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Multi-Review: Battle of the Bottles V™- Louisiana Style
By Buddah | March 16, 2009 |
Cajun Heat “Liquid Napalm” ingredients: if you knew, you wouldn’t eat it! Well that’s what it says on the bottle anyway. But really it contains Habanero peppers, vinegar, Cajun spices. Pretty simple.
The Cayenne Concoction contains Habanero peppers, red wine vinegar, white vinegar, molasses, tomato paste, worcestershire sauce, salt, sugar, garlic, cayenne peppers, xanthum gum, sorbic acid.
Welcome back Ladies and Gents once again to another edition of the Battle of the Bottles™. This battle we will go to the core of the hot sauce world, and to where it all began- Louisiana. I would not be overstating the fact that most every Chilehead in the US had their first hot sauce experience of some kind with a Louisiana-type of hot sauce. Tabasco being the most infamous and popular of it’s kind, they set the stage for future sauces in the marketplace. Yet the supermarkets are saturated with Louisiana-type of hot sauces, and it is a unforgiving world that turns a blind eye to the new generation. Not today folks. Not here on Taste The Fear!
We have 2 companies that think they have what it takes to raise Louisiana hot sauce to a whole new level. We welcome them to the Cage of Condiments™, and ready them for the heat of the spotlight. Today, we will find out who really has what it takes to grab the glory and bragging rights in what might very well be the ugliest, bloodiest battle of our time. One sauce might not make it out of the cage alive. Let us welcome our cayenne combatants to the cage.
Out of the Commonwealth of Virginia let me introduce Cajun Heat’s Liquid Napalm. A few months ago I chatted with Clement who is the man behind this Louisiana Hot Sauce. Clement and I discussed the many ways we could review his product, but he wanted for me to find him a worthy opponent for the Battle of the Bottles™. I wanted to find a sauce that was equal to the challenge. Before I found his competition, I was having some trouble finding someone to accept the challenge. I was turned down for various reasons, and one award winning company told me he didn’t want to go against a virtual unknown because he had nothing to gain from the victory. Now a multiple 2009 Scovie Award Winner, I think Clement’s Cajun Heat isn’t a virtual unknown anymore.
So who would pick up the throwdown and go head to head with a Scovie Award Winning Hot Sauce? Well, how about another Award Winning Company? Yes, I found one in Crazy Mother Pucker’s Cayenne Concoction, a 2005 Golden Chile Award Winner for best Louisiana Style Hot Sauce and a 2006 Scovie Award as well! After speaking to Deede of Crazy Mother Pucker’s, and hearing how interested she was, I knew I had my Battle of the Bottles ready to launch. Thank you Deede for accepting the challenge!
Two Award Winning Louisiana Hot Sauces going glass to glass in the unforgiving Cage of Condiments™. Could it possibly be more riveting than this my fellow Chileheads? I think not! Let us go to the Cage and watch our competitors get ready for battle.
BUDDAH
When I first started doing these reviews, I made one rule. There MUST be a winner. I made sure my other two judges Hudd and Justin knew this before they joined me in this 3 reviewer format. There have been some close contests, but never have I had a tougher decision deciding who was the better sauce than in this Louisianna battle. It surprises me when I think how I started this review. Let me tell you what happened.
I grew up using Trappey’s Red Devil Louisiana Hot Sauce as my regular hot sauce. My favorite application was on white rice. I would often buy a quart of white rice from a local Chinese take out just to pour my sauce on it. I would make a meal out of it pouring numerous applications turning the white kernels of rice a orange-reddish color over and over again. So when I decided to start this Louisiana Battle of the Bottles™ I knew it had to be this way. I decided to only get a pint instead of my usual quart, and some of Popeyes’ new Louisiana chicken nuggets.
I decided to try the Liquid Napalm first on my white rice. Holy :bleep:! The sauce surprised me. It is darn hot and nearly scorched the back of my throat. Cajun Heat indeed! If I didn’t still have my tonsils I would’ve thought they could have been incinerated by this sauce. I could bearly stomach another fork full of my rice. I was not prepared for this and I ruined my meal with the amount that I had consumed at once. I tried to pour the Muther Pucker’s next but I couldn’t get rid of the throat burn that the Liquid Napalm had inflicted me with. The Popeyes’ Louisiana nuggets really sucked, and I am afraid it was a lost cause with the sauce at this point. I can not believe a fast food franchise would sell such crap. Either way, my throat was scorched and I was done for this meal. I am afraid it was not a good start for Cajun Heat for me.
My next stab at this judging process would be dealt in a more cautious way. I have found that when I make a spicy chicken salad, the mayo dilutes the heat of the hot sauce and what is left is the flavor of the hot sauce, good or bad. Instead of doing the usual chicken salad, I chose crab salad instead. Well, our beloved Parker calls it Krab because it isn’t crab at all just an imitation made mostly with fish pollack. Pollack is the most readily available fish in the world, and it is the reason behind the lower cost of imitation crab. Anyway, I got me some mini potato rolls for some mini krab salad sammiches.
Both sauces were flavorful and each had a nice heat to them, but this time I wasn’t overwhelmed by the Liquid Napalm. It went very well this way and I was able to taste it this time around. There is a lot of flavors going on here too. Nothing laid back or subtle here, there is zest and zing. The Muther Pucker’s Cayenne Concoction has heat, but it is what you would find in a standard bottle of Louisiana sauce. Very tasty in it’s own right. Not sure which one I like better here, but there is something in the hotter Liquid Napalm I found interesting.
I went back to Popeye’s to get their tasty chicken, Tuesday they have a cheap deal, 2pcs, a side and a biscuit for $2.99. I wanted to stick with the cajun theme, and Popeye’s a New Orleans original with awesome chicken. I did the dip thing with the chicken and found it easier to soak the chicken in the sweeter Cayenne Concoction which clung easier than the clumpy Liquid Napalm. Both flavors were very good on the chicken, but for use purposes I have to say this round goes to Cayenne Concoction. I was also more prepared for the throat burn of the Liquid Napalm and it wasn’t bothering me like my first use. I think the flavor is very intense as is the heat.
I went with a beef patty with some cheddar cheese. Opening the patty once it was cooked, I closed the cheese within and added my sauce. The Mother Pucker’s pic didn’t come out to my liking. If you haven’t noticed in the pics so far, the Mother Pucker label is hard to read because it is way too glossy. Even holding it in my hand, the light reflects off of it and the silver stripes almost are mirror-like and makes the label hard to look at. That is my only complaint for Cayenne Concoction because in the beef patty it is delicious and I feel the heat a little more than before.
I was very tentative with the Liquid Napalm on my beef patty, but I could only feel the heat, but little flavor, so I cracked it back open and liberally doused it and prayed that my throat would not bleed before the flavor came through. I am not sure why I was so affected by the CaJun Heat on the white rice, but it didn’t burn so harshly like it did then. Yes, it tickled the back of my throat, but I was in love with the flavor for the most part. It so worked with the beef and crust of the patty. Actually both Louisiana hot sauces did, and I was sweating after both meals. My endorphins were running amok. I am going to give a slight edge to the Liquid Napalm here.
The next day I was craving a baked potato, another dish I often had with my Red Devil hot sauce back in the day. My parents used to watch me pour it on and shake their heads, telling me I should just drink out of the bottle.
I really like this pic because it captured the difference in thickness. As for taste, another struggle for me to decide which I like better. I added a little sour cream to the Liquid Napalm because it cooled me off a bit because the heat really picked up with the baked potato, but not overwhelming. I liked the Cayenne Concoction again because I can pour more and soak it in. Flavorwise, the Cajun Heat is stronger, but the level of burn makes it harder to eat without using a headband to capture the sweat.
Eventhough the Cayenne Concoction was a bigger bottle, I was running out of it faster because I was using more of it. I was playing it safe with the Cajun Heat, so there was still a nice amount left. I had one more way I wanted to use it, and it was again with rice. This time it would be a famous New Orleans company, Zatarain’s that would lead my way to picking a winner. I bought some frozen jambalaya with sausage and nuked me a meal. I divided the sauce in the bowl and went to town. I felt since the battle was so close in my book, this meal would decide the fate of the sauces for me. There could only be one winner!
Well, even after this meal I have to say both sauces have something special to offer. Honestly, they won’t replace my love for Red Devil, but I feel in deciding the winner, one flavor was slightly better than the other. Despite my discomfort on my first taste, Cajun Heat’s Liquid Napalm had something very special about the flavor that lingers on your tongue once the heat runs it’s course. A lot of Louisiana hot sauce can be so generic, but Liquid Napalm has found heat and a flavor that transcends it’s rivals, and that is why it is my winner of this Battle of the Bottles™.
JUSTIN
Crazy Mother Puckers Cayenne Concoction
I have had a few other Crazy Mother Puckers sauces and I am a big fan of them but Cayenne Concoction is one that I have never tried until now. The label is typical of their sauces which I like, and this particular one is nothing special from the rest. The sauce is a little darker than your usual everyday cayenne sauce, but the consistency is right on. I took a whiff and it smelled like it had a lot of vinegar in it, but other than that it was exactly like you would expect from a cayenne sauce.
I tried a little by itself at first and as I expected the vinegar was very strong and upfront in the flavor of this sauce. It had a little something extra that your typical run of the mill store brand doesn’t, but I cant say exactly what. Reading the ingredients, I see it has worcestershire sauce and molasses. The worcestershire sauce didn’t surprise me, that’s probably the something extra I was detecting. The molasses surprised me though, I couldn’t taste it at all, and there is no sweetness to this sauce whatsoever. The complete ingredients list will be provided with this review, but the only other thing I want to point out is that vinegar is listed 3 times. 2 different types of vinegar right at the top of the list, and then another in the breakdown of worcestershire. The reason I’m pointing that out is because it is definitely the star of this sauce, which is good in my opinion. I grew up on Tabasco and Franks, and although I don’t eat these sauces anymore because there are so many others out there that I like better. I do try to stick to a strong vinegar based sauce when choosing one in this category.
Crazy Mother Puckers’ Cayenne Concoction is one of the best that I have had, but if you don’t like vinegar stay away. Another thing I like about this sauce is the heat level. It does have habaneros in it, so after a while the heat really starts to build up, but the taste of habaneros is never present, only the cayenne.
Cajun Heat’s Liquid Napalm
I got this sauce first and it has been sitting on the counter for a couple weeks waiting for a brave enough competitor to step up. While sitting there it has tempted me to open it early every day. Every thing about this sauce from the label, to the looks of the sauce inside, to the ingredients list starting off with “if you knew you wouldn’t eat it” are things that appeal to me. If I had ever seen this sauce on a shelf somewhere there is no doubt in my mind that I would have bought a bottle to eat, and probably another one to put on my collection shelf just for the label. The label is a very colorful cartoon drawing of a solder with a hole burned through his stomach by (I’m guessing napalm since the sauce is called Liquid Napalm) that leaves a long trail of smoke. I’m not going to spend too much time describing the label because I’m sure there is pictures attached to this review, but one thing I want to point out in the picture is the blue around his hands. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, but it gives the picture a comic book look to it. That and the bright colors make a pretty sweet label.
The sauce inside is brick red which is darker than your typical cayenne sauce, but what I found appealing about it was the consistency. If you hold the bottle side ways and roll it its very smooth and thin enough to stay to the bottom, but it leaves behind lots of spices and really small chunks of what looks like either tomato or pepper. Since tomato isn’t listed in the ingredients list (and I doubt that’s what they were talking about when they said “if you knew you wouldn’t eat it”), I am assuming its habanero mash.
I opened it up and tried a little from the bottle, and it was thick with seasonings that probably would have made it gritty if they had not been softened by absorbing the juices of the sauce. My first impression was that it was good, but I wasn’t going to be able to use too much without overpowering my food. It’s not the typical cayenne sauce you expect when buying this type of hot sauce, but it has the flavor of all the Cajun spices in it. It reminded me of so many dry Cajun seasonings that I have tried and liked but never really been able to find the right thing to put them on. That wasn’t the case with this sauce though; it went great on a large variety of different types of foods, and to my surprise the flavor didn’t overpower any of them. It’s got a really good heat level to it that hits you pretty good right away and only builds a little while you eat more.
Final judgments
Overall I have to give the win to Crazy Mother Pucker’s Cayenne Concoction. I enjoyed Cajun Heat’s Liquid Napalm also. I liked that it was different from all the typical vinegar and peppers sauces that you usually think of when you say Cajun, but I like those typical sauces. I grew up on them and Cayenne Concoction had just enough difference in flavor and heat to set it apart from the competition, but still to satisfy the hunger I get when thinking of that type of sauce.
HUDD
Well here goes another heads up battle. This time it’s Cajun Heat’s Liquid Napalm against Crazy Mother Pucker’s Cayenne Concoction.
Liquid Napalm ingredients: if you knew, you wouldn’t eat it! Well that’s what it says on the bottle anyway. But really it contains Habanero peppers, vinegar, Cajun spices. Pretty simple.
The Cayenne Concoction contains Habanero peppers, red wine vinegar, white vinegar, molasses, tomato paste, worcestershire sauce, salt, sugar, garlic, cayenne peppers, xanthum gum, sorbic acid.
I’m already thinking that the vinegar will be prevelant in this sauce.
Liquid Napalm is bottled in the typical 5 oz woozy with a very interesting label. There’s an army looking fellow with a serious look of intense pain on his face with a hole being blown through his stomach. Making me think that this is going to be quite hot. Crazy Mother Pucker’s comes in a 5.7 oz whiskey looking bottle. The label is prismatic, “shiney” with a cartoon looking Pelican type bird with his beak about to explode from the heat. It reminds me of the old Looney Tunes cartoons.
Just looking at the two sauces they are very similar looking. They even smell pretty much alike. This one may be tough to call.
So first thing to try them on, Tostitos chips. Once the two are poured onto chips I notice the Liquid Napalm is actually thicker. The vinegar is obvious in the Liquid Napalm along with a nice slow burn of the tongue. The Cayenne Concoction also has the vinegar taste, but the molasses sweetens it up a bit. The burn from the habs and cayennes is a little less than Liquid Napalm.
I decided to make some Zatarain’s Jambalaya for my next test. I was going to add some Jolokia Sausage to it but decided against it, and cut up some smoked sausage instead. I dished it out onto two plates and added quite a bit of the sauces to the jambalaya. Once again they were very close in taste.
The next day I did some wings on the grill, and figured I’d try to make a decision as to which one I liked best. Once again, very close. This has been the closest matched Battle that I have had to do. I found the Liquid Napalm to be hotter and thicker, but I like the taste and texture of the Cayenne Concoction better. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this Battle of the Bottles, and I’ve had the hardest time picking a winner. I’m pretty partial to sweet with the heat and the molasses was just enough to give the edge to Crazy Mother Pucker’s Cayenne Concoction.
You Ain’t Been Pucked Till Ya Been Mother Pucked!
Battle of the Bottles V™- Louisiana Style Champion goes to Crazy Mother Pucker’s Cayenne Concoction!
Cajun Heat
Stephens City, VA 22655
By Email: cajunheat@cajunheat.com
By Fax: 504 208 9845
Crazy Mother Puckers
20001-A Emerald Coast Pkwy.
Destin, FL 32541
Phone: 850-654-1544
Fax: 850-837-8226
Related Posts
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- Battle of the Bottles VII™- Steak Sauce
- Taste The Fear…Battle of the Bottles 2
- Taste The Fear…Battle of the Bottles…Round 1
- Taste The Fear’s Battle of the Bottles III™: Carrot Wars
Topics: General, Hot Product Reviews, Reviews | 20 Comments »
They both sound pretty tasty!
Sorry to say but that review is sssoooooooo long it I don’t have the patience to read it. Reminds me of some phone conversations.
Agreed, it is a bit long, but worth it. Great job on the reviews, guys!
Just think of it as
whipping out his big saw. 
Did
hire a photographer?
Unless it’s got tits or tires I just can’t pay attention for that long.
the reason i like doing battle reviews: if im short on things to say buddah fills in the space describing avery single piece of food he ate em on and makes up for my pourtion being short
morning everybody
Have some coffe :nerd:.
I think buddah could “talk” a tree into falling.
I do believe you are correct.
Thank goodness Cap’n didn’t send
to help me with the road. Would have turned into a clear cut. 
Great review. Still my favorite format even if The
is long winded. I look forward to trying both
I appreciate your time and effort put into this great review. Use the coupon code “TTF” to receive 20% off your order at CLICK HERE
Thank you for the offer Clement, and Welcome to Taste The Fear!
Also, those are great graphics that you have!!!
Thanks, but I can’t take the credit for it. Jeremie at CLICK HERE is the creator of the Liquid Napalm character.
Welcome to TTF Clement, and thanks for the generous offer!