Scarlet Fire Hot Sauce Review

Scarlet Fire

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