Pineapple Rage from Minnesota

by M

I once had a layover in Minnesota. While I was there, an announcement came over the PA system, “last call for flight 525 don’chya know”. That was enough of Minnesota for me. I was on my way to Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. That was a good time, but Utah has weirdo Mormon laws for drinking, so a martini there is a joke. It is literally a shot and a half of vodka; ergo, I could never live in Utah. But this post is not about Utah; it is about Minnesota and ‘Famous Dave’s Pineapple RAGE Hot Sauce’.

So I have no idea who Famous Dave is. Apparently there is a chain of restaurants throughout the states called “Famous Dave's Legendary Pit Bar-B-Que” and the flagship of said restaurant is in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minnesota would not strike me as a big BBQ state, at least not in the way Texas would, but why not? This is the US and our pastime is getting fat and our favorite way of doing that is the BBQ. I don’t know if I have ever been to a BBQ that I didn’t enjoy. You could have shitty food, shitty beer, shitty people, and shitty weather and it is still a decent use of time to attend the BBQ.

Sauce: Pineapple Rage Hot  Sauce
Manufacturer: Famous Dave's
Chili pepper: Habanero (Capsicum chinense)
Country of Origin: United States of America (Minnesota)
Score: 4/10
 

To begin, Pineapple Rage is creeping towards more of a BBQ sauce than an actual hot sauce. The main ingredient is, of course, pineapple. The pineapple is grilled, but rather than a fresh grill taste it adds a smoky taste to the sauce. I would classify the smoky taste as not so good, closer to carcinogen smoke than nice tasting grill smoke. This could be attributed to the lengthy ingredient list. I have a general rule in life, most items should have a short list of ingredients. Like, if you buy bread, the ingredients should be water, flour, yeast, and not much more. This rage sauce has a bunch of ingredients and I am not sure what the heck they are, resulting in the not-so-fresh taste*. The chili pepper in the sauce is our good friend the habanero, which as we have mentioned before has a natural fruity flavor so the habanero makes an obvious pairing with the pineapple flavors. The habanero brings good heat but not too much. Too strong maybe for our Irish team member L but not for the rest of the team. All in all, what you get is a standard chain sauce here not atypical to a ‘Friday’s’ quality preparation. It is not bad, but I prefer something made with a little more heart and soul and less of a chain feel. The sauce would make for really good wings, but I have not been to Famous Dave’s and I am not planning to go anytime soon.

4/10 - maybe add an extra point if you are at a bbq. You can buy it here.

*Here’s a tip, if you like that grilled taste, but it is the dead of winter, use some smoked paprika in your cooking to add some good grill flavor.