Dawson's Original Hot Sauce Review

Dawson's Original

Note: This sauce appeared on Season 5 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlvUPjCxcRg

This was a find that I happened across stumbling randomly around a store I visit very seldom. Of course, it was on my list as one of the non-onion sauces from The Hot Ones show, but the bottle itself was intriguing, with a sort of running wax down the cap and neck ala Maker's Mark bourbon. I don't know if that was the intended reference, the hot sauce also had a brand stamped into the wax right on the cap, but it was a neat effect. I though it was wax on top of a heat shrink label, but the bottle was sealed by the wax only...which was a bit curious.The sauce inside was this deep, rich red color and I was immediately excited about the prospect of it being a solid everyday-type sauce.

Alas, while it was not that, it was an intriguing sauce, one that took me a bit to get a handle on the flavor profile. After trying it out repeatedly on various of the "usual suspect" type foods, including the breakfast burritos where I most use an everyday sauce, it struck me that the reason it wasn't working was because it resembled mostly the El Yucateco Red Habanero sauce (also from Hot Ones [Seasons 2 & 3], also reviewed elsewhere here), in a much sweeter format. Once I sort of latched onto that, it became a bit easier to place, though it is not quite as simple as just that. It definitely does work more nicely with more Mexican-style foods, as long as you also like a bit of sweetness with it. I didn't know I did, actually, until I started to place this sauce there for testing.

Much like that other sauce, the heat here flares almost immediately and then drops off. The flavor is very Habanero forward, again like the other, but here, there is a bit more smoothing out with the addition of olive oil and garlic. The sweetness of the sugar melds nicely with the peppers and garlic to create something not just like a blast of red Habanero out of the gate, but indeed, that is the dominant flavor. I wouldn't call it one note so much as one instrument is far stronger in this particular symphony. The heat level is also fairly low overall, once that initial blast, again like the aforementioned sauce. It mystifies me exactly how this was placed above the Adoboloco Hamajang (also reviewed elsewhere here) on the Hot Ones show, as that sauce is considerably hotter. If anything, they should have switched and this been in the 4 slot and the other in the 7 rather than the inverse...

Bottom line: Another fairly solid entry in the Hot Ones sauces. As long as you like the flavor of either red Habaneros or the El Yucateco Red, this will be a winner.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 5