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Multi-Review: Flaming Joe’s Jerk Sauce
By admin | May 28, 2008 |
Sandi:
First off I would like to thank Jodie from Three Hot Tamales for providing the opportunity for me to do this review. I received this bottle at work last Friday and waited until I got home to open it. Looking through the bottle the sauce is brownish with a hint of yellow. Well blended and not too runny. You can see lots of specs of spices in it.
Upon opening the bottle and taking a big sniff ….right off the bat I could smell lime juice and ginger. It smelled wonderful and made me think of Sushi. There are no good Sushi bars around here, so my thoughts went to “what can I use this on”. I almost always cook with hot sauces…rather than straight out of the bottle or on a chip. So then I had to give it a taste.
Just like the smell, the taste had lots of citrus and ginger. Tons of flavor. Then the heat hit…I’d say about a 3 on the heat level…it stuck around for a minute or 2…perfect. As the bottle suggested it is a perfect marinade for meats and great on veggies. So I found my plan on how to review this sauce.
I saved it for Saturday’s dinner. Marinated Chicken Breasts in Flaming Joe’s. Grilled and served over white and wild rice with sautéed Carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and fresh sweet snap peas with a touch of the sauce.
Wow what flavor! I have experimented with my own jerk seasoning and tried marinating, but I have never gotten this amount of flavor! It worked just wonderful with the chicken and did not over power the vegetables. Easy to see how this sauce won a Scovie!!
I would highly recommend this sauce!! But I do think that you have to be a fan of ginger to enjoy it!! Once I can get my hands on more of this sauce, I think I’m gonna have to try and make jerky with it!! I can’t imagine the incredible flavor it would give to beef!!!
Thank you again Jodie!!
DK:
This is one review I’ve been looking forward to doing. All I knew about this sauce was that it was a jerk sauce. It was being sent to me without knowing who the manufacturer was. Once I received it, I still didn’t know. Flaming Joe’s Caribbean Jerk Sauce. New product? Or am I just a tad out of the loop? Maybe a little of both seeing that I missed the boat and didn’t attend the Fiery Foods Show this year. And it’s a 2008 Scovie winner! Mmmm! So the first step this time around is a visit to their website. Wow! This sauce has been winning awards since 2005! Nice! So it’s not a “new” sauce, it’s just been flying under the radar for a while in the amateur division. Now I’m really excited to give this a shot.
Jerk sauces. Something I’m not really familiar with. I’ve tried a few here and there, but I’ve never found anything that’s ever met my expectation of what a jerk sauce should be. Exotic, spicy, and hot is what I’ve always envisioned a jerk sauce to be. To be honest, none I’ve ever tried before ever had any heat. So that’s gonna be a big qualifier for me. I’m looking for lots of flavor, and a good burn. But first things first.
The label. When I first laid eyes on this bottle, the first thought was “What the hell?” Some dude with his head on fire. It’s a very simple label that gets the job done. It tells me just what I need to know about what’s in the bottle. Woohoo, there’s flames! So surely there’s gonna be heat! And I’m assuming that’s Joe with his head ablaze right up front and center. Anyone willing to put his picture and name on the bottle in such a bold way tells me right off that I’m in for a treat. At least for his sake I better be. Talk about putting your ass (or head?) on the line. This label says a lot in a very simplistic way. So I’ve got high expectations for this sauce from the git-go, just from my first impression of the label. Let’s see if it delivers.
Upon opening the bottle the first thing I notice is the intensity of the aroma. The room fills with the wonderful smell of the sauce. It’s not overwhelming, but I definitely didn’t have to stick my nose to the bottle to get a whiff. I’m not good with smells, but there’s something tangy and hearty about the smell. At this point I still have not even looked at the ingredients. Actually, I never looked at them until just before writing the review. It just smelled really good and now it was time to decide what to cook with it.
On the bottle it says to marinate for 1- 4 hours. Well, I’m hungry now. LOL!! Only thing I have in the fridge that I think will work without much marinating is some chicken wings. So I decide to give ‘em a shot. I decide to grill ‘em up on the ‘ol George Foreman. I only marinated for about ten minutes, so I decided to baste the wings heavily while they were grilling. The consistency of this sauce is really good for this. The wide mouth bottle facilitates ease of pouring, and the sauce is thick enough to really stick to the wings when basted onto them. Lot’s of specks of spices and goodies visible throughout and the blend is really nice too.
Once the wings were done, it was time for the tasting. Wow, really pronounced flavor from this sauce. The flavor is throughout the chicken, and there was very little marinating done. That was unexpected. The first thing I noticed was a tartness, or tanginess, followed by a really strong hearty flavor. It seems to be the Key Lime juice and the Worcestershire sauce. But they aren’t overwhelming or totally dominate. There’s more, but I just can’t put my finger on it. Looking at the ingredient list, I can’t really point out any one thing. The blend of all of the spices is perfect. It just works. It has to be tasted to be believed. Ok, I gotta have another wing. Mmmm, delicious! Wow, there’s the heat! At first I was so overtaken by the wonderful flavor of this sauce that I almost forgot about the heat. Well, there’s heat! Not crazy hot, but way more than a little tingle. It’s definitely a habanero burn here. It’s got a good bite to it that hangs on for a little while. Only a couple of wings and my forehead starts to sweat. Nice steady burn. Not too hot to kill ya, but it’s got more heat than any jerk sauce I’ve ever tasted. Again, that’s not many. The heat of this stuff is perfect. Just where I like it. Hot enough to impress, but levels off at just the right point where you can keep on eating just for the flavor alone.
To sum it all up, this jerk sauce really delivers. Great label! Exotic, bold flavor and heat. Real heat. My favorite jerk sauce ever to this point. I may not know jerk sauces, but I know it’ll take one hell of a sauce to knock this one from the top. Now, what else can I try this with? Mmmm jerk jerky? I think I’ll be order some more of this sauce soon! Thanks Flaming Joe! Awesome product bro!
Update: Just wanted to add a quick note to the end of this review. It took me a little while to get this review together, but during that time I wiped out the bottle of Flaming Joe’s. I used it on just about anything I could think of. It was great on EVERYTHING! And yes, I made jerk jerky with it. Let me tell you, this stuff works great with beef. Maybe it’s the Worcestershire, I don’t know, but the jerky was fantastic! One other recipe I’d like to share, use it on hamburgers! I was gonna just pour it onto a burger one night, and then I remembered how well it worked basting it on the wings. So I basted the hamburger patties with it as I grilled them. Wow, amazing. The flavor was throughout the patties from just the basting as it was with the chicken. Just the perfect amount of flavor and heat added to the burger. My favorite way to use the sauce so far. It’s even better than the jerky! I highly recommend this sauce to anyone looking for a bold, tangy, exotic flavored sauce.
Buddah:
It is reviews such as this one that makes me wish I had a BBQ grill to do it up right. I also wish I knew more about cooking. For those of you that never had Caribbean jerk style dishes, it is kind of like a cross between spicy barbeque and gritty curry with a unique flavor that often has a small kick to it. It really isn’t fair to compare the taste to BBQ or curry, so that is the last I will mention those cooking styles.
My first experience with jerk style was not a good one. About 20 years ago I went to a Jamaican restaurant on Long Island, NY. The way they served the jerk chicken was with the bone severed in such a way that it stuck up from the plate like Excalibur’s sword, but with the sharp edge of the blade outward. Although the taste of the jerk chicken was pleasant, I had fragments of bone all around my dish and some even ended up in my mouth. It might be a custom thing in Jamaica or elsewhere, but for me I was scared I was eating in a land mine surrounded with barbwire.
So fast forward 20 years, and you know that I might have had jerk style food maybe 3 or 4 times since that memorable Jamaican meal. One thing for sure is that I never cooked with this kind of sauce before. I asked my local butcher which meat besides chicken I should marinade the jerk sauce with. He suggested that I try a pork roast, so he picked out a small one for me and I was off. In separate containers I marinated some chicken breasts and the pork roast and let it stay in the refrigerator for more than a day.
First, I cooked the pork roast in the oven, and after 30 minutes at low heat, I then split the meat right where the string held the roast together, I poured more of the Caribbean jerk sauce into the 3-4 slashes I had made. I wanted my meat to be drenched with the flavor of the sauce. I knew the sauce was good because I had sampled it at the Fiery Food Show in Albuddahquerque just a few weeks back. Since I wasn’t a jerk guy- a jerk, but a jerk guy- I didn’t buy it, but when I saw the bottle in the mail I was happy to reacquaint my taste buds with the flavor.
Once the roast was complete, I found myself drenching each slice in the leftover juices in the roasting pan. It was very delicious this way. The crust that had formed on the exterior of the roasted pork was really good and didn’t need the extra dipping. The interior while juicy lacked the flavor that I found myself craving, so the bottle was used on my plate and I dipped away in happiness.
I cooked the chicken breast in a pan on the stovetop. As I said earlier, I wish I had the cooking expertise that it took to make my meals more than they turned out. I would love to be able to have drenched the chicken in the sauce and have the sauce in and out of every forkful. Do I need one of those injector needles I have seen at the store? I have no clue. Next time I would slow cook the chicken in chunks or tenders and add some carrots, celery, and perhaps some broccoli at the end in a stew-like dish. The chicken breast just didn’t carry the flavor like I wanted, and once more I had to add the sauce to the side of my plate for dipping. It was again a great addition to the meal, but I was disappointed in how much the meal could’ve been if I was a better chef.
Overall, Flaming Joe’s Caribbean Jerk Sauce was an eye-opening experience that I soon will likely explore again. Thank you Jodie for letting me participate in this review, and to you Joe for creating a very tasting cooking sauce. You permanently changed my mind on Caribbean jerk sauces.
Benton, AR 72015
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Topics: General, Hot Product Reviews, Reviews | 26 Comments »
Well done, Will Flaming joe be at JJ’s? Does JJ’s carry Flaming Joe. If not I’ll have to order some.
Nice!! Love our flaming heads!! Good one DK!!
he’s on the list
Joe your email wont work Call me at JJ’s. Yes he is sign up for the show and no I don’t have his items in thwe store yet.
Joe “at” FlamingJoes.com
Try this flamingjoes at gmail dot com. He replied to my comment that his sauce probably would taste great on shrimp. He also suggested scallops.
Great review. I like the flame hair too.
I don’t see Joe’s banner in the side bar of TTF. Are you guys in the process of planning one of your elaborate blognappings that extensively uses
to lure unsuspecting manufacturers over to TTF? 
Thanks for posting the email Flaming Joe. I’ve added it to the contact info at the end of the review also.
Yep, very tasty on shrimp. Pork chops were good with it also. So far, everything I’ve tried it on works.
The jerky was awesome. Just marinated my strips of beef in the sauce overnight and then put it in the dehydrator. 2 lbs lasted me about a day and a half.
Welcome to TTF Joe. Your jerk sauce rocks! Are you planning on more sauces in the future?
Thank you all for the wonderful reviews. A big thank you to Jodie as well for the leads. She sent me 3 names of reviewers and I guess you were the right ones. It made my day to see such a great response to my sauce. It also made me
stay up until 1:00am trying to get my online ordering to work. If all goes well I will post sometime tonight that ordering is available(along with a special “launch pricing”). Seems that you guys covered the different ways to use it. Over the years we have tried it on just about everything. Somethings we ahve done – grilled pineapple is nice and even fresh strawberries dipped were good too.
I will be at Weekend of Fire, right next to Three Hot Tamales. Looking forward to it, now that I got my feet wet with FFS.
I do have another sauce, but for this crowd I think it might be a let down. A
MILD version of my sauce is available. It is the same recipe with the habaneros cut to 1/4 strength. I had gotten enough requests from people who liked the flavor, but couldn’t take the heat. So if you have friends or family with lower heat tolerance, this would be for them.
Thanks again for the great reviews and support from all.
Flaming Joe
Thanks Joe for the update, and look forward to meeting you again at W.o.F. Unfortunately, THT will not be able to make it, but we could always move to the corner by the TTF table. We could keep you from getting too bored.
The pineapple sounds like a great idea. Any suggestions for the crockpot/slow cooker?
Looking forward to meeting you at WoF Joe!
As for the right people for the review, i think Leroy’s dog couldn’t have said less about your sauce! Great stuff :bro:!
The pinapple sounds delicious. No fruit on this diet though, so it’ll have to wait for me to try it. The milder version sounds like the ticket for sharing with my family. The heat always keeps them away from my dishes.
Looking forward to trying out the online ordering soon!
they tell you its the heat, it aint though.
Well isn’t that precious.
Who gives a shit?
Joe’s over by me so I think we’ll probably be stirring up some stuff over in our vector.
Joe, if you know whats good for you, steer clear of this one. He is an Ass Murderer.
I finally have my online ordering enabled!
Special Launch Pricing – for the next 2 weeks prices have been discounted to $5 a bottle.
CLICK HERE
FJ
Joe:
Ken keeps buying your GREAT sauce for me at your office! You are almost famous, so please give us your autograph on the next bottle we buy from you!
Hey anyone make jerky with this sauce yet???
aka…Flaming Joe’s Jerk Sauce Jerky
Let me guess who didn’t read the review or my comments.
Looking forward to meeting you at WOF Joe, It was a pleasure doing this review! Great sauce!! You’ll be getting an order from me in the next few days.