Hans their 3rd) has made a splash in the fiery food circle with numerous award winning products. Inspired by his newly born 4th boy, Max, Sam has now produced Four Brothers Hot Pepper Sauce, but that is another review for another time. Today we will see what last year’s creation can do against Bee Sting, a staple in honey-based hot sauce.
Zack & Zane showing off their winning ribbons from the Western Washington’s Puyallup Fair
Enough with the introductions let us get down to the nitty gritty. Firstly, let us thank our sponsors. Uncle Big’s Fiery Foods, Headwinderlicker.com Gatorman Jerky and yours truly, TasteTheFear.com.
Buddah
I love honey, so I knew this B.o.B. was going to fun foodwise. I figured I would start with a favorite review food and that was a rotisserie chicken from Costco. I figure the honey-based sauces would coat the bird quite well, and boy was I right. When I poured the two honey habanero sauces into my trusty bowl you can see a huge contrast in consistency. The Bee Sting actually looked like honey, but with pepper flakes floating within. It even poured out of the bottle almost as thick as honey.
The Three Brothers Sauce on the other hand had an orange hue to it. The sauce came out thick out of the bottle, but poured effortlessly. There must be a lot more ingredients in this bottle than the Bee Sting. Well, that is what I thought before I actually read each bottles ingredient list.
Let us examine the ingredients before we go any further:
Bee Sting: Corn Syrup, Water, Honey, Carrots, Corn Vinegar, sugar, Corn Starch, Habanero Peppers, Onion, Lemon Juice, Cayenne Peppers, Salt, Garlic and Black Pepper, with .1% sodium benzoate & ascorbic acid(vitamin C) as preservatives.
Three Brothers: Fresh Habaneros Peppers, Carrots, Vinegar, Honey, Fresh Cracked Pepper, Cayenne Powder, Salt, Spices.
I never would’ve guessed there was so much more going into the Bee Sting than the Three Brothers product. Some would turn to the corn syrup and corn starch in the Bee Sting sauce and would be turned away from such ingredients, but I will look beyond this flaw and judge by the taste alone. I think by their success, they have developed a winning formula, so who am I to argue with that? As for the word “Fresh” being used in the Three Brothers product, one must wonder that if the Habanero and Black pepper are both fresh, then what about the carrots and other ingredients? I think most consumers take for granted the freshness that goes into consumer ready food. Would they use spoiled products to save a buck? I am sure it would show up in the taste. Company image would be hurt if a company decided to go down this path and the FDA or media found out. So while “Fresh” is another word for “buy me, I am better than the other guy”, I don’t take much stock in it. If on the other hand I saw the word “organic”, then I would know they were looking out for me health and me tummy.
Uh oh, my chicken is getting cold. I got to stop typing and taste my bird, be right back…
What a difference in flavors I noticed right off the bat. The Bee Sting must have lost its stinger along the way because I didn’t feel any heat in the sauce on my bird. It is so much like honey too, there is very little additional flavors that I can taste once I eat the chicken. At least nothing I can identify on my pallet. It is good though and I enjoyed the taste on my chicken and went well with the skin especially. I think it would coat it nicely if cooked from scratch. I love the taste of honey, so this works for me, but I would’ve loved to taste something beyond the honey or had some more heat. It is round one anyway, so let us see what transpires.
The Three Brothers packs a lot of flavor in that bottle because unlike the Bee Sting, my mouth is alive with the different tastes. Also the heat of the sauce is very apparent and soon my tongue is lit up and my forehead is perspiring. I can feel the sting here most definitely, but it is the flavor combination that works so well with the chicken. No doubt the first round goes to Three Brothers.
Since my move, I was missing some crab meat stuffed tilipia, so when I saw it in Target Super Store, I was wondering if it would be as good. I would not be disappointed. Right before the stuffed fish was done cooking, I poured the sauce on in the final minutes just to coat the fish a little bit. Take a look at that picture. Doesn’t the Bee Sting on the left look like a glaze and Three Brothers on the right look like a salsa topping of sorts?
The Bee Sting really works here and it seems the little bit of cooking brings out the heat a smidgen. I can barely feel the burn, but it is there this time. Yet, the the flavor tastes phenomenal on the crab stuffed tilipia. The honey just compliments the fish and works well as a glaze here. I was loving it that I wanted to lick the plate once the fish was gone. Well, maybe I actually did, I can’t remember. :P Although the Three Brothers has more flavor, and I enjoyed my fish, I just don’t like it as much as the pure honey effect of the Bee Sting. There is the burn of the sauce I enjoyed and it also seemed to intensify a bit from the cooking temperature, but the Bee Sting came out on top. Round 2, goes to Bee Sting.
Eventhough I chose California Tortilla’s Fish Tacos for Round 3, I have something to confess at the end of my review that will tell you why. Here are the fish tacos which were cole slaw, special southwestern mayo sauce of some kind atop of some batter fried fish wrapped in a soft tortilla.
I was totally into getting me some fish tacos to try out the whole day. I had no idea what they would be like until I got home and opened them up. Once again, the Three Brothers on the right looks like a salsa and the Bee Sting looks like a honey glaze. When we came up with the Honey Habanero theme for this Battle of the Bottles™ I actually thought the consistency would be a lot closer than they actually are.
I took a bite of the fish taco without any sauce on it just to get a feel of what the taco would taste like. It was pretty tasty I must admit. When I took a bite with the Bee Sting I noticed so little difference in taste or heat. It almost disappeared into the taco, and only a slight sweetness that wasn’t there before was apparent to me. Whilst the Three Brothers really made the fish taco come to life. All the wonderful flavors went so well with the cloe slaw and fish combo that every bite sent me closer to food nirvana. This is one of the best hot sauces that I have experienced and it was almost unfair to put Bee Sting against it. Which brings me to my confession. To make this review seem like a closer competition than it was, I had also tried both sauces on a combination appetizer plate which included chicken tenders, southwest egg rolls, a cheese quesadilla, and chicken wings and the Three Brothers tasted better on all the appetizers than the Bee Sting did. The crab stuffed tilapia was actually was the last thing I had for the review when the competition was all but over. Sorry about that, but I bet you were excited to see who would win out. 
There is nothing wrong with Bee Sting tastewise, but against Three Brothers there is very little contest here. I enjoyed the Bee Sting on the cooked fish, and I wish I had some leftover to try on shrimp skewers because I think they would be great on them. I know I can go to a local supermarket and pick me up some more if I so desire. Yet Zane and Zack’s World Famous Honey Company’s, is on the other side of the country. They too deserve to be found in your local mart because this is a hot sauce to put on anything. So for my judge’s card I pick Three Brothers Hot Pepper Sauce.
HUDD
Okay, for this round of Battle of the Bottles™ I received sauces from Half Moon Bay Trading Co.-Bee Sting Honey ‘n Habanero Pepper Sauce and Zane and Zack’s World Famous Honey Company’s Three Brothers Hot Pepper Sauce.
Upon opening the packages I took notice of the appearance. Bee Sting is a thick, syrupy looking sauce with small chunks of peppers, onion, carrots and garlic visible. Three Brothers is a thick sauce, from the peppers and carrots. You don’t notice any resemblance to honey in this sauce.
The labeling on the two are very different in appearance. Bee Sting is yellow and black with red lettering that stands out, with a wicked looking bee that makes the label very interesting looking. Three Brothers label is black with black and white photos of the three brothers. Which are three of the four sons of the maker. The label is pretty much straight to the point.
As usual I get on the computer and go to both company web sites. I like to see how they began, awards, recipes and the like. Bee Sting, www.halfmoonbaytrading.com shows that the company has been around since 1992. Their 22 different products are imported from Costa Rica. One of their sauces was featured on Rachael Ray’s TV show. There was also a very good sized recipe section with many rice, chicken, shrimp,and veggie recipes to choose from.
Zane and Zack’s web site, www.zandzhoneyco.com tells of the start into making sauces five years ago. Sam had started as a beekeeper and a sauce lover, so he put his two passions together and started his company. His product line has won several awards over the short time being in business. Not a lot of recipes to be found but the site does say that Three Brothers makes a good seafood sauce.
My first thoughts when I looked at these two sauces was that the Bee Sting was going to be used in my favorite Chinese place’s House Fried Rice. Zane and Zack’s sauce didn’t bring anything to mind right off. I figured it would work well on the grill with some chicken. I opened the two and took a whiff of each one. Bee Sting hit me with a vinegar smell right off. Three Brothers I detected the distinct smell of the habanero peppers.
The initial taste of Bee Sting is nice and sweet, not very hot. I figure that with the corn syrup it cuts down alot of the habanero heat. Three Brothers however I got a good bit of habanero burn that stayed with me for a while. I couldn’t detect the honey from the burn.
Well I brought home a container of the house fried rice from Phan Shin and divided it out to sample both sauces in. Bee Sting worked in it just as expected. It reminded me of sweet and sour sauce with a little kick. Three Brothers didn’t fare as well in the rice. It was okay, but the habanero was a little overpowering in the rice. The next evening I put a few boneless skinless chicken breasts on the grill and Bee Sting was really good here also. It hung on to the meat similar to a BBQ sauce. Three Brothers didn’t stay put very well on the breast but once cooked in put a real nice habanero flavor to it.
Well, wrapping up now. Bee Sting is a nice overall sauce with many uses. The sweetness of the corn syrup and honey was very good, but it could’ve used a little more habanero kick to it. It just wasn’t the “sting” I was expecting. Three Brothers sauce has plenty of sting, however it just didn’t work as well as Bee Sting in the food I used. The habanero heat was there for sure, which I like, but I couldn’t detect the sweetness of the honey.
I enjoyed both sauces but after the final bell rang, I declared Bee Sting the winner!
JUSTIN
Bee Sting
The first thing I noticed about this sauce is that it is distributed by Half Moon Trading Co., and I’m a fan of there Iguana hot sauces (or at least the green one). So I was looking forward to trying it, and had good expectations of it. However, when I opened it up and took a whiff they where all killed. It smelled like corn syrup with just a touch of chili powder, I decided to check the ingredients and there it was top of the list corn syrup with honey a little further down the list. I don’t really like a lot of sweet sauces anyway, but I hate corn syrup, and the long list of ingredients in this sauce is not enough to cover up the taste of it. For the sake of the review I ate about a ¼ of the bottle before writing this, and it didn’t get any better. The sauce pours from the bottle like syrup and is sticky if it gets on your hands. I can see small bits and pieces of peppers in the sauce and can taste them in it but only a hint. If you are a fan of sauces like Blair’s Sweet Death or Sexabi definitely give this one a try and you might like it better than I did. Zane and Zack’s has pretty much won this battle without even being opened because I hated the Bee Sting.
Zane and Zack’s Three Brothers Hot Pepper Sauce
Last time I was at Jungle Jim’s I got a bottle of Zane and Zack’s “Tina’s Too Hot Honey Habanero” , and was surprised by how much I liked it. If you follow my reviews you know that I don’t like a lot of sweet sauces so when I find one that I do like it is usually used only on a few things. With Tina’s Too Hot Honey Habanero it was breakfast and with the three brothers hot pepper sauce it was crackers and cheese (mostly brie). This sauce is sweet but its all from the honey, and the ingredients list is short and sweet compared to the Bee Sting. Pouring it out it is chunkier and has a better less syrupy consistency to it, when I got towards the end of the bottle I ran out of juice and it was really thick so I recommend shaking it up every time you use it to stop that from happening to you. The flavor is wonderful and truly unique, the black pepper influences the flavor more than I expected it to, but its not at all overpowering or anything. This sauce also has carrots and habanero’s in it along with vinegar and ———- the vinegar is barely noticeable under the sweetness of the honey and the habanero’s add to both the flavor and the fire. The heat level of this sauce builds just as fast, and gets to be just as hot as most other habanero sauces. It can’t really even be compared to Bee Sting which I didn’t get any heat out of at all. Just like with Tina’s Too Hot Honey Habanero I think the whole reason I like this sauce so much is because unlike a lot of other sauces I have had that are sweet, this one has enough heat to balance it out for me. The good thing is that you don’t get the heat until after you taste the flavor and it builds with every bite. I recommend trying this with some brie and crackers because I cant get enough of it.
Justin’s Pick…Zane & Zack’s Three Brothers Hot Pepper Sauce
OVERALL WINNER: Zane and Zack’s World Famous Honey Company’s Three Brothers Hot Pepper Sauce
COMPANY CONTACT INFORMATION:
Half Moon Bay Trading Company
P.O. Box 330718
Atlantic Beach, Florida 32233-0718
USA
(904) 246-9493
1-888-44-SAUCE
Fax: (904) 246-9442
Web: www.halfmoonbaytrading.com
Zane & Zacks World Famous Honey Company
12705 SE 187th Place
Renton, WA 98058
E-mail: sam@zandzhoneyco.com
1-866-458-0699
425-785-1289
Web: zandzhoneyco.com
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Topics: General, Hot Product Reviews, Reviews | 38 Comments »
I can’t wait to read this review! Just the pics alone have me grinning this morning! Awesome action shots in the ring :nerd:!
Man that was over the top. Very very nice.
let me know what I can do to help more.
Great review guys, I do like some sweet sauces but not all. I may have to try the Three Brothers.
Now that was an Epic battle. Hats off to Zack & Zanes as well as Half Moon.
I’ve had Bee Sting before. Not bad stuff. I haven’t had the opportunity to try Three Brothers though. I’ll have to keep an eye out for it next time I’m at JJs.
That’s the official TTF Reviewer cam. It was on sale, what can I say?
That and
told me that he lost the instructions for it. Macro what? 
Oh, even though I still have not had time to read the review, I can say that the Three Brother’s sauce is a must try for sure. Top notch sauce.
That was a great review and I love the battle cage.
Macro…Polo?
Thanks for the compliments the rest of ya. We have 3 Battles in progress, and more planned for the future. If you like it(sorry Huv), we will keep on doing it. If there is something you want to see, don’t want to see or have an idea feel free to express your thoughts. I am always looking to improve this review each time, and welcome your critique. Too long, too many pics, more pics, a different breakdown, whatever it is.
I will email you something I would like to do. Thanks. You also should get some Twisted Twin Salsa from the last review for JJ’s.
Lastly, I saw the Bee Sting Honey Mustard in Whole Foods the other day. Anyone ever try this?
:nerd:, it is the same thing only packed in a 9 ounce jar (I am a half moon bay distributor)
Ed
You saying the mustard tastes the same as the hot sauce?
i see i forgot to do my final proof read on this, if you noticed the —– on this that is where i was going to go back in a add the rest of the ingredients because i only listed what i could taste. man my busy and stressed out life is effecting my reviews lattly. sorry
:nerd:, you are trying, and your efforts show. Your reviews are great, and I certainly appreciate the time and work you put into TTF! But I am still going to make fun of your photography skills, ok?
:duhlol: 
LOL – just because I dont like doesnt mean it shouldn’t continue :fu:
I just won’t be reading them
I was thinking of doing a battle of the bottles- Children of the Black Bean & Corn. I guess I need to look around a bit.
YOu can use FKS… I just won’t read it – lol
very thorough review y’all.
cant stop laughing at the pics. great stuff y’all.
hey troy whats up, havent talked to you in a while?
it has been a while. no internet at my place so i chiil in the library looking for good job leads and glaring at 18 year old a$$.
stay on top dillweeds.
stay on topic dillweeds.
My bad I was confusing the product reviewed with the Beesting rainforest honey mustard which comes in a 5 oz. bottle and a 9 oz. jar….there is also a Mango Passion
How do they fare tastewise?
Gracias for all the spirited comments… a few answers & points about our sauces & condiments: I came into this biz from an adventure travel & cooking background, capturing the sense of place were I was inspired by something I ate and experienced and wanting to convey that to appreciative mouths. So here I’m saving you the stress of being shot at, chased by machete wielding drunks, near gorings in third world bull rings, dysentery from eating stuff I knew I shouldn’t, bar fights, shark, croc & sting ray encounters, malarial jungles and the occasional saving of damsels in distress… while hopefully taking you on a little trip as well. So right off the bat, I’m not out to make the hottest sauces on the planet, that’s done and they polish chrome really well. And as they say “you can’t please all the people all the time” yet as a medium size purveyor of specialty/gourmet condiments, sauces, salsa, glazes & mixers, we’ve achieved a good little niche market making quality small batch products that pays the bills or we wouldn’t still be here after 16 years. The BeeSting Honey Hab is a take on traditional sauces I ate all over Indonesia (yes while surfing & fishing my way around), yet I craft the recipes selfishly to my palate which is not particularly fond of excessive heat. We did just release our new Iguana En Fuego Ultra Hot Pepper Sauce,which is my first extract sauce yet has a great tropical flavor profile and to me a serious burn, but to serious hot heads may be only moderately hot. I have always put flavor and a semblance of authenticity in our sauces, yet this puppy is too hot for the nooge. Go figure. What I eat in mass quantities of ours is Iguana XXX, Mean Green,Gold & Smoky… BeeSting Mango-Passion & Mustard… and the SweetSting Glaze Toppings. And as we import our products from our facility in Costa Rica (beats having to go visit the factory in say Iowa 5 times a year), we do have to adhere to strict FDA labeling and ingredient guidelines. I occasionally see domestic products (hot sauces) that I know have the ingredients in improper order of predominance due to obvious notes in the flavor profile, or may skip listing an ingredient like water, and the FDA does very little (virtually none) scrutinizing of small domestic producers. Being a registered food production biz we do have to make shelf stable products that resist spoilage, oxidation, separation and other fun things. And when I test a new product, the prototype bottles sit in a dark room temp cupboard and on a shelf in the sun for at least 2 years, sometimes 3 depending on the ingredients to see how they behave. Did it turn black or worse green? Did it separate or fester? Does it taste like it did when it was bottled? We strive for 3 year shelf life unopened and have this almost across the line. And only about 25% of our products need the minute amount of sodium benzoate to stabilize them, primarily because we sell so much to foodservice and they want to be able to leave it on their tables unrefrigerated and sometimes in the sun. BUT the rest are all natural. BTW, sodium benzoate is a naturally occuring soluable salt that is found in higher quantities in higher levels in many fruits and
vegetables, notably cranberries, lingonberries, plums and prunes, among many others. In fact, even organically grown cranberries, plums or prunes can contain levels of sodium benzoate that exceed the legal limit imposed by the FDA on U.S. food manufacturers! This all adds up to having to take what I create in a product in the test kitchen and make it commercially viable, cost effective and something you may not realize but be able to source the ingredient in Costa Rica. We have difficulty in getting certain herbs & spices, decent affordable olive oils, horseradish, curry spice ingredients and certain peppers. The flip side is that the quality of the ingredients we do source in Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile and Peru is incredible, especially our tropical fruits and peppers for obvious reasons like climate and rich volcanic soils.
So there you have it… thanks for listening and eat mo’ sauce.
to comment on the BeeSting Mango-Passion and Mustard…
The BeeSting Mango-Passion Pepper Sauce is a tropical fruit and spice based sauce with an habanero kick. It’s not going to be considered hot by this crowd, it’s 2.25% habanero content just heats it up a bit, really just enhancing the other base ingredients. It’s great on ice cream, sorbets, muffins, pork tenderloin, shrimp on the barbie, yard bird, etc…
The BeeSting Rainforest Honey Mustard is a papaya based creamy soft mustard with again just a kick of habanero to make it interesting but not burn anyone up. Anyone can make a scorcher hot sauce or mustard but in these instances we’re out to make these pleasant tropical products with high utility. The papaya base in the mustard really makes it shine in the kitchen, slather it on a rack of lamb or pork tenderloin and then let it sit in the fridge for 2 days to let the papaya tenderize the meat like magic. Then roll the puppy in italian bread crumbs mixed w/ fresh rosemary and broil or grill. The pourable 5oz. is basically same as the 9oz. jar but a bit thinner for pourablility. Buen Provecho y Pura vida!
WOW, Thank You Nooge for the informative comments! Oh, and welcome to Taste The Fear!!
Hey Nooge, glad to see you made it. Welcome to TTF! Thanks again for stepping up to the plate and entering the Cage. Your pork tenderloin recipe sounds great and since I now can just go to the store and pick up the mustard I think I will have to make it sometime in the near future.
Ok, I’m sold on Bee Sting!
Gotta try ths stuff for sure.
I’ve got a ton of old Iguana sauces in my collection, but have never tried the sauce. Looking forward to tryin’ those as well.
Welcome to TTF Nooge!
Woo Hoo! Thank you to all the reviewers and admin for allowing us to participate in the BOB IV. Like I said before theses are another great tool for getting your name out there. I too must try the Bee Sting now. I have seen it before, but not knowing anything about it I passed it by. Thank you for participating Nooge and welcome to TTF. I look forward to trying this and a few of your other sauces.
Hello Sam!
I’ll bee sending you some money soon. Hope you have some 4 brothers in stock too.
Get it? “bee sending”?
I crack myself up! 
I’ve got a few hunting pics to send you as well!
Sweet!
I’ve got none.
Maybe this weekend.
Although there is this one of me in camo.
CLICK HERE
Hey Samuel glad to see you made it back in one piece. I think we gotta get Nooge to make it to a few fiery food shows, he seems like an intresting guy with many-a-story to tell.
Exactly what I was thinking! Traveling the world surfing and fishing while pimping sauce. I gotta have a few cold ones with this guy!
Someone say “surf”?
:woohoo: