Taste test: new Tabasco sauces

We try out two of Tabasco’s new marinade sauces and deliver our verdict.

Tabasco has launched a new range of sauces. They can be used as dips, marinades or as table sauces – but are they any good?

We tested two of the range out in our kitchen: Chipotle and Cola on pork; and Peppery Deep South Creole on chicken. Our meat was left to marinade in its respective sauce for six hours before being cooked up.

The results

Our tasters, on the whole, gave the Creole sauce the thumbs up. It has a rich tomato aroma and slight heat and fruity edge, which they, mostly, said was tasty.

The Chipotle and Cola sauce failed to win any fans though, as most thought it too sweet, and tasting of little but sugar – and not cola. Despite the sauce itself smelling quite smoky, the chipotle flavour barely comes through at all.

My opinion

I love Tabasco sauce – I use it at least once or twice a week to liven up a range of dishes. To me, it’s as much of a kitchen essential as salt and pepper.

So I was really disappointed by the insipid flavours presented by the marinade range. In my opinion, the Creole sauce tastes of sweet tomatoes and little else. There’s a modicum of heat but not what I’d call a ‘medium’ level of spice as the bottle claims.

And while cola is brilliant for cooking salted meat in (I promise you I’m not making this up, try cooking a ham in cola sometime), it just made our pork taste overly sweet. And chipotle should be a really strong, brash flavour that rolls around the mouth. But this just had a bare aftertaste of that, which is a real shame.

I will carry on stocking up my kitchen with my little red friend, but I’m entirely unconvinced by his new taller brothers.

Have you tried Tabasco's new sauces? Let us know what you thought in the Comments below.

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