Today we're gonna take a look at Karma Sauces Burn After Eating hot sauce. For those of you who don't know, Karma Sauce is a hot sauce company from New York State (think more Finger Lakes and less Manhattan), that's known for using locally grown ingredients, much from their own farm.
They tend to experiment with a lot of interesting combinations of heat levels and flavors. If you're familiar with the Hot Ones show, you've probably seen their sauces on the show.
The Burn After Eating label does not specify the exact type of peppers used in the sauce, but word on the street is that this has a blend of some super hots, which include Ghost Peppers, 7 Pot, and Scorpion. Other ingredients include: white vinegar, garlic, salt, ajwain seed, amchoor, hing powder (rice flour, gum arabic, asafoetida, turmeric), ginger extract.
When you first open the bottle of Burn After Eating, you get the very distinct aroma of super hot peppers. Any aroma from the spices is overwhelmed at first by the peppers, and a bit of the tang of vinegar.
The sauce is on the thicker side with some noticeable chunks, which is good since it means that it has a high concentration of peppers and other ingredients, and is lighter on the vinegar. There are no obvious seeds in the sauce, which is always a plus for us when looking at mouth feel and overall texture.
When trying the sauce you're hit first with the super hot peppers, which hit in the back of the throat, and then spread to the rest of your mouth. It has a lingering heat, probably due to Ghost Pepper, but the heat doesn't overwhelm the other flavors of the sauce.
Once you get used to the heat, you start to pick up on the taste of the peppers, garlic, ginger, and then the Indian spices. These spices become particularly prevalent when you exhale, and stay with you as the heat starts to fade (slightly).
Karma's Burn After Eating has a great level of heat. It's very, very spicy, but that heat doesn't overwhelm the flavor from the spices. It does have a very unique flavor, that you wouldn't expect from a typical hot sauce. Frankly, it's not a flavor that everyone is going to love, nor does it lend itself to the stereotypical hot sauce applications like wings, burgers, and pizza.
If you like Middle Eastern and Asian spices, however, this sauce can be a great addition to curry, rice dishes, chicken, and soups. Personally, we really enjoy the flavor of this sauce, but we're also fans of spicy Indian and other eastern foods.