I met with the folks at Pompano Beach, Florida-based The Spice Lab while attending the 2018 New York Summer Fancy Food Show. Their booth was chock-full of salts and spice blends, so I decided to take a gander to see if they had a few of my favorite mixes.
The women-owned company was founded in early 2010, and has since become one of the 5000 fastest-growing companies in the US, based on a recent Inc. magazine report.
To be blunt, I noticed at the show that many of their condiments and spreads had sugar added…this is a big no-no in my book. Not because I’m against sugar – far from it – it’s more that there are some products, such as fruit juice and you know, savory spice mixes, that shouldn’t contain any sweetener.
Out of the blue, I received a package with four of The Spice Lab’s blends (or in bbq parlance, rubs) – Peri Peri Seasoning, Everything {Bagel} + More, Spicy Brown, and Chicago Chop. According to the labels, save for the Everything + More, they’re best used in cooking meat or roasting vegetables, but you might want to sprinkle them on top of snacks, too.
According to me, (apart from the Everything + More) they’re all extremely salty, with disagreeable hints of sweet and picante. Just because I’m a fan of peri peri peppers, I liked that the spicy notes were prominent, but again, that, too was a kidney-killer.
Basically, I’d be willing to try other non-blended products from The Spice Lab, to give them the benefit of the doubt. To be fair, although sugar wasn’t such a prominent flavor profile in the mixes, there was still a sweet undertone every other bite.
Otherwise, I’d give 3/4ths of these samples a pass.
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