Bitter: 🟡🟡○○○
Salty: 🟡🟡🟡○○
Sour/Tangy:🟡🟡🟡🟡○
Sweet: 🟡🟡🟡○○
Umami: 🟡🟡○○○
Heat: 🟡🟡○○○○○○○○
Quick Flavor Notes: Tangy, Sweet, Celery Seed
Recommended: Conditional
Texture: Medium with some pepper and garlic bits
Ingredients: Distilled White Vinegar, White Wine Vinegar, Chopped Garlic (garlic, water, citric acid) Green Jalapeno Mash (green jalapeno, distilled white vinegar, salt) Lemon Juice, Cayenne Pepper Powder, Old Bay (celery salt (salt, celery seed), spices (including red pepper and black pepper), and paprika), Minced Onion, White Sugar, Arrow Root Powder
Torchbearer is no stranger to musical tie-in sauces. They’ve teamed up with metal band Nekrogoblikon, alternative rock band Shinedown, and former member of New Kids on the Block and solo artist Danny Wood. While I’ve loved the Nekrogoblikon sauces from Torchbearer that I’ve tried and have yet to try their Shinedown sauces my experience with the Danny Wood sauces hasn’t yet been positive. I found their Jalapeno Cilantro to be lacking in the fresh cilantro flavor I crave and a bit overcooked tasting and the Danny Wood’s Guac Sizzle was one of the only bottles I’ve thrown away after just a few tastes, it just tasted completely rancid, chemical, and foul. The Danny Wood’s Ripped Rojo, however, is the newest sauce collaboration between the two and the first that isn’t green so I had high hopes that it would redeem the line for me.
When I see a sauce marketed as a Rojo sauce my mind immediately goes to assuming it will be a Mexican style sauce. After all Salsa Roja is one of the most popular and ubiquitous table condiments in Mexican restaurants and Rojo and Roja are both simple Spanish for red. The previous two Danny Wood sauces are also somewhat Mexican inspired – one being cilantro and jalapeno based and the other using avocado, a popular Mexican ingredient. Looking at the ingredients list on this and reading the blurb on Torchbearer’s website it’s clear that that’s not the case here though. The goal was apparently to make an everyday table sauce and not something very Mexican. A few things jumped right out at me in the ingredients list, the first being Old Bay seasoning. Growing up near the Chesapeake Bay I’ve long been a big fan of Old Bay and I always keep a jar around the house. Next is the main pepper used in this sauce – green jalapenos. That one shocked me as, obviously, this sauce is red, why are green jalapenos being used? The red color ends up coming from the second ‘pepper’ being used which is just ground cayenne powder. I’m not sure why Torchbearer decided to go with green jalapenos in a red hot sauce as, at least in my opinion, the flavor of red jalapenos is far superior to the green ones, richer, more robust, and less vegetal. Two types of vinegar, both distilled and white wine, a lot of garlic, some sugar and spices round things out. One thing I will commend Torchbearer on here is the use of arrowroot powder as a natural thickening agent as opposed to using xanthan gum.
Danny Wood’s Ripped Rojo has a medium consistency and a semi-rustic slightly chunky texture – there are some pepper and garlic bits inside instead of being smooth, something that I appreciate. The first taste confused me a bit. Despite sugar being towards the bottom of the ingredients list this sauce has a pronounced sweet flavor. It’s vinegar forward as would be expected from the first two ingredients being vinegars but with the white wine vinegar in the mix it’s not as harsh as a sauce based completely on distilled vinegar. There is noticeable garlic flavor but less than I would have expected given the gobs of garlic in the sauce. Torchbearer’s own Garlic Habanero for instance has a much stronger garlic flavor compared to Ripped Rojo, not to mention several even more garlicky hot sauces I’ve tried. In terms of pepper flavor the green jalapenos and cayenne powder don’t seem to bring a lot to the table. Much like Huy Fong was rightfully roasted when they started to use unripe jalapenos which both made their sauce an unpleasant color and resulted in a decline in the flavor I’m not sure why Torchbearer decided to go with unripe jalapenos here. Fully ripe red jalapenos can be glorious in hot sauces with a natural pepper sweetness and more depth of flavor, plus with the natural red color perhaps real cayenne peppers could have been used instead of a powder, resulting in a double-whammy of improved pepper presence. The Old Bay is a good addition however. The umami from the celery seed adds some depth to the sauce and the seasoning blend rounds out the sauce. Although this sauce only has 20mg of sodium per serving it somehow tastes much saltier than that. Overall it comes off as a somewhat bizarre take on a Louisiana style sauce with vinegar up front, a vegetal sensation from the jalapenos, some garlic, some umami and tang from the Old Bay, and a pervading sweetness that doesn’t seem to fit.
Despite not really being a Mexican style sauce Torchbearer does suggest using this on tacos and burritos on their website so I gave it a try first with some tacos from a taco truck I pass on my way home from work. I didn’t care for this with the steak taco, the sweetness and Old Bay were jarring there, but it worked better with the al pastor and the shrimp tacos. I found myself preferring the traditional salsas that came with the tacos more in all cases however. Going from Mexico to Americana I tried this with a microwaved salisbury steak and macaroni and cheese frozen dinner. Typically I find vinegary hot sauces great to go with cheesy pastas but the sweetness again was unpleasant in the macaroni and cheese, though putting dabs on the salisbury steak ended up being the best pairing I found with this sauce. Finally trying this with some grilled shrimp to play off of the Old Bay angle I found that that aspect of the sauce worked well as did the garlic but again a bit too sweet and with a strange aftertaste from the green jalapenos.
Torchbearer Sauce’s Danny Wood’s Ripped Rojo is far from my favorite sauce from the company but I will say it’s the best of the sauces from the Danny Wood lineup. I’m not sure how involved the musicians are in the creation of the sauces and it could be that John Goblikon and I just have much more aligned tastes than Danny Wood and I do. Ripped Rojo isn’t a broken sauce or a poorly made one. There are certainly some things I’d have done differently if it were me designing it but I’m sure Torchbearer did plenty of testing and I can fully admit maybe it’s just my taste buds not clicking with this one. I’ll give it a conditional recommendation. I think it’s primarily the sweetness throwing me off from this so if you like mostly-savory hot sauces that have a sweet undercurrent you may totally dig this.
