My education begins...
Smoke Roasted Jalapeño Sauce (Smoke Canyon)
I decided to start with this year's overall THP winner. THP is a great, well-informed community with a good mix of growers, saucers, and aficionados, and their award has to mean something, right? I've also been taking all of the advice I'm receiving in this thread and building a list of sauces to try. More on that in coming posts. Smoke Canyon hit all the right notes... who doesn't love Jalapeños? Their distinctive, fresh, tangy flavor livens up many a meal, and smoking them bring softens them, brings them to life in ways a simple roast or chop can't. They make up just under half of the capsicums I eat already, why not try them in an exciting sauce? So I did.
Webpage: Fresh, Coordinated, and Functional
Smoke Canyon's website was easy to navigate. Their dark green on light green color scheme complements their signature pepper... looks like fresh jalapeños ready for the chomping. To the point, really. I believe their smoked jalapeño sauce is all they have left in stock, which worked out well because that was the one I wanted to try. I popped a couple bottles in a cart and ate the shipping fee. My mouth was already watering...
It took several weeks to arrive, not so much any fault of Smoke Canyon, but I must live on the very end of shipping routes because everything seems to take forever to get here. But arrive it did.
Bottle: Green and Direct
https://www.smokecanyon.com/productsordering/smoke-roasted-jalapeno-sauce/
Nice bottle, same color scheme as the web page, which I like. Not as ambitious as some of the other bottles I have on my taste-queue... I think they're going for broader appeal, which I can appreciate. Who doesn't like stylized jalapeños? Text has an old west theme, not a bad direction. Makes me thing of all the gunfights that must have preceded the bottling of the delicious sauce. After all, good sauce is something you got to protect, and sometimes you got to go outside the law, into the wilds of the Smoke Canyon to protect your sauce. Distinctive enough to set them off from some other products I've seen, but nothing threatening, which is appropriate to the sauce.
Straight from the Spoon:
Fit, Tangy, and Lively
When I popped open the bottle, I put a dollop on a teaspoon and went to town. The sauce is thin, as most of the vinegar sauces seem to be, but not runny. Fit, I'll say. Just thick enough to stay where you dab it, but not thick enough to bring body or texture itself to a dish. It's a pleasant, color coordinated lime green, just like the bottle, with flecks of black, probably from the smoked jalapeños or maybe black pepper.
The tangy sweetness hits your first. More the tang than the sweet. This is followed up by that lovely fresh jalapeño flavor, softened a bit by the smoke, which also brings a savory, charcoally note to the taste. The burn is very soft, subtle. My in laws could eat this sauce... not straight of course, but they wouldn't complain if I used it to bolster the flavor in a fresh salsa (so long as it didn't have
too many peppers in it... no one trusts me anymore!). A good, broad appeal sauce.
Overall the sauce is as advertised... the perfect sauce for a smoked jalapeño. I wouldn't disagree, and I'll be going through this bottle pretty quick. The body is a little thin, and the heat is very low for my tastes, but this makes it well suited for a variety of uses, from mixing into a chile dish or a salsa to just dabbing on eggs.
Taste Test 1: Panko Chicken Nuggets
I'm not really a wings guy, but my wife makes fantastic baked chicken nuggets with a panko-based breading. Hope that doesn't alienate too many of my fellow com-chili-rades. The nuggets happened to be on the menu the night the sauce arrived, so that is where I went after the straight taste test.
Here my fears were confirmed a bit... this isn't a good dipping sauce option. Rather, I'd go through probably half the bottle if I used it as a dipping sauce. With a dab of sauce directly on a nugget, the white meat came to life, dancing to the music of a thousand smoked jalapeños. But the sauce went quick if I ate a whole serving that way, which makes me wonder if it wouldn't have been put to better use mixing in with the breading. Will have to test if I really want to know.
That said, I bet it would be fantastic in a marinade, stretched with some lime juice.
Taste Test 2: Smoked Jalapeño Eggs
Ah, eggs, the perfect spicy food complement. Normally I cook two up in a cast iron, fold them over, plop 'em on a tortilla with some salsa and a little mexican cheese and go to town. I substituted the sauce for the salsa and gave it a shot.
A perfect complement, especially for a relaxing, down key lunch. Again, the smoke softens the naturally fresh zesty-ness of the jalapeños, making for an overall delicious experience. The eggs and cheese did soak up all the heat though, which I missed. I am going to have to get into the hotter sauces next time around, because though the flavor of the smoked jalapeño sauce is great, I like a good long burn to accompany my lunch.
Final Thoughts: A Sauce for the People
Smoke Canyon's smoked jalapeño sauce is a wonderful addition to a very broad range of foods. Moreover, its low heat makes it a crowd pleaser... I doubt its too hot for anyone visiting your place for the holidays. The smokey flavor softens the jalapeño tanginess, making this sauce more of a stroll through the Missouri countryside than the high stakes adventure the fonts on the bottle seem to offer.
I doubt the bottle will last a week.
There are TONS of great sauces made by independent producers. 
