Torchbearer Sauces – The Rapture
Torchbearer is a saucemaker I love not just for the creativity of their sauces, but for the creativity of their bottle art. The Rapture, being the company’s hottest sauce, presents with label art that warns of its painful nature along with the forward presence of the Scorpion Peppers within.
Torchbearer is also interesting in that they quote their nutritional information per tablespoon instead of per teaspoon like most manufacturers. Using the smaller teaspoon serving allows those companies to round down things like grams of carbohydrates and sugar to 0 as well as to present a 0 or very small calorie number. Using a full tablespoon serving size is more honest in my opinion as it allows a better idea of the nutritional content of the sauce. Even with the larger serving size on the label the sodium content on this sauce is very low, something that may be of importance to those watching their salt intake.
The first five ingredients of this sauce are all peppers – Trinidad Scorpion Peppers, Moruga Scorpion Peppers, Carolina Reaper Peppers, Bhut Jolokia (Ghost Pepper) Peppers, and Habanero Peppers in that order. Given that, the nose of this sauce is unmistakably of chili mash, and when you open the cap you know you’re in for some big heat. The texture is medium-thick with a deep red color and some texture from the real peppers used.
Tasting this for the first time is a staggering experience. There’s an initial wave of brightness from the Reapers, and a strong floral fruity taste from the Scorpions, followed by a building slow burn from the Ghost Peppers. There’s a very fruity taste at the beginning, it reminded me of ripe cherries, followed by a complex interplay of different pepper flavors. There’s a major punch of heat up front followed by even more heat building in the back. If the first wave of heat is like taking a punch to the face from a professional boxer, the build-up afterwards is being swept up in a tsunami and carried into an active volcano.
This is a very pepper-forward sauce, and if you love the flavor of super-hot peppers this is going to be absolute heaven for you. There are also some subtle flavors playing below the surface – the carrots, oranges, tomato, and garlic can’t compete with the flavor of the super-hots, but they do fill in the gaps and make this a cohesive and delicious sauce.
If you’re looking to test your limits with a sauce that will provide you a complex interplay of some of the hottest peppers in the world, this is absolutely worth a try.
Ingredients: Trinidad Scorpion Peppers, Moruga Scorpion Peppers, Carolina Reaper Peppers, Bhut Jolokia (Ghost Chili) Peppers, Habanero Peppers, Carrots, Mandarin Oranges, Tomatoes, Distilled White Vinegar, Canola Oil, Garlic, Sugar, Chili Powder, Salt, Black Pepper
Heat Level: 10/10, this is the hottest sauce I have ever tasted, and absolutely in the running for the hottest sauce on the market that doesn’t use extract. This is for serious chile heads only, and even those with high tolerance will find pain in the experience.
