Backyard and Beyond
By Dale Irvin

“I had a little garden in the back yard like most folks,” noted Hiram Davis. But out there along with the tomatoes and the cucumbers Davis’ garden packed a little extra kick.

“I’ve always liked the hot stuff. One year I grew a bunch of habaneros.  And they made and made and made.”

They “made” so many that Davis soon had a bushel basket full of the dried hot peppers and decided to try his hand at making hot sauce in his kitchen.  The stuff proved so popular with his friends, it has now sprung into a full line of sauces with Davis’ signature colorful monikers like Global Warming, Bayou Blow Torch and Mr. Blister’s Garlic Extreme.

“They’re canned hot,” explained Davis about what makes his sauces different from most. “The others are cold blended.  They never see heat. They depend on salt and garlic to combat the bacteria.”

So how different are they? To find out I turned to my weekend collective of “breakfast buds,” a revolving group of friends that share the occasional weekend morning meal.  We chose the fairly neutral palate of the scrambled eggs from Piccadilly’s breakfast buffet as our testing grounds.

On this particular morning the “buds” included Dave, Robert, and Alex.  Each sampled a random selection of three of Davis’ hot sauces:  Sweet Cajun Fire, Global Warming, and Bayou Passion.
“I like the Sweet Cajun Fire the best, because the flavor of it is evenly dispersed,” concluded bud Dave. “The minute it hits your tongue the sensation stays even during your entire experience.  It’s a very hot sensation, but there are no ups and downs.”

For bud Alex the frontrunner by a hair was Global Warming. “I’m not a fan of mustard, but I do like the kick. I’ve always been a fan of Scotch Bonnet peppers, even after I ate one whole once and cried for an hour. It was in a Cuban restaurant and I didn’t realize it was only for garnish.”

Bayou Passion ran a close second. “The Bayou Passion has an exceptional flavor, a mild easy flavor that tasted great on the eggs. I’m also a fan of garlic. It smells good too. I would take the kick of Global Warming and marry it to the flavor of Bayou Passion.”

And for bud Robert?

“The Bayou Passion was my favorite. I really liked the buttery flavor at the beginning, the spice kind of kicked in a bit later.”

Three quite different sauces, and by pure happenstance each had just the right combination of flavors for one of the buds. See the full line up of Davis’ hot sauces (including a couple with colorful names not suited for a family publication) at www.hongryhawg.com.

Add Comment

Name

Email (will not be published)

Personal Web site/Blog URL

Subject

Comment

Enter the letters you see in the image.

Click to get a new image.