Hot Sauce #3: Whoa Nellie!! Hot Sauce

My first impression of Hot Sauce #3 - Whoa Nellie!! Hot Sauce from Beanie's Chuck Wagon - was a mixture of amusement, scorn and ohmygodineedtotrythat.


I couldn't remember the last time I saw a grocery store product whose packaging so clearly and pointedly said "This will give you the runs." It was remarkable, like they were actually trying to keep you away from the hot sauce. Ridiculous name, synthetic appearance, ambiguous potency - it was like Mitt Romney in bottle form. Perhaps not coincidentally, it has a jackass on its logo.

How it ended up in my shopping cart is unclear. Part of me thinks I just wanted an easy target for my next blog, a hot sauce I could obliterate in a scathing review with lots of little jokes. Like this one: How is Whoa Nellie! Hot Sauce like Mitt Romney? Neither one has a chance of becoming president. Gold! The punchlines would practically write themselves. For example, Whoa Nellie! is produced in a town called Intercourse, Pennsylvania ha ha ha ha snort.

What happened next is what we in the multi-million-dollar hot sauce writing industry call "irony." Maybe not really irony in the textbook sense. But certainly irony in the Alanis Morissette sense. Because as of this moment, Whoa Nellie! is sitting on top of the heap, my current face. Fave, I mean. That was a funny typo, so I left it.

Taste: I was shocked by Whoa Nellie!!'s sweetness. The green jalapeno flavor dominated, but there was something sugary underneath. Which makes sense, because the bottle lists sugar as the third ingredient. So, you know, mystery solved and stuff. But the sweetness was balanced out with a distinct tang, the result of the tasteful application of vinegar and lemon juice. I was completely captivated, so entranced that, for a brief moment, I even stopped wondering about what sort of toxic super-sludge they used to get that sinister, blistering green color. Whatever it was, I knew that 1) It was probably going to kill me, and 2) It definitely shared some active ingredients with whatever John Boehner uses to get his face that strangled-orange color. But I didn't care, because mmmmm.

Kicked.

Burn: Whoa Nellie!! has an immediate, moderate burn that doesn't quite live up to its name. It is an angry, barking burn that never fully sinks its fangs in. Its sting is somewhere around a 7 – enough to give you a smack, but not enough to leave a mark. On a hotness scale of Gimli the Dwarf to Arwen the Elf, I give it a Pippin, the mischievous hobbit. The burn is sustained, but gets no worse, so if you’re still standing after the first punch, you'll probably win the bout.

Verdict: Whoa Nellie!! officially knocks Cholula off its perch as the new reigning king of hot sauces (of this blog) (so far). Who knew something so ugly and green on the outside could turn out to be so beautiful on the inside? Everybody who saw “Shrek,” I guess. Anyway, lesson learned. Never judge a hot sauce by its artificially colored cover.