21 Mar Baxter’s Original Jolokia Rum Voodoo
Review by Greg Wagenmakers
Product: Baxter’s Original Jolokia Rum Voodoo
Location of Manufacture: Wellington, New Zealand
Ingredients: White Vinegar. Hot Chilli Peppers. Garlic, Dark Rum, Molasses, Dark Cocoa, Spices, Sea Salt and thickener.
Review: Our friends from across the Tasman Sea really know how to craft a fantastic chilli sauce. Perhaps it’s the clean air, the crystalline glacial water or volcanic earth. Perhaps it’s a combination? Whatever it is, Baxter’s Original know what they’re doing. Jolokia Rum Voodoo continues Baxter’s Originals’ mission of being gluten free. Quite often gluten free products are compared to adjectives such as ‘plain’, ‘bland’ or ‘dull’. This sauce is anything but.
The spoon taste test delivers a satisfactory throat burn thanks to the bhut jolokias that lay in its combustion chamber. The typical lingering effect of these chillies is present as one will feel the slow warmth slide down the oesophagus as the mouth burn subsides.
There is a sweet, yet savoury hint to the sauce, however, the headlining ingredient, ‘Rum’ is not at the foreground of flavour. Being fourth on the ingredient list, I would have expected its flavour to be more present. I would echo those sentiments for the cocoa. I wasn’t expecting the sauce to be a spicy alcoholic beverage with a side of chocolate, but perhaps those ‘different’ ingredients could have had a tad more spotlight.
A chilli fan however, knows that sauces aren’t supposed to be had on their own. When this sauce was added to my creamy pasta dish, a new marriage was arranged and these two flavours will forever be forged together with this reviewer. When an Alfredo or carbonara pasta dish is served, do yourself a ‘fLavour’ and add some dashes of Voodoo to it. They are seriously match made in a metaphorical heaven.
Heat wise, this sauce rates a 8/10 and flavour wise, 8.5- A definite partner of creamy pasta dishes.
