This is our very 1st Canadian Hot Sauce review. Our review team consists of Jay Cunningham aka Crazy Cunner and our beloved Mer. Mer has been on hiatus for a while as he left California to move to Wisconsin, then to his home country of Canada. When Ben Peterson, Chef/Co-Owner of Heron Rock Bistro & Crooked Goose Bistro came to me looking for some feedback for his restaurant made hot sauce, I was all into setting the review up for him. Since Ben was in Canada, and Jay had reached out to me earlier on about forming a Canadian review team, this was a perfect launching pad. Ben wanted to ship his Chokeslam hot sauce to see if our chilehead team would like it just as much as his customers have. This review had major delays in putting it here on ILIS, and for that I have to give Ben my sincerest apologies. One of the 3 reviewers who he shipped Chokeslam to, bailed on me, but not before he held me up with endless excuses and promises it was coming. Eventually I had to move on and give Ben what I promised to him, even if it was minus one of the reviewers. Thanks to Mer though, he brought in his friend Schwy, (Chris Schweir) to help out with the review.
Ben, (pictured at the top, is planked by his sous chefs) provided a little background for you all…
A little about me: My business partner, Andrew Moffatt, and I created the Heron Rock Bistro almost 8 years ago now in the neighborhood of James Bay, in Victoria. Being a big spice fan myself (and a Chef) I wanted to offer our guests a great hot sauce option that wasn’t just the ubiquitous Frank’s or Tabasco. The name (and subsequent wrestling-themed Roddy Piper logo) was actually spawned before the recipe itself, through a brainstorm session with one of my cooks at the time, Jason Zunino. With the hard part accomplished we set to creating the recipe. As we dipped our spoons and sampled the virgin batch, Jason looked at me and said, “Maybe we should call it Sister Slap, ’cause this is no Chokeslam!”
We had a good laugh at that, and went back to the drawing board. Instead of using exclusively jalapeno peppers, we incorporated a healthy dose of habaneros, which, of course, gave us that kick we were looking for. It was an immediate success with our patrons, and continues to be a staple on the tables of Heron Rock (and now the Crooked Goose as well), particularly during breakfast/brunch times. We’ve only occasionally shipped the sauce to fans abroad, and this will be our second Official Tasting and Online Review as recently a new friend from down South, Derrick Wood, blogged about his Chokeslam experience.
Derrick Wood, one of our own reviewers enjoyed this product enough to facilitate this review between Ben and I. You can see his link above, so feel free to take in his feedback to round out these reviews. Thank you Derrick for setting this up. Now onto the reviews…
