Volcanic Peppers Autumn Blaze Hot Sauce Review

Volcanic Peppers Autumn Blaze

I have had a veritable cornucopia of great sauces this year, with now this making four candidates for Sauce Of The Year. I suppose I should have buried the lede, so to speak, a bit more, I wanted it right up front how fantastic of a sauce this is. The Chipotle used in here is from red Jalapenos and I suspect, unless I badly miss my guess, they are smoked at the hot sauce facility. They possess a character of smokiness that I have never had from commercial Chipotle or sauces with Chipotle before and it is absolutely stunning. 

The rest of the crew, the honey and pumpkin, do a nice job of adding in some depth, but this sauce very wisely chooses those delicious smoked red Jalapenos to be the star of the show, with the other elements tempering the apple cider vinegar a bit. The vinegar does not read as apple cider in the flavor, happily. In many respects, this could very much be one of those sauces that people who don’t like hot sauce or who are just coming into it would enjoy very much. I’ve said before that if you make a sauce taste good enough, which is the overall aim, I imagine, of the so-called “everyday” sauces, flexibility will increase, even if the food doesn’t pair totally well. With this sauce, I have yet to find anything it doesn’t work well with and on. Sure, some things are better than others, but it is as close to universal as I’ve had...and much of that has to do with the spectacular flavor.

The color, the texture, and the smoothness are also pretty good and it’s one of the few sauces where I’m not immediately spinning over in my mind for ways it could be improved. It’s frankly near-perfect as-is and while if I were to tail it very specifically to me, I might add in some fire-roasted red Habaneros to drive the heat up a touch, as this is a fairly tame sauce, that is my only complaint and a very minor one at that. I like some heat to things, but not every sauce I have needs to be face-melting. 

Bottom line: I’ve had more than a few sauces I’ve liked from Volcanic, but this one is near magical. Everyone should get it, particularly if you’re like me and a foodie first and then a chilehead. This is the 4th Sauce Of The Year candidate for 2025.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 10
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 8