Texas Pete Buffalo Wing Sauce

I have some great parents. They are retired now and often make trips South into the United States on vacation. They will bring me back things we can`t get up here in Ontario, like Cherry Coke Zero, or Cherry Coke. They also frequently pick me up various hot sauces and on this occasion they picked me up some Texas Pete sauce. But not just any Texas Pete, but Texas Pete Buffalo Wing Sauce.

I`ve heard of Texas Pete before, but have never tried it. Wikipedia says of the sauce:

"Texas Pete is a Louisiana-style hot sauce in the United States manufactured by the TW Garner Food Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The brand has 6.0 oz bottles with bright red sauce, shaker top, and white and yellow label featuring the name in red and "Texas Pete", a red silhouette cowboy. Texas Pete is fairly mild, registering 747 on the Scoville heat scale."

But as I mentioned, I didn't just get Texas Pete, I got the Buffalo Wing Sauce.



I love the logo: a cowboy with a whip. While his pants aren't my style, this is a mascot that says "Watch Out!" or "Do What I Say!" - it all depends on your context I guess. There's a 'legend' about the origins of the sauce, a sauce that is not even from Texas. In the 1930's the Garner family was creating the sauce and wanted to brand it with a spicy image, but something that was still patriotic. What was more American and more spicy than a cowboy from Texas? And thus Texas Pete came about.

The first ingredient on the bottle was peppers. That seemed like a good start for a sauce, if not vague. What kind of pepper? Bell pepper? Scotch bonnet? OK realistically I know it's cayenne, but I don't like the un-detailed ingredient list. Natural butter flavour also impressed me on the list. This was going to be an interesting sauce.

This sauce looked really good to me. I think I was excited to try something that was new and not easily accessible, and it looked like a good classic hot sauce. I opened up the bottle and it smelled like Buffalo wings. Actually, it was heavy on the butter smell. So not as vinegary or peppery as other sauces.

The look of the sauce is a red-orangy with little golden globes. Beautiful. Just beautiful. The sauce was very runny - thicker than water, but not by a whole lot.

I knew that the wings had to be done traditional Buffalo style. So I had my fresh wings, no dusting, no breading, just deep fried until they were a golden crisp. I took use some paper towel to remove some excess oil and they sat in the big metal bowl, screaming for sauce.

So I added the sauce. I was a bit worried that the sauce was too runny to cling to the wings. But other than that worry, things were looking good.

And the toss! On a side note, can I tell you how hard it is to toss a giant heavy bowl full of wings in my dominant hand, which trying to take a decent photo with the other? As I concentrate on trying to hold the camera still, the wings either don't get tossed, or I don't pay attention and I almost lose a wing out the bowl. That or I get a crappy photo. In hind sight yes a tripod would have been useful.

Ok the wings have been tossed half-assed. They look good, but they need more sauce. Time to put the camera down and just make sure the wings are done right.

Huzzah! The wings are perfectly sauce (if I do say so myself). Look at that drip of sauce . . . that's how a Buffalo wing should look when you pick it up. Crispy skin and saucy sauce.

There was a nice nip of heat that was right there at the start of my wing, continued as I tore it apart, and then was still there when I put the bone down. It wasn't hot enough to make me cough or cry, but the build up wing after wing was enough to keep me very aware that there was some heat involved.

The taste of the sauce was good. I could taste the layers of butter, vinegar and cayenne. I did enjoy the sauce, but I prefer to add my own butter. It's kind of like Frank's Buffalo Wing sauce,  it isn't as authentic or great as taking the original sauce and adding butter yourself, but if you want Buffalo wings fast and now, this is a good time saver.

Oh I had some carrot sticks to veg-up this meal. I wish I had some blue cheese dip for them though.


FINAL SCORE:    Good taste, good smell, good bite, good sauce. I really want to try their standard sauce now. 3.5/6


Texas Pete Buffalo Wing Sauce
texaspete.com