Castillo Salsa Habanera (Green) Hot Sauce Review

Castillo Salsa Habanera (Green) Hot Sauce

I got this one at the same time as I got the Red from Castillo (reviewed elsewhere here) and while I expected the Red to be somewhere along the lines of the Valentina, I wasn't sure what to expect from the Green. Greens can range from fairly mild to hotter than the Reds, so it was kind of a crap shoot.

In this case, the Green is more similar to the Red version, but has a very unripe "greenish" aspect to it that I didn't find particularly pleasant upfront. Unlike the El Yucateco Red vs. Green (both reviewed elsewhere here), we have a Red that is overall fairly decent and a Green that is notably less tasty and somewhat less hot, which differs from the El Yucateco in that both of them are pretty good tasting, but the Red is a blast upfront and the Green comes on slower and the Green is one of the best-tasting sauces of that type around, despite its very odd coloring. Here we have the Red with a slow build and the Green with more of a punch, but overall, the Red is hotter. Neither one of them quite reach the El Yucateco Green, though, not in heat and certainly not in flavor.

That aside, this one does do slightly better with milder meats, such as chicken and pork, than does the Red, which overall has a much wider gamut. I nearly threw out the Green, in fact, the first time I had it, due to the unripe, nearly sour aspect of it, but it's not quite to that level. I probably will use the bottle, but don't see that I'll ever get another.

Bottom line: If you're deciding which of the two Castillos to get and there's nothing else around, opt for the Red. The Green is just not that good of a sauce and while it's probably better than nothing, it's probably not much more than that.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 3
           Flavor: 4
           Flexibility:  3
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 4