naga Snake Bite – Pure Venom
Manufacturer & Website: www.thechileman.org
Ingredients: Onions, carrots, tomatoes, vinegar, naga morich, red chillis, ginger, sugar, red bell peppers, garlic, olive oil, salt, 6.6Mshu chilli extract.
The consistency of Pure Venom is very nice – thick, but not chunky, and pours very easily without fear of spilling. It’s a nice rusty orange, and the lacing shows only very fine sediment, mostly tiny bits of seed and pepper (presumably).
Pure Venom smells wonderful, naga-sweet and tomato-salty. The red chilli and naga is the first thing I detect, vinegar coming close afterwards. When I got used to the smell, I could detect each ingredient (with some difficulty), though I found the onions to be less present than I expected. Tomatoes and carrots are there in force, but everything is so well blended and balanced that it’s honestly difficult to separate the scents. The same is true of the taste – but we’ll get to that…
After spoon-testing this sauce on an empty stomach and feeling like I took Tony Jaa’s knee to the abdomen, I decided the prudent thing to do would be to wait until after lunch to try again. Frankly, all I remember from the first spoonful was the naga sweetness, and then the burn started. My face got red, I got the hiccups and I felt lightheaded for a while. The taste I liked, but the physical reaction was too distracting to analyze the flavors. Today I’ll keep my head on straight and give this a fair shot.
Onions and tomatoes are certainly more present on the second spoon test, and the vinegar is a bit strong. The naga flavor, of course, is huge, and the burn is crazy. After about a minute my throat is just in flames, but strangely my mouth is ok. Exhaling hurts my throat, and I’ve got just a thin sheen of sweat on the sides of my nose by my eyes. This is the point where glasses get foggy. I feel flushed, and my eyes are watering just a tiny bit. Hooo Dee! This is some HOT stuff! After three or four minutes my throat feels better and now my mouth is burning. It probably had been the whole time, I just couldn’t tell.
I’ve been having this sauce with every meal I’ve eaten for the past four or five days (excepting drunken noodle – there was enough sauce on it already). My favorite so far has been Mediterranean food. It goes fine on hot dogs, but the saltiness of the dogs kind of kills the flavor of the sauce. I haven’t had it on a burger yet (gasp!), but I did manage to get it on a veggie burger and it was fantastic. The sweet naga flavor delivers, and I don’t taste the extract one bit. The heat is awesome – very few sauces make me sweat, and this is among the best tasting TRULY hot sauce I’ve ever had. I really can’t make heads or tails of the ingredients separately, they’re blended perfectly and the naga flavor is so strong that the other flavors survive for all of a passing moment on the first bite, which is sweet with tomatoes and peppers. Then the heat hits, and hits hard. Something happens when I eat this sauce; the heat builds on the tongue, and then slowly works its way into the throat, which feels almost swollen and sticky with fire, so that from the collar up you’re just done to death. It’s awesome.
Some people are opposed to extract sauces. I can see why – many of them have a strange, chemically, metallic flavor. But writing off all extract sauces as inedible is unfair, and you’re doing yourself a disservice, especially if you truly like your sauces as hot as possible. Raw peppers will take you far, with fantastic flavor, but there is the natural limit. Adding just the smallest amount of extract can really kick the heat up, and with virtually no change to the flavor, if applied with care. This is one of the best tasting extract sauces I’ve ever had. More, one of the best tasting sauces I’ve ever had, period. I only hope Mark does another run of these – they’re worth it!
Flavor: 8.5/10 – Traditionally peppery, with nice naga sweetness!
Heat: From Nada to Naga, 8.5/10
Manufacturer & Website: www.thechileman.org
Ingredients: Onions, carrots, tomatoes, vinegar, naga morich, red chillis, ginger, sugar, red bell peppers, garlic, olive oil, salt, 6.6Mshu chilli extract.
The consistency of Pure Venom is very nice – thick, but not chunky, and pours very easily without fear of spilling. It’s a nice rusty orange, and the lacing shows only very fine sediment, mostly tiny bits of seed and pepper (presumably).
Pure Venom smells wonderful, naga-sweet and tomato-salty. The red chilli and naga is the first thing I detect, vinegar coming close afterwards. When I got used to the smell, I could detect each ingredient (with some difficulty), though I found the onions to be less present than I expected. Tomatoes and carrots are there in force, but everything is so well blended and balanced that it’s honestly difficult to separate the scents. The same is true of the taste – but we’ll get to that…
After spoon-testing this sauce on an empty stomach and feeling like I took Tony Jaa’s knee to the abdomen, I decided the prudent thing to do would be to wait until after lunch to try again. Frankly, all I remember from the first spoonful was the naga sweetness, and then the burn started. My face got red, I got the hiccups and I felt lightheaded for a while. The taste I liked, but the physical reaction was too distracting to analyze the flavors. Today I’ll keep my head on straight and give this a fair shot.
Onions and tomatoes are certainly more present on the second spoon test, and the vinegar is a bit strong. The naga flavor, of course, is huge, and the burn is crazy. After about a minute my throat is just in flames, but strangely my mouth is ok. Exhaling hurts my throat, and I’ve got just a thin sheen of sweat on the sides of my nose by my eyes. This is the point where glasses get foggy. I feel flushed, and my eyes are watering just a tiny bit. Hooo Dee! This is some HOT stuff! After three or four minutes my throat feels better and now my mouth is burning. It probably had been the whole time, I just couldn’t tell.
I’ve been having this sauce with every meal I’ve eaten for the past four or five days (excepting drunken noodle – there was enough sauce on it already). My favorite so far has been Mediterranean food. It goes fine on hot dogs, but the saltiness of the dogs kind of kills the flavor of the sauce. I haven’t had it on a burger yet (gasp!), but I did manage to get it on a veggie burger and it was fantastic. The sweet naga flavor delivers, and I don’t taste the extract one bit. The heat is awesome – very few sauces make me sweat, and this is among the best tasting TRULY hot sauce I’ve ever had. I really can’t make heads or tails of the ingredients separately, they’re blended perfectly and the naga flavor is so strong that the other flavors survive for all of a passing moment on the first bite, which is sweet with tomatoes and peppers. Then the heat hits, and hits hard. Something happens when I eat this sauce; the heat builds on the tongue, and then slowly works its way into the throat, which feels almost swollen and sticky with fire, so that from the collar up you’re just done to death. It’s awesome.
Some people are opposed to extract sauces. I can see why – many of them have a strange, chemically, metallic flavor. But writing off all extract sauces as inedible is unfair, and you’re doing yourself a disservice, especially if you truly like your sauces as hot as possible. Raw peppers will take you far, with fantastic flavor, but there is the natural limit. Adding just the smallest amount of extract can really kick the heat up, and with virtually no change to the flavor, if applied with care. This is one of the best tasting extract sauces I’ve ever had. More, one of the best tasting sauces I’ve ever had, period. I only hope Mark does another run of these – they’re worth it!
Flavor: 8.5/10 – Traditionally peppery, with nice naga sweetness!
Heat: From Nada to Naga, 8.5/10
