UPDATE: Video support now available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=til4pLGb6Hk Not quite a couple years ago to the date, I wrote a review of the original Tiki Bar Hotter Hot Sauce, which I strongly suggest you read, if you haven't already, for reference. In it, I somewhat lamented that the heat was a bit minimal. I've since done a support video for it, where I found it to be very fruit-forward and my thoughts on it have changed a bit. I'm not going to go back and downrate it, but I will say that I like it a bit less than now. I found a bottle of this on the shelf the same time I picked up another bottle of the Tiki Bar (it occurs to me that there may have been a formulation change possibly also) prior to making that discovery, with the thought that as long as they weren't cheating with extract, an increase in heat could only be to the good.
This sauce is both lighter in color and far less fruit-heavy. Side by side, it both tastes better and packs a slightly hotter punch, despite being listed as X-Hot. The ingredient profiles are identical. Skip ahead to the next paragraph if you want to see commentary exclusive to the sauce, but this points up a larger problem for me and may significantly diminish my interest in CaJohn's sauces. When the company was sold last year to the Hot Shots Distributing Company, I was concerned, as it seemed founder John Hard would no longer be involved. Normally, Hard was very specific about what kinds of peppers were being used in the sauces, but here, that is over. When Hard listed something as hot, it was usually on a chilehead scale. I don't know who this sauce would be X-Hot for, but they would have to have a pretty sensitive palate for that to be the case. Seeing those things take place, though the sauces are still pretty strong entries, seems to be bolstering those ideas for me...
This one is much closer to a teriyaki sauce than the other, though it would need to have a greater soy sauce influence to truly get there. Like the other one, this one performs well in a variety of settings where you'd want more of a fruit-based or teriyaki sauce, so lighter meats, fried foods, Asian foods, Hawaiian foods, etc. I have not gotten around to testing it with musubi yet, but may do that for the support video for this when I film it, as I intend on doing a direct comparison.
Bottom line: This is more or less an upgrade to the linked sauce above and is its superior in every way. Probably my favorite all-around fruit-based sauce.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 3
Flavor: 9
Flexibility: 7
Enjoyment to dollar factor:8
Overall: 7
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