The Saboscrivner

I love mustard.  As far as I’m concerned, it is a perfect condiment, especially because there are so many styles and infinite subtle variations to choose from.  At the start of 2026, I officially started trying to lose weight by eating smaller portions and eating healthier in general, which includes fewer restaurant meals.  Mustard has been a godsend for jazzing up the simple, everyday, high-protein, low-fat foods I’ve been preparing in different ways to stave off boredom and blandness: chicken breast, lean pork loin, turkey, and of course sardines and other tinned seafood.  No matter if you’re eating the leanest, dryest chicken breast there is or a juicy, fatty, salty, decadent cut of meat, almost any savory dish can be improved by introducing an acidic component, and that’s where mustard really shines.

For my first-ever Cutting the Mustard back in 2021, I reviewed seven different mustards.  In 2022, I raised the stakes by reviewing ten different mustards in Cutting the Mustard II: The Search for More Mustard.  In 2024, I went above and beyond by reviewing 26 mustards (making up for skipping 2023) in Cutting the Mustard III: Mustardy Agreement.  Last year’s Cutting the Mustard IV: Mustard on the Beat included a whopping 18 new mustards.  And now, following my arbitrary tradition of posting these on Memorial Day weekend, we’re going to try this again!

I am opening with organic Dijon mustard from Whole Foods’ 365 private label.  I almost never use Dijon mustard by itself, on sandwiches, hot dogs, burgers, or anything else.  For me, Dijon is more of an ingredient.  I put a little into my homemade Caesar dressing, and whenever I roast lamb chops, I rub them down with Dijon.  But I tried a little on this Deutsche Kuche (pronounced “douche cooch”) Bavarian soft pretzel stick from Aldi, for the sake of this mustard mega-review, and it was good. 

The next two mustards were random finds at Big Lots, a store that specialized in random finds, like close-outs from other retailers.  Sadly, all the Big Lots locations closed over a year ago, but it was a neat place to browse, especially for interesting chips, sodas, and international foods.  I had never heard of the Morehouse brand, and I’ve never seen them anywhere else before or since.  For some people, that would be a few red flags right away, but for me, it was “Challenge accepted!”

I keep striking out with German mustards, even though Germany is a pretty big country for mustard consumption.  I never like the ones Aldi brings back twice a year for their German weeks, and I thought this Morehouse German mustard was kind of bland and forgettable on the same Aldi pretzel stick.  I would not buy it again, not that I could even if I wanted to.

The Morehouse horseradish mustard was brighter and spicier, so of course I liked it a lot more on this pretzel stick.  (Saboscrivner secret: I usually get multiple mustard shots out of a single “douche cooch” pretzel stick.  I haven’t been eating a whole pretzel with each mustard I sample and photograph!)  Anyway, I always like the sinus-clearing flavor and heat of horseradish, especially in mustard.  Stay tuned for more horseradish mustards that are even better!

I forgot where I found the Silver Spring chipotle mustard (left) and Beer’n Brat mustard (right) in Orlando.  Maybe Petty’s Meats, a bougie grocer in Longwood?  I’ve had very similar mustards from other brands before, but both were perfectly fine with the same soft pretzel.  The chipotle is very mild, spice-wise, but had a decent smoky, acidic kick. 
One of my favorite people in the world, a friend who is a true foodie and intrepid traveler, brought me the Lars Swedish Style spicy brown mustard (in the middle), and it was a standard Gulden’s-esque spicy brown, but I enjoyed it quite a lot.  I know it made it into a couple of batches of chicken salad that I make with Costco rotisserie chickens.

The same friend also brought me another Lars Swedish Style mustard.  This is the mild & sweet variety, which was a pleasant, middle-of-the-road mustard, but luckily not too sweet.  A lot of honey mustards are cloyingly sweet to me, and I am never okay with a “dessert mustard.”  This was a safe and solid choice for roast pork loin sandwiches and the like.   

Publix, Florida’s ubiquitous supermarket chain, where shopping is a pleasure for almost everyone but me, started carrying Mike’s Amazing mustards about a year ago, and they have even put them on BOGO sale a few times.  It’s a relatively cheap mustard as it is, usually around $1.99.  I bought two at my earliest opportunity to try them.  Here is Mike’s Amazing spicy brown mustard on one of many rotisserie chicken salad sandwiches I’ve made over the past year, and I know I mixed it into the chicken salad as well.  It was another Gulden’s-esque flavor, as one would expect.

I preferred the brighter taste of the Mike’s Amazing deli mustard, which was more like my beloved Ba-Tampte (but not on that level) than Gulden’s spicy brown.  I was enjoying a ham and cheese sandwich here, since I treat myself to a whole spiral-sliced ham about once a year when Aldi deeply discounts them after the holidays (I call them my “half-price Hanukkah hams”), but that’s not the only reason I liked this mustard better. 

Over a year ago, back in February 2025, I took a trip down to Miami to visit my parents and see one of my all-time favorite musical groups with my best friend: the legendary hip hop collective De La Soul.  That’s when I had one of the top two meals of my entire life, at Red Rooster Overtown.  But on my rare trips down to Miami, I like to stop at all the bougie grocery stores in Broward and Palm Beach Counties to hunt for unfamiliar mustards and other condiments that aren’t available here in Orlando.  I visited three markets and made out like a bandit.  I’ve been slowly making my way through this haul for over a year, all leading up to this review:

I found a few of these at Carmine’s Gourmet Market, one of the nicest and bougiest grocery stores I’ve ever been to, in tony Palm Beach Gardens.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many high-end condiments and sauces for sale at one place before, and I was in heaven.  They had several sauces and condiments with their own private label, including some mustards.  I bought the two most intriguing flavors.  The jalapeño mustard was paler and creamier than most spicy yellow mustards I’ve tried over the years, kind of like a cross between a yellow mustard and a Dijon.  As usual, the heat was more mild than wild, but I liked it a lot, especially on these crispy house-made potato chips that were left over from Runabout Brewing Co.

I am an onion freak, much to my wife’s chagrin.  I love onions and put them in or on everything.  Most of the time, I buy sweet onions, even when recipes call for harsher-tasting white or yellow onions, so I couldn’t pass up trying Carmine’s Vidalia onion mustard.  Now this one was surprisingly sweet, despite having the texture of grated onions giving it some thick body.  I’m so glad I tried it, but I don’t know if I would get this one again.  It was too sweet for me. 

But sometimes a sweeter mustard hits in all the right ways.  Kozlik’s is a Canadian mustard brand, and it is the finest I’ve ever encountered.  I’ve never had a bad Kozlik’s flavor; in fact, they have all been among the best mustards I’ve tasted in my life.  Unfortunately, nobody sells them in Orlando (The Ancient Olive in Winter Park used to, but not in years), and they are expensive, but I was glad to find them at Carmine’s.  I always love balsamic vinegar, figs, and dates, so I couldn’t pass up Kozlik’s balsamic fig and date mustard.  It was thick, sweet, rich, and tangy, and I can’t say enough good things about it.  For a guy who usually eschews sweeter mustards for anything spicy and deli-style, this was a huge hit.  Honestly, you could even dab this mustard on vanilla ice cream, and it would slap.  But if you put it on chicken, pork, or fish, you couldn’t go wrong. 

I also love maple as a flavor, and maple syrup can be a great ingredient in savory and spicy marinades and sauces.  I also indulged in Kozlik’s Amazing Maple mustard, and it lived up to its name.  This one would be amazing with salty breakfast meats, among other things.  I might have even spread some on a Sausage McMuffin with Egg, classy guy that I am.  

About 25 years ago, Food Network used to feature celebrity chefs who actually taught you how to cook on their shows, instead of just endless, pointless cupcake competitions.  I loved this era of Food Network, and it inspired me to become both a better home cook and a more adventurous diner in general.  Emeril Lagasse emerged from New Orleans as a successful chef, restauranteur, and multimedia mogul, to the point where he once owned two restaurants here in Orlando, both of which are long gone.  You don’t hear about Emeril much anymore, but every time I attempted one of his recipes, it was rad.

When I stopped at the Famous Market Deli, a kosher grocery store and delicatessen in Delray Beach, Florida, on the same trip, I was thrilled to find multiple mustards from Emeril’s own brand, which I’ve never seen for sale anywhere else.  I bought three of them.  How could I not?

This was a recent roast pork loin sandwich on toasted keto bread from Aldi, garnished with fresh spinach, homemade Chicago-style spicy giardiniera (that came out so well), balsamic glaze, and Emeril’s deli style mustard, which was another Gulden’s-esque mustard, but I think better.  As I’ve said before, I love strong flavors, and I’m obsessed with how acidic flavors really make every meal pop.  BAM!

Emeril’s horseradish mustard was even better, on yet another pork loin sandwich, this one topped with hot cherry peppers and Grillo’s pickles (my favorite commercially available pickles that I’ve found).  It made me feel things!  BAM! 

And here is yet another pork loin sandwich with giardiniera, Grillo’s pickles, and Emeril’s jalapeño mustard, a yellow mustard jazzed up with random tiny flecks of spicy peppers.  This would be a fabulous mustard for a hot dog, a Cuban sandwich, or anything else you’d put regular, everyday yellow mustard on.  With very few exceptions (like Beaver products), the “spicy” mustards are never as spicy as I anticipate or crave, but this was a fine product nonetheless, and it doesn’t have the weird and unnecessary ingredients I discovered in Beaver mustards.  BAM! 

Have I made you miss Emeril?  Maybe not so much?

For the longest time, you couldn’t get Nathan’s mustards anywhere in the Orlando area.  My dad craved them, so I ordered some for him from a mail order company called Pop Pop Foods, but the shipping was very high, so I didn’t get any for myself.  When I found Nathan’s deli mustard and spicy brown mustard at the Famous Market Deli last year, I bought a bottle of each for myself, even though I already reviewed the Nathan’s deli mustard in Cutting the Mustard III after trying it at my parents’ house.

But I tried Nathan’s spicy brown mustard on a delicious and keto-friendly egg bite I made earlier this year after blending eggs with cottage cheese, then filling baking cups with ham, jalapeño peppers, the egg and cottage cheese mixture, and I think muenster cheese, then baking them.  These were quick, easy, tasty, and carb-free bites I could microwave and chomp on whenever I wanted, and they paired exceptionally well with multiple mustards.  Nathan’s makes one of the better spicy brown mustards I’ve sampled in all my years — definitely better than Gulden’s or Mike’s Amazing.

A few weeks ago, I was at the gargantuan Walmart Supercenter near my home, actually getting some bloodwork done at the Quest Diagnostics lab inside the Walmart (something that always makes me think of a late-stage capitalist dystopia).  I rarely go out of my way to shop at Walmart, but if I’m there, I always look down the action figure aisle (old habits die hard) and check out the groceries to see what they have that other places don’t carry.  I was pleasantly surprised to see Walmart stocks Nathan’s deli mustard, spicy brown, and a new flavor that I wasn’t expecting but maybe should have: hot honey deli mustard!  I had to have it, and it did not disappoint.  It’s everything you love from the regular (very good) deli mustard, but with a touch of sweet and a pleasant amount of heat.  On yet another roast pork loin sandwich on keto bread, I tried the hot honey deli mustard with Sir Kensington’s chipotle mayonnaise and some sweet peppers I pickled myself in the leftover spicy brine from a larger jar of hot cherry peppers.  Everything paired so well, the sandwich practically sang. 
Hot honey is definitely having a moment right now, the way chipotle and sriracha were the “it” condiments in past years, and it makes sense.  Try hot honey on pizza some time, and you won’t regret it.  Deli purists might be appalled by the concept of Nathan’s hot honey deli mustard, but I thought the flavor profile worked very well, and I would get this one again.  (Don’t put this on pizza, though, or you will regret it.)

Sharp-eyed Saboscrivnerinos may have noticed the Emeril’s and Nathan’s mustards come in identical plastic bottles, so I’m guessing they are made at the same facility, although I could be wrong about that.

I first tried Sy Ginsberg’s New York Style deli mustard at the Palm Avenue Deli in Sarasota, Florida, a few years ago.  That was a wonderful deli meal, and I would be a regular patron if it wasn’t so many hours away from us.  But when I found Sy Ginsberg at the Famous Market Deli in Delray Beach, I had to get a bottle to enjoy at home.  This time I added it to egg salad, along with Foraging Fox smoked garlic mayo (something I picked up on clearance at Sprouts grocery store) and Hoff Dirty Dust, an awesome seasoning blend I picked up on clearance at Fresh Market.  Hoff was a hot sauce company that recently went out of business, but I loved their hot sauces and especially this seasoning, which tastes just like the seasoning on Zapp’s Voodoo potato chips — salty, tangy, smoky, vinegary, spicy, and sweet all at once.  I bought the place out because I knew it would be gone forever.  Anyway, I always like egg salad, and this was an excellent batch, thanks in large part to Sy Ginsberg.  What a mensch!

Last summer, hip hop DJ and producer Mustard (real name: Dijon Isaiah McFarlane, which is just perfect) got together with condiment giant Heinz to release a limited edition MUSTAAAAAARD, which was chipotle honey mustard.  I remember it was briefly available at Buffalo Wild Wings restaurants (which I really do not like) and at some Target stores and Amazon.  I had to try this, especially as a fan of both mustard and hip hop, so feeling that FOMO, I ordered my bottle from Amazon.  (Of course, months later, I found these at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet marked down to a dollar each.) 
Heinz MUSTAAAAAARD tasted more like a vaguely mustard-based barbecue sauce, slightly sweet and slightly smoky, but not the least bit spicy.  It had a creamy consistency, but there wasn’t any oil added.  The ingredients were distilled white vinegar, sugar, water, mustard seed, honey, and less than 2% of salt, mustard flour, natural smoke flavor, chipotle peppers, molasses, paprika, spices, turmeric, and “natural flavor.”

This is an earlier chicken salad sandwich on the excellent sourdough bread from the Sourdough Bread House, a Turkish treasure here in Casselberry that I recommend to all locals.  I added Sy Ginsberg’s deli mustard to the chicken salad along with Foraging Fox smoked jalapeno mayo, chopped Grillo’s pickles and pepperoncini peppers, dried shallots, and Hoff Dirty Dust seasoning salt, but I topped the sandwich with the MUSTAAAAAARD to give it a hit of smoky, creamy sweetness.  It was a bit much, and it took me a while to get through the bottle.  I’m not a cynical person, so whenever I’m disappointed or let down by something, whether it’s a movie or a food, I always wish I liked it more than I did, and that was the case with this. 

Despite my reservations about both honey mustards and Dijons, this Bornier honey Dijon mustard, a French product, was far better than I expected.  This was one time where I made stuffed pork loin, cutting into the cylindrical cut in a spiral pattern so I could “roll it out,” then pounding it flat with a rolling pin, stuffing it with fresh spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, spicy pickled cherry peppers, seasoned bread crumbs, and parmesan cheese, then rolling it back up to roast so it looks pretty when you slice it.  (I got better after this early attempt.)  Anyway, with all those strong, savory flavors, the Bornier honey Dijon paired very well with the stuffed pork loin — thick, not overwhelmingly sweet, and the white wine flavor and mild nose-tingling sensation came through.

Finally, this California Olive Ranch roasted garlic, Dijon, and rosemary marinade came from The Fresh Market, a bougie grocery store if ever there was one.  I used most of the bottle marinating my usual pork loins, which I roast and slice thin for so many of the above sandwiches.  I’m not the biggest rosemary fan in the world (no, not even with potatoes), but luckily for me, the garlic and Dijon flavors came through stronger than the rosemary, which I often find overpowering.  I’m very glad I tried this, but I think I got the bottle on clearance, so I don’t know if I would restock this marinade at full price.

So by my count, that was *22* new mustards I reviewed for you in 2026.  Some great, some good, some passable, and a couple I never want or need to taste again.  I hope anyone who stuck around to the end enjoyed this journey, and while I don’t expect anyone to race off to track any of these down, please let me know if you do, and what you think of them.  In fact, if you have any mustard recommendations for me, please share, because I’m always looking to expand my palate and my collection.  Mustard manufacturers, to paraphrase TLC, I ain’t too proud to beg for free samples, as long as you’re cool with me reviewing them objectively.  As you may have realized, I’m a nerd who loves trying new foods and sharing information about them, and I’m always on a quest for new and interesting mustards.  I guess you could call these recurring Cutting the Mustard features “yellow journalism.”