Flavor Anonymous Review: Not Your Ordinary Spice Rubs

Flavor Anonymous Spice Review

Thinking about how to review Flavor Anonymous spices is like trying to speak the language in a foreign land.

It seems like you can communicate as normal but when you try to speak, it sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.

I noticed a post about Flavor Anonymous in one of the Facebook groups about outdoor cooking.

The name popped up a handful of times over the course of a couple of weeks. 

The more I saw people posting about Flavor Anonymous, the less I understood it.

Yet people I respect were posting about it.

And then something changed.

As quickly as it had arrived, it disappeared.

But not entirely.

The more I investigated, it turned out that people I know are actually involved with Flavor Anonymous.

It's the brainchild of Shane Draper, whom I met at the 2017 World Food Championships, and his barbecue buddy Dylan Lipe. 

In the world of grilling, smoking, barbecue, and outdoor cooking it's often the understated and nonchalant people who provide the real value.

I've found the experts who give themselves a nickname, profess themselves a Dr. of something, or barnacle onto a passing trend are typically about as knowledgeable as a kindergartener when it comes to the culinary arts.

The Draper and Lipe I know are about as nonchalant as it gets.

 

 

I do respect people who can smoke meat.

I respect people who can grill a decent steak, and I respect people who are proud of what they cook.

But what separates the chumps from the people with chops is having culinary acumen.

By no means do you need to have attended culinary school or have had any formal training to have culinary skills.

But if you have an open mind, a decent head on your shoulders, and a willingness to learn and try new things, you're already ahead of the game.

And that's just it.

Although initially mysterious, Flavor Anonymous leads with the idea that the freshest and most unique ingredients make the freshest and most unique dishes.

The blends of spices are formulated to give you, the cook, an advantage.

Flavor Anonymous is like the kid from your neighborhood who grew up playing and loving baseball.

But Flavor Anonymous is different than other kids. It grew up with a pitching machine and a batting cage.

When most kids would get up to bat three or four times during a baseball game, Flavor Anonymous already saw thousands of pitches.

This amount of experience is something that takes years to perfect on the baseball diamond.

But in the culinary batter's box, it's accessible to anyone in the know. Anyone who is in the know about Flavor Anonymous. 

My first experience with Flavor Anonymous was when I tried the initial offering, Moo'd Enhancer.

Moo'd Enhancer is a hand-measured blend of spices and other ingredients formulated to make meats more delicious, but especially wonderful with beef.

Flavor Anonymous popularity on social media made it a hot commodity

Although I was excited to try Moo'd Enhancer, it wasn't that easy. For close to a month, Moo'd Enhancer had been sold out.

Social proof is a real thing, and the more I saw people posting delicious dishes they'd made with Moo'd, the more I was dying to try some.

Customers who bought multiple one-pound bags of  Moo'd Enhancer were posting how they were getting antsy that their stash was running low. Its out of stock status on the website was shrouded with mystery.

At this point, I had to try Moo'd Enhancer. 

I joined their Facebook page. Turned on alerts, and subscribed to the mailing list for bbqproshop.com to get an email notification when they were ready to take my money. 

It may have been a Flavor Anonymous Facebook Live with Draper or something he said in the Facebook group that tipped me off, but Moo'd Enhancer would be available the next morning if I chose to login and grab some.

The next morning when the coffee had brewed its last drop, I logged in and found Moo'd Enhancer, and its swiny new culinary counterpart, The Cure, were both in stock. I added a couple of each to my cart and checked out before my coffee had even cooled enough to drink.

The spices arrived here in Montana maybe three days after I was notified they had shipped. 

Anxious with anticipation, I tore into the Moo'd and gave it a sniff.

It's a bouquet of flavors. Savory, herbaceous, and confusing.

What am I smelling? What am I tasting? How will this be on burgers tonight?

It takes a lot to differentiate one burger from another. But it didn't take a lot of Moo'd to set these apart from the taste of our normal garlic-salt-pepper blend.

Moo'd has all the nuances one may expect but there are other flavors too.

Flavors that are hard to identify, but fun to guess at.

Is it cumin? Coriander? A few microns of rosemary?

Draper won't tell me, and I'm slightly embarrassed for asking.

What he does tell me is that his suppliers are having conference calls with their suppliers about the availability of some of the lesser-known ingredients. Of course, these are the most expensive of the spices available.

I've since tried Moo'd on all kinds of beef, but other proteins and veggies too. It's just as brilliant with breakfast potatoes on the Blackstone griddle as it is on burgers or chicken wings. in the indoor air fryer.

Is Flavor Anonymous's The Cure perfect for pork?

Mood's first cousin, The Cure, got a hall pass the first week or so after arrival.

Not because I wasn't excited to try The Cure, but because it was doing its thing.

It was working as a cure for a pork loin, similar to the one I saw Lipe coaching a Facebook follower through when he was trying to make Canadian bacon. 

After being on a 5-day bender in a freezer bag, The Cure and pork loin came to an agreement on my Kamado Joe grill, resulting in some delicious roasted pork.

It worked awesome both as roasted pork, but also made insane deli-style pork after an evening in the refrigerator and a few hot laps on the meat slicer the next day.

The Cure would go on to get added to smoked meatloaf, ramen stir fry, and I even tried a few pinches of it on vanilla ice cream.

Its simplicity speaks volumes.

Salty, sweet, and savory, and a whiff of heat. For porky white meat, The Cure is hard to beat.

Just as my romance with Moo'd and The Cure was really starting to blossom, a couple more clucking spices showed up at the dance.

But this time the spices are more birds of a feather.

Cock-a-Voodoo and Dirty Gringo are equally as mysterious as their fraternity brothers but cater more toward the chicken chapter of the curriculum.

Cock-a-Voodoo is just as it sounds. A spiritual folkway of flavors for poultry which leaves other spices feeling well, chicken.

Chicken, perhaps the most blank of the meat canvasses, is all about what you make of it. And the Voodoo brings just the right amount of bold in a world of otherwise ordinary chicken seasonings.

The Dirty Gringo on the other hand leaves far less to the imagination. 

Like a spaghetti western, Dirty Gringo is the hero who arrives in a Southwestern town to save the miners, gamblers, and people shopping at the general store from the monotony of bland chicken.

But Gringo, unlike the other offerings, has more identifiable flavors. After using it a few times, it screamed for fajitas. And tequila.

Equal parts Gringo and Voodoo fit together like a cowboy with a well-used saddle. 

I pour two shots of tequila and season chicken with the Voodoo-Gringo (a.k.a. Dirty Cock). One shot goes into the chicken to make a seasoning paste. The other shot passes my lips to ease the anticipation.

Flavor Anonymous's reputation precedes itself tho.

I have nothing to be worried about and it makes some of the best chicken fajitas I've had in some time.

They've since gone on to launch more flavors like The Notorious RED, Burger Bomb, and Double Down along with its culinary cohort Ante Up. 

The boys don't seem to be slowing down any time soon and are continually coming up with new ways to make your food taste better. 

They've even launched a sidecar project under the name PitDaddy Outfitters which has the vibe of all-purpose seasonings specifically designed for use at the cabin. 

If you're looking for something different, out of the ordinary, fresh, and delicious you just can't go wrong with what Flavor Anonymous has to offer. 

Check them out at the Flavor Anonymous website or you can also purchase their products at bbqproshop.com.