Butterfly Bakery Honey Cantaloupe Hot Sauce Review

Butterfly Bakery Honey Cantaloupe

As soon as I saw the name of this sauce, I was in. I love cantaloupe, especially fully ripened, and it’s an ingredient that I almost never see in hot sauces. Followers of this blog or of the FOH YouTube series (hopefully both) will know by now that I’m ever interested in unusual or exotic ingredients in hot sauces and picking one of my favorites, along with an ingredient more common, but still interesting to me, honey, is almost a surefire way to get my attention. So, it was with high hopes, given that the ace Butterfly Baker sauce makers were at the helm, that I picked this up.

Once I got the bottle, I wasted no time in cracking it open and it was love at first taste. They somehow managed to keep the taste of fresh and ripe cantaloupe, in all of its resplendent glory, along with very nice accents of the salt and vinegar, along with a slight fruitiness and slight backend heat from the red Habs. Honey didn’t play into things too much directly, but was there perhaps more as composite, to reinforce and bolster the cantaloupe, which is the main star. This is probably the best-tasting sauce I will have this year and herein, a bit of my design works to cross purposes a tad.

So, pairing melons to entrees is fairly rare. As part of a fruit tart or dessert, surely, but in terms of an entree...probably as rare of a thing as using those in a hot sauce, which is rare indeed. There are some nice and intriguing suggestions on the bottle, but to be as clear as I can be, I want whatever I use it on to be as unadorned and neutral as possible. For most sauces, I want them to elevate the food and increase my enjoyment of the flavors, but here, I want it to be a vehicle for this utterly delectable sauce and I don’t want flavor cancellation or things getting in the way. So, the various chicken forms, as long as they are not part of something more complex, like a sandwich, all to the good, same with pork chops, but this sauce is so delicious, it seems a shame to me to diminish it in anyway. 

Fruit-based sweet hots are naturally a tad on the less flexible side, moreso when the fruit is a melon. This is by nature, but when the sauce is so delicate and near-flawless in flavor profile that I don’t want to interfere with it in anyway, this also sort of lowers the flexibility, though perhaps a bit artificially. Where I’m going with this is the composite score will take this out of the running for SOTY contention, but it is unquestionably a sauce I love very dearly...and one that makes me, however briefly, reconsider using the 10 scale...

Bottom line: As long as one likes cantaloupe, this sauce is a godsend and a good showcase to show non-chileheads what is possible in the hands of a brilliant and gifted saucemaker.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6

Gindo's Strawberry Basil Hot Sauce Review

Gindo's Strawberry Basil

This is one I was admittedly a touch iffy on. Strawberry hot sauces can be one of those a bit difficult to place. I do find them often enjoyable on strawberry green salads, where this one would also be great, I suspect, especially if paired with a strawberry vinaigrette dressing, but if they are very sweet, the tendency is for them to gravitate more to the realm of desserts and I’m not the hugest sweets fan. Usually, if I get a bottle, it will be hanging out in there for a while and it’s kind of like cranberry sauces, in a way, I suppose. Not so much in flavor profile, but more in that I tend to view them in fairly narrow applications.

Still, this was Gindo’s we’re talking about here, one of my favorite sauce makers and one who, even if I don’t love the sauce, never really misses. And indeed, this is a very flavorful sauce. I’m a big fan of red Bells and that is the lead-off ingredient here, which bolsters the Habanero nicely, making this a very astute pairing. The strawberry here is back a bit, more of a delayed almost grace note, but a bit more prominent. It is happily that of fresh strawberries, my definite favorite way to have those. Strawberries can be a fairly delicate flavor and heavy processing tends to kill the best parts of the fruit flavor, I find. There is none of that here, which is a testament to the skill of the chef(s) involved. There are a lot of subtleties and the balance allows the various salts and vinegar to come forward a bit in the flavor. This is definitely not a hot sauce closer in line to the strawberry syrups, not even remotely.

This allows it to work especially well with chicken, which the sweeter ones do not particularly. I did try it as a dessert sauce a few times, which led to the near complete cancellation of the strawberry and left me with the flavor of the peppers, the vinegar, and the salts...interesting, but not something I would want to regularly have. Interestingly, the basil doesn’t really show up at all in the flavor here...or at least in the various ways I tried it. Heat-wise, this is only Habanero, so it is quite moderate. 

Bottom line: This is a sauce I view favorably and find a quite flavorful sauce, but not one I can say I love. If you like real strawberry flavor in a hot sauce, but don’t want it on the sweet side, this is definitely worth a go.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 5
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 5

Butterfly Bakery Vermont Habs Hot Sauce Review

Butterfly Bakery Vermont Habs

I went in to this one kind of thinking the sauce would be thicker...I’m not sure why I thought that...the relative density of sauce is not always easily established with an unopened full bottle that has the shrink intact, but sometimes I get these ideas in my mind that become a bit difficult to shake...at least until the bottle is open and once is confronted with the evidence. 

This one is maybe not the thickness I was thinking it would be nor is it quite the watery nature of a Cayenne Lousiana-style, though with the modicum of ingredients: pepper, vinegar, salt, I suppose it is perhaps closest to that in application. There is quite a bit more pulp here, more body, which gives the sauce a very nice mouth feel if/when taken straight. I don’t suppose too many will actually do this, but it is quite nice and you can get a good feel for the subtleties of this sauce, which you will assuredly not get if/when you use it on food. 

This sauce, perhaps more than any other I’ve had in recent memory, puts the often-maligned and ubiquitous Habanero in its best possible setting and light. Here, they are using red Habaneros, definitely the supreme variant of that pod, and one can get a grasp of the fruitness and hint of sweetness from those in full ripeness. They are the first ingredient and front and center and if you are able to find a food pairing that will let this be the dominant flavor, one will be well-rewarded.

What I found was that the flavor would tend to vanish a bit in actual use. Even though there is a healthy vinegar hit up front, it fades quite rapidly, which is not always desirable in the usual suspects for applications of a Louisiana-style sauce. Rather, this sauce tends to meld with whatever you’re using it on, which is highly desirable in other settings. For instance, this is one of the few sauces that I think does an excellent job of stepping on tomato-based Italian sauces without interfering with those distinctive flavors. When it comes to heavier food, though, that same tendency hampers its ability to cut through richness, which is one of the attributes I’m most after, as I quite enjoy balance in dishes. 

This is an utterly delicious sauce, though, another absolute gem from one of the more masterful saucemakers out there, and I had a great deal of fun trying it in almost every setting I could think of, including Mexican, though I’m not really a fan of astringency there.. It is slightly too loose for stuff like pizza, unless you’re really careful, but there is a good amount of flexibility. Heat-wise, since we’re only deal with Habaneros, it is pretty moderate, so it should provide a nice accessibility for most people.

Bottom line: Yet another excellent entry from one of the more impressive sauce-makers out there. Those with an affinity for gourmet flavors in a vinegar forward sauce will find much to love here.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6

Hot Winter Original Hot Sauce Review

Hot Winter Original

This is yet another reward for having an open mind, I think, in that the first sauce I had from this company, the Hatch variant (reviewed elsewhere here), I didn’t find particularly impressive. While I didn’t write the company off entirely, I did put them pretty far on the backburner for a time. Once I had the Bulgarian Carrot (also reviewed elsewhere here) from them, it brought them more to the fore and I thought I should probably get the original, since I enjoyed that other sauce so much. This was a quite wise decision, as things turn out.

When sauce makers designate a sauce as “Original” or something along those lines, it suggests a sort of flagship, an initial or perhaps best foot forward sauce, to introduce you to the company. While this maybe doesn’t mean definitively that it is their very best product, in the case of both Hot Winter and Gindo’s, it does serve as an unparalleled flavor platform, a sort of “starting at the top,” if you will, and I can definitely appreciate that all makers are trying to get fans of their product, which will hopefully mean repeat consumers, even perhaps someone who is willing to fly the flag and maybe make some recommendations to other people to similarly give it a go.

Here, we have the Hot Winter pepper, a varietal exclusive to them, as far as I know, that has a fairly moderate heat, but also a very nice sort of sweetness to it. This is one of the more flavorful peppers out there used to make sauce, by my reckoning, and they very wisely do little to alter it. In many ways, speaking generally to the entire line-up, the sauces here read almost as much as purees, being thick and chunky, for the most part. They can tend a tad towards the gritty, with the seeds being left intact, but that slight downturn in flexibility is perhaps more than made up for by the heft and mouth feel. The sauces seem fairly well orchestrated and I suspect this is intentional.

I quite like the flavor of this, but there are a number of places I don’t particularly want grittiness added. While this particular sauce is pretty far from rough, you are going to hit seeds and depending on what you’re pairing with this, it could be a tad jarring. I personally find this wonderful in sub sandwiches and on pizza, which can take the grit a touch better, but on things like mac and cheese or other creamy dish foods, I would prefer it not be there at all. This does particularly well on meats and I think you could put it with just about any of them. Indeed, if this sauce was a tad smoother, it would definitely bump the flexibility higher and we’d be talking about another SOTY candidate, but as it is, it just missed...still a very high water mark and overall, an excellent sauce.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for a flavorful and delicious taste adventure that is fairly moderate in terms of heat, look no further.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Gindo's Bacon Bourbon Ghost Hot Sauce Review

Gindo’s Bacon Bourbon Ghost 

I opened the bottle up and a strange thing happened. I went in expecting some smoky notes, which is typical of most bacon sauces, but there was none to be had here. At the time, I kind of shrugged and went on into my sampling and testing process for the sauce and largely forgot about that part...all the way up until I shot the video for it. Not quite sure what happened, but there are neither bacony notes nor bacon at all in this sauce, nor is it listed in the ingredient list, so understanding the name eludes me a tad.

For all that, it is a quite flavorful sauce. There are yellow and red Bell, Cayenne, Habanero, and Ghosties all in the mix, with the Ghosties providing the slight bitter superhot notes and the fairly moderate heat that is here and with everything providing a nice flavor base. This is another very pepper-forward sauce, which I quite enjoy, and as I got further into the bottle, I started to get some of the tropical pepper vibes, a fruity aspect without it being particularly sweet, which I attribute to the Habaneros in Gindo’s skilled hands.

I do admit to some misgivings with this sauce, as I have not had too many bacon sauces I’ve loved or even enjoyed a great deal and booze in sauces I find more of a minefield than an ingredient especially enjoyable, but I trusted Gindo’s with the latter of those two and was very curious to see what they would do with the bacon as an ingredient. My curiousity will have to remain unsatisfied in that regard, at least for now, it would seem.

This is still a lovely concoction, a very bright, lively, and wonderfully vibrant sauce. There are a number of suggestions on the label, many of which I could see, but some, such as the breakfast sandwiches, I’m a lot less certain about. I half wonder if they were made with the idea that this sauce would have some intense bacon smokiness to it, which would meld pretty well with all of the things mentioned. I do appreciate that they’re there, even if I found these slightly off-kilter comparatively. For me, I didn’t want to tread on this sauce, but rather use it in settings where it could shine, so things like chicken and fish and lighter flavors generally seemed to work well. I strongly feel this could also work spectacularly on a nice sub sandwich, which I also think is one of the more underrated applications for hot sauces generally.

Bottom line: I definitely would like to try the version of this that actually has bacon, but for what’s here, I find this another flavor marvel from Gindo’s, though perhaps not quite up to the highest levels of some of the other sauces. Absolutely worth a go if you love the flavor of pods.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 6

Sauce(s) Of The Year(s) Commentary

Sauce(s) Of The Year Commentary

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, both to celebrate National Hot Sauce Day, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before on this blog, and with 2025 having the most candidates of any previous year, at least to my memory, I figured now was a good time. That’s the thing, memory. Possibly there were other years with 5, like 2025 [ed note: there were, 2020, 2021 had 6, 2022 had 8. -DW]. I remember 4 being the previous high, but there are hundreds of posts and thousands of words. Perhaps there is someone out there who could remember them all, but not I. 

What has been on the SOTY page has been the winners, but all of those others in contention were excellent sauces in their own right and a lot of it came down to a very subjective personal preference on my part. I make no apologies for this, if someone is going to be the tie-breaker, it probably should be the architect of this blog, who experienced the sauces before and after the written review prior to fall 2019, and then before the written review, during the FOH video, and after the written review, but for any of those other contenders, had I first encountered those sauces in another year, it may be them who were the winners. They deserved more due.

The basis of SOTY has never been the year the sauce came out, as sauce makers themselves do not seem to generally spend a lot of time tracking that, but rather when I first published a written review of it. So, if I had a sauce in late December, but didn’t have a review formulated until January or February of the following year, that sauce would go into contention when the review went live on this blog, even if I had opened the sauce and first tasted it in the previous year. I felt doing it this way was the only fair way to make an equal playing field for the sauces...and also I didn’t feel like trying to track down when a sauce might have first been to market and if it was reformulated, etc. etc.

Anyway, with that in mind, this post, like the list of my personal favorite hot sauce makers and personal favorite pods, will be updated as necessary. I was going to make some extended commentary on the given years, but have considered this will be redundant, given that I generally already do that in my End Of The Year posts for a given year. So instead, I will just add some light context, then list all the sauces in consideration for a given year, with the Sauce Of The Year being signified. If you are interested in why I made the choices I did, that is covered in the End Of The Year posts I mentioned, always coming on the last day of a given year. The count will be for full reviews only, since the mini-review sauces are not eligible for Sauce Of The Year. Of course, any of these sauces named out below are outstanding and if you’re looking for a great new sauce, this is hopefully a great resource...at least for the ones still available and not reformulated.

2012: This was the year I started the blog, however, it came late in the year, with the first post on September 11, 2012. It was not until a few days later, September 15, came the first full review, which was for the long gone Jim Beam hot sauce, though there were a number of mini-reviews prior. This shortened year had 21 posts total, which saw 12 sauces covered in full review. Here are the candidates:

CaJohn’s Bourbon-Infused Chipotle Habanero (BICH)

CaJohn’s Happy Beaver

El Yucateco Habanero Green

2013: The first full year, which saw 52 posts total, 48 of these were for hot sauces and the first-ever double review for the blog. Here is the sole candidate:

Blair’s Pure Death

2014: This year saw 21 posts, which covered 17 sauces. There was also only one candidate that year, a sauce that has since been reformulated:

Born To Hula Ghost Of Ancho*

*2014 formulation only 

2015: This year saw 32 posts, which covered 26 hot sauces. Here are the candidates:

Tortuga Caribbean Hell-Fire
Voodoo Chile Voo Dew Honey Doo

2016: Another of the lower posting years, with 19 posts on the year, covering 15 sauces. Here are the candidates:

Boar’s Head Jalapeno
Pirate O’s Surface Of The Sun

2017: This year was 23 posts, with 18 sauces covered. Here are the candidates:

Torchbearer The Rapture
Z’s Shield Maiden

2018: The lowest total for any of the years, with 15 posts on the year, covering 12 sauces. Here are the candidates:

Dave’s Scorpion Pepper
Taco Jesus Cayenne

2019: This would have been the lowest year of all and was the year the blog was in jeopardy of me pulling the plug entirely.  Had it not been for the very timely intervention of Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue, which also kicked off the FOH video series on YouTube, it very well could have been curtains. Up until then, which was September, there were 7 posts total, with the first not coming until May! After that good swift kick in the ass up, it finished with 20 posts on the year, covering 16 sauces. Here is the sole candidate:

Torchbearer Ultimate Annihilation

2020: Here is when business, as they say, started to pick up. 50 posts on the year, with 45 sauces covered. Here are the candidates, which is the highest total of any year so far:

Arthur Wayne Huckleberry Ghost
Arthur Wayne Limitless
Mikey V’s Sweet Ghost Pepper
Monroy’s Death By Kraken 
Private Selection Calabrian Chile 
Tonguespank Scotch Whiskey Trinidad Scorpion 

2021: This year ran past the previous highest post total year, with 60 posts on the year, covering 56 sauces, and tied the previous high for 6 candidates. Here are the candidates:

Big Red’s 3 Kings
Big Red’s God’s Wrath
CaJohn’s Reaper Sling Blade
Gindo’s Honey Habanero
Gindo’s Original
Silk City Badass Jew

2022: The previous high for posting on the year would be short-lived as this was the year that blew that out of the water, with 95 posts on the year, which remains the current highest-total. This covered 87 sauces. It was also the highest year total for SOTY candidates with 8. Here are the candidates:

Burns & McCoy’s Exhorresco
Hank’s Heat
Hank’s The Linger
Hatari Acid Rain Ghost
Hellfire Hellboy Legendary AF
Silk City Erotic Fever
Silk City Pull Over
Tonguespank Rye Whisky Reaper

2023: This was the year which started the trend of 84 posts on the year, as it has been since this point. This year covered 78 sauces. Here are the candidates:

Canal Street Louisiana Crude
Prescribed Burn’s High Pulp
Puckerbutt’s Chipotle Express
Retsuko Rage [FYE Exclusive]

2024: Again, 84 posts on the year, with 85 sauces covered, including the blog’s first ever triple review and the first-ever quad review. This is the only year where full reviews of sauces exceeds the actual overall blog posting total. Here are the candidates: 

Karma Ashes 2 Ashes
Silk City Shake & Pour Over
Two Heads Music City Heat

2025: Once more with 84...posts on the year, that is, with 81 sauces covered. Here are the candidates:

Adoboloco Jalapeno Chico
Barnacle Foods Habanero
Butterfly Bakery Vienna Mustard Lager
Volcanic Peppers Autumn Blaze
Walkerswood Fire Stick

And that brings us up to date. Looking back while compiling all of this has been a fascinating journey, both with how the blog and how I’ve reviewed has changed over the years. I also found it interesting that so many of the sauces listed above now live in antiquity only and are not generally, if at all, available.  In any event, thanks to everyone who has come with me on these travels, whether you’ve been here for a while or are just now joining. 

Gindo's Haunted Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Gindo’s Haunted Habanero

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0buI4OjbK-Y 

Hey, so remember that one time, a long time ago, where I said that any new Gindo’s sauce I have runs the risk, the absolute danger of being a Sauce Of The Year candidate? Well, case in point, this magnificent jewel, this gem of an oasis in a desert of sand.

I’m not sure if it was meant for a Halloween season, given the Haunted part, which I presume refers to the use of the very nice Ghosties in there (and maybe, distantly, the grace notes of smokiness), but it is yet another in their long line of Limited Run sauces (which are the 5 fl. oz. Bottles, from what I can observe) that I am so very glad I came across. Here we have a very pepper forward sauce, thanks to starting out with the roasted red peppers, which is buttressed by the excellent tropical combination of the Habaneros and mangos. It is more an embrace of the fruity aspect of the Habaneros, I suspect, as it reads quite nicely in that direction, into a wonderful flavorful medley, that has just enough sweetness to assert its presence, but not enough to be an actual sweet sauce.

It treads a lot of delicate lines beyond the one I mentioned. There is also the last two ingredients, the oregano and thyme, which don’t show up prominently when the sauce is by itself, but emerge when you pair it with something like pizza, on which this sauce is fantastic. Gindo’s, as usual, very nicely presents some pairings on the label, though I’m not sure if the avocado toast is meant to be serious or not (I’m going to pretend it is not, as that would make me happier) and I can attest to most of them directly. I’m not quite sure where this wouldn’t work, maybe red meat and probably you’d be better off with something else in a rich creamy sauce dish, but that’s more because I’d be afraid the food would diminish this lovely sauce, something I say very rarely and about very few sauces.

As mentioned, the Habaneros are definitely a fairly substantial flavor component, rather than heat, but here they put their very best foot forward, to the point where I swear the people at Gindo’s are magicians. Ghosties are also here, but this is not a particularly blazing sauce and I don’t imagine it will push too many people. Like nearly everything else in the Gindo’s lineup, this is very much meant more to be flavor first, and is relatively tame. Given the flavor dynamic, this is also one of the most accessible I think I’ve yet had from Gindo’s as well. 

Bottom line: As you might have guessed from the glow of the review, if not the first paragraph, this is yet another Sauce Of The Year candidate and one you should take pains to try and get.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 8

Gindo's Spicy Cranberry Hot Sauce Review

Gindo’s Spicy Cranberry

Cranberry hot sauces have traditionally been kind of a low priority for me. I’ve certainly done a few of those, but many of them tend to be quinine heavy and it then becomes a matter of pairing quinine. There is only so much turkey I can consume before tiring of it, but Gindo’s, of course, goes gourmet and takes it in a much different direction. This is not to say that cranberry flavor is not there, it definitely is, but the quinine element has been significantly tamped down, so you get the flavor, but this is a much richer and fuller hot sauce.

This lends it considerably more to versatility and, of course, since it’s Gindo’s, the flavor is excellent. I personally don’t mind a quinine hit and since I’ve been having a certain product that involves cranberries with regularity, cranberry sauces have come a bit more to the fore with me, but this is a very interesting approach. Heat-wise, we have Habanero and Ghost, but this is pretty tame as far as a heat level. There are a few different salts in there, which also add a bit of an umami undercurrent as well, to nicely round things out. 

Beyond the inherent cranberry limitations, this does very well on fowl, whether it be smoked or roasted or fried, and of course on quinoa salad. There is a suggestion, as Gindo’s tends to do, for pairings on things like cheesecake and Brie, which I think would be interesting and perhaps I will acquire another bottle to find that out, as the one I had for this review I’ve kind of flown through. While this may not ultimately be my most favorite cranberry sauce, it is a very good one and if you like quinine less than I do, this might be worth considering as an entry point into cranberry hot sauces.

Bottom line: Another excellent and innovative approach from Gindo’s to a well-established fruit flavor base. Quite accessible and absolutely worth getting.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6 

Butterfly Bakery Hot House Hot Sauce Review

Butterfly Bakery Hot House

Note: This sauce appears on Season 26 of The Hot Ones. 

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with this sauce, both cilantro and dill in hot sauces can be a mixed bag, but my trepidation was set immediately at ease in the capable of hands of Butterfly Bakery and it is, in fact, this sauce that threw me over into adding them to my favorite hot sauce brands list (full list in the SOTY page, link at right). This is a remarkable sauce, a work of near culinary genius in flavor. The blend here makes a taste experience absolutely unlike anything else. 

We will start with the dill and cilantro, which go exceedingly well together and add a nice brightness and freshness to the sauce. The tomato imparts a wonderful richness to base of five different peppers, which are Serranos, Habaneros, Carolina Reapers, Ghosties, and Carmens. I was not familiar with the Carmen, but it appears to be a sweeter pepper and you can’t go wrong with some nice sweet peppers in the mix. Even though the base contains two superhots and was in the 6 slot on the Hot Ones show for the reason it was on, this is a relatively tame sauce. It is past a 1 for me, but not quite all the way to a 2. 

Butterfly Bakery is very much a flavor-first hot sauce company and it all goes back to what I’ve said repeatedly. If you make a great-tasting sauce, versatility will be automatically covered and that’s kind of what we have here. While I didn’t love this so much on chicken, to be clear, I didn’t dislike it, either, I found it outstanding on red meat and things like fried pickles, which seemed to me to be a natural. This is such a delightfully flavored sauce that it immediately sparkles, but to be sure, I don’t think I’d want it on pizza or on a rich sauce base dish. I think it is definitely a sauce more on the flexible side, but not necessarily full tilt in that department.

Bottom line: This is a full tilt flavor wonderland, unexpected in its brilliance for me, and not only a fantastic sauce, but the very best kind in that it’s wildly creative. Absolute must try, particularly for food adventurer chileheads.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 9
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7

Scarlet Fire Hot Sauce Review

Scarlet Fire

Note: Support video available here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=karD9iYacno 

I love it when a year starts out with a blaze, as 2026 is, with a Sauce Of The Year contender right out of the gate, which is this sauce, of course. In some ways, I think it helps set the tone, but also, at least takes one thing off my mind, as in other years past, it has gotten fairly deep into the year before I had a single candidate. I fully realize this blog and this particular “award” are probably meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but I’ve been picking one sauce out that I’ve had in a given year as the “best of the best, the crème de la crème,” and I want to keep the going and intact so long as I continue this blog.

This one is an excellent demonstration of my oft-bandied idea that if a sauce tastes good enough, the flexibility will take care of itself, as you can put it on nearly anything and have the results be positive. Indeed, this sauce was very nice on everything I tried it on. This is one of the better tasting sauces I’ve had, a distinction it shares with other SOTY contenders and especially the winners. We have the first pepper as the Fresno, and we’re off to a great start out of the gate. The combination of carrot and Habanero, a proven winner (and sauce type that seemed to have dropped off for reasons I don’t fully understand) are up next and add some very nice character and depth to things, but the sauce isn’t done there. Add in some fresh garlic to give it a little umami hit and then round it out with some Thai peppers, to add a dash of bitterness to things and you have as nearly complete of a flavor experience as it is possible to have with a vinegar-forward sauce. Because it is only Habanero, this is a tad on the tame side as far as heat.

I admit I got excited when I initially saw the ingredient list and ordered a bottle the first opportunity I had. It then sat on the shelf for a bit as I tried to hold myself back until I was closer to the end of the current Louisiana-style sauce I had open. I didn’t think it was that, but perhaps more of a Cajun, but I was definitely wrong on that count. This is very much its own thing, though I think the best applications will be those where you might use those other sauce types. It is also one of those sauces where on my very first taste of it, it hit a literal “ooooh,” which is fairly rare for me. Most of the times I just find the flavors intriguing and move on to where I can best pair them. For this, and some of the SOTY candidates and winners, it becomes more thoughts along the lines of making sure I preserve enough to do an FOH video and potentially a Wing Thing at the end of the nearest quarter.

For all that, it is not entirely perfect. This sauce will separate on you, so frequent agitation is a must. This also will change the consistency, so you will want to do this and the little extra effort is worth it. Even for all of that, I do think that this would have been better served with a slightly oversized restrictor cap, as the sauce will sometimes run down the threads, but that is perhaps more a pet peeve of mine and more to do with the packaging than this stellar sauce. There can be a certain graininess to it from the different pepper parts in the sauce, but again, nothing world-shattering...just more an idiosyncrasy, let’s call it. 

Bottom line: This is an absolutely fantastic and flavorful entry into things, both wonderful and accessible and if you like vinegar-forward sauce, as near to a must as a sauce can be, and, as noted, the first SOTY candidate for 2026.

Breakdown:

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

Overall: 8