El Yucateco Caribbean Hot Sauce Review

El Yucateco Caribbean Chile Habanero Sauce

 NOTE: This sauce appeared on Season 1 of The Hot Ones.

Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obl7R9ypI_E

Continuing along with another of the El Yucateco line-up, we have this sort of oddly-named sauce. When we see the name Caribbean on a hot sauce (as a commenter noted, there is a section of Mexico considered geographically Caribbean), we might think of a sort of Louisiana-styled sauce or we might think of something along the lines of a "jerk" seasoning. This, however, is neither.

In fact, this one is nothing so much as a sort of typical carrot-Habanero sauce, a style which I saw more of when this review was initially written in 2015 and much less now, when I'm updating it in early 2021. It also somewhat resembles its much tastier big brother, the Green sauce, though it is notably distant from that. The usual El Yucateco coloring weirdness is in full effect. So far, we have the ultra-bright Red, the borderline fluorescent Green, the black-flecked nauseating ashy Private Reserve and now this, baby-diarrhea Light Brown. That their sauces continue to sell so well points to one or maybe a combination of two factors: a dearth in the marketplace or the quality of their sauces. As wild popularity bears little to no relation to actual quality, I'm leaning more towards the former, though, to be fair, their sauces are unique and pretty solid overall.

This one doesn't quite get up to the lofty heights of the green and in fact, was one that had to grow on me a bit. It is not one I would consider immediately or readily accessible to the palate, as it reads a bit plain. It's around the same heat level as the Red, maybe a little less, slight compared to the Green, but the flavoring is low key enough to work at relatively the same ok-ish level with a fairly wide variety of foods. It definitely is not a bad flavor, but heat and taste are both somewhat minimal, comparatively.

Bottom line: It's worth a try if you haven't already had carrot-Habanero, but there are better version of this style out there. This is probably one of the more easier to find of that type, however.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 5