Sauced & Glazed Marty's Fusion Fuel Hot Sauce Review

Sauced & Glazed Marty's Fusion Fuel 

In August of 2022, I reviewed Doc’s Fusion Fuel (link in TOC at upper right), which is the flagship sauce. I found it seeming to want to straddle the line between a hot sauce and a barbecue sauce, which is fine. I didn’t find it particularly hot, so the intent of this sauce, which wants to be a milder version of that, I find kind of baffling. Since it has directly invoked the comparison, I think we’ll roll with that for a bit. In fact, I wasn’t overly interested in this sauce at all after reading through the ingredient list, but I figured since I did the Doc’s, I may as well do this as companion piece. I will say now that my recommendation is strongly towards the Doc’s, which at least makes a flavorful pass at what it’s attempting. 

To the comparison, both have the annoying foil labels that like to bounce whatever light source you’re trying to use to read it. This one makes a mention of giving it to kids and the website calls it “family-friendly,” which is one of the more nonsensical things I think I’ve seen for a product purporting to be a hot sauce. So, the intent here is a sort of “my first hot sauce” vibe? I will take them at their word and assume this is what they meant by putting out a milder version of an already mild product.

I’m all for accessibility and gateways for the chile-curious, as I have repeatedly noted, but we have a few problems with the approach here. If you lower the heat of something that already has fairly low heat, you’re left with no heat, which is what we have here. Chipotle is the only heat source and it is the third ingredient, so what heat is there will be and is minimal. The ingredient panels are the same between sauces, save for Doc’s Fusion Fuel having red Habaneros as the heat driver, again in the 3rd spot, with the addition of smoke flavor. Of the two, Doc’s reads as more notably smoky as well.

It’s nice they’re trying to make a product for children interested in chiles, I guess, but to my mind, the best gateway sauces are the ones that are flavorful and taste great. While Doc’s was a definitely push towards a barbecue sauce, as noted, this one seems to move from that nearly entirely. What is left is a sort of rough very tomatoey, slightly bitter, and noticeably unrefined collection of the various powders as notes on that platform, an approach I find baffling. I’m not sure what happened here, exactly, but what is here I don’t find works as either a hot sauce or a barbecue sauce. It is probably closest to the latter of those, but not a very good version there, either. This is not to say it is a bad or unpalatable sauce, but more a confusing and overall somewhat mediocre one. It is not one I find especially enjoyable and will probably be binning. 

Bottom line:  I might be wrong about who this is for and it’s perhaps more meant as a novelty companion piece for fans of the Back To The Future movie franchise and not intended to be consumed. I found it remarkably underwhelming and an unnecessary alteration to the Doc’s.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 2