This my friend, is a prerelease review of TorchBearer Sauces (available for sale starting approximately September 2nd, 2005), based in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Their president, David Lynch thought enough of Meathenge to send us a gorgeous basket of sauces a few weeks ago for our review and taste buds. Mama’s tasters are a little tender for the habanero pepper (don’t roll that N budro, no sir!), so I got to have all the fun. And fun it was …

If you were to buy a sauce off a shelf, it’s gotta have two things, I figure. One of which is a fun label, something that engages you. The second being a story, you gotta have a story to go along with your sauce. And Torchbearer’s story made me laugh a bit as I struggled to remember some of the things I did back in my 20’s. Turns out 3 guys all in their 20s, David, Ben & Tim made some habanero preserves from peppers in their garden. I don’t know these guys personally, but I was 27 once and can get an idea as to how these afternoons and evenings go. Add chile peppers, cool Refreshing beverages and seeing who inadvertently picks their nose first and watching them dance around the room in extreme burning pain. Or seeing how many scotch bonnet peppers you can cram in your mouth at once. Pepper juice hurts a lot and for a long time, have you tried snorting milk to make the pain slow? No? You sure?
Well, after all that it turns out their sauce tasted amazing and decided to market the stuff. This is the point where my friends and I would have seen something shiny or gotten really thirsty and headed off in another direction. David and his pals headed off in a 72 hour trek to buy 666 pounds of peppers from someone in Texas. I wonder what that many chile peppers looks like?
They got to work and ended up winning 3 national awards at the Cajun Hot Sauce Festival in Louisiana, that ain’t easy folks. It wasn’t long after a friend from college introduced the 3 to The Neiman Group who did a pro bono marketing campaign, I’m really impressed. That, right there is more than I ever accomplished in my 20’s, at least that I’m aware of.
Alright, enough of that. The first thing that strikes is the pop art label, cool enough. But the proof is in the pudding, so to speak and I needed to TASTE. Telling me the sauce is tingly only goes so far, that’s sauce #4 in case you’re wondering. I had to start taking the lids off and dipping my spoon in. I was looking around for something to put the sauce on or in. But figured, if I’m going to taste the sauce, I should taste the sauce. And that’s exactly what I did, for a week! I’ve always really enjoyed the habanero pepper, it’s a fruity little demon. The pictured sauce is the Super Fancy #7 Sultry Sauce, an easy favorite. The first ingredient is mandarin oranges, citrus and habanero peppers, now that’s good thinkin’ right there.

Here we see some sliced carrots over a mesquite fire that’ve been bathed in Super Fancy #1 Every Day Sauce. This sauce don’t have much heat, but it does carry a nice balance of sweet, tangy with that habanero love on the back end. Just to give you an idea of how tender these sauces can be (not the hotter ones foo), I smooshed the Sultry Sauce of a slice of rabbit pate with chives and found it let the flavor of the meat right through. That’s pretty darned cool.
It was a few days in when I decided to pay more attention to the words on the ingredient list than the words on the front, made it easier to see how hot things were going to be. Such as, if habanero peppers were first on the list, or near the tail end. It pays to read sometimes, ya know. Speaking of which, one of the sauces is named Slaughter, that sucker reigns in at 67,582 Scoville Units. That’s really hot, just so you know.
The only complaint I have is the little teeny tiny (too teeny tiny) notice that opened jars need to be refrigerated. I know I know, most sauces do. But I still looked and I missed it quite a few times, of course I’ve never been accused of being quick with the eye.
To sum it all up, David, Ben and Tim have clearly had a good time putting this all together. And considering they’ve made it this far, they’ve put in the time and hard work it takes to get it to market. This effort and time shows in the quality of their products, all you have to do is taste.
note: Sauces will be available for sale September 2nd, 2005
TorchBearer Sauces
http://www.torchbearersauces.com/
717-877-7848