Jersey Girl Bee Sweet
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwsDuCUnPtQ
The majority of hot sauces that feature or include honey in their ingredients (and sometimes in the sauce name) often neatly manage to skirt the appeal of that ingredient by muting it in the overall flavor profile to the point that any other sweetener could have been used. Perhaps that aspect is playing into the rise of so-called hot honeys we've seen over the past year and change, a trend I find a touch on the puzzling side, given how hard of a time honeybees have been having over the past decade or so. Regardless, here we have a sauce where not only is the honey flavor readily available, but it also is made the focus in this rather well-crafted gem.
I honestly kind of find this sauce fascinating, as there's a respectable amount of heat as well, thanks to an unnamed 7-pepper blend that the website indicates to contain Ghost, Scorpion, Habanero, and something called Cherry B's, which I'm admittedly not familiar with by that name. The red flakes in the sauce also lead me to wonder if they started with a dried pepper blend, especially given that the color is not particularly reminiscent of most hot sauces. The taste is both familiar and unique, with honey and vinegar being the two main elements, but things such as sweet potatoes, lime, and tomatoes listed in the ingredients, but not really showing up in the flavor individually (I suspect the tomato is probably more for color than anything else). The garlic will, from time to time, but not strongly. It is definitely a composite of the various ingredients, with honey being the focal point.
The suggestions for usage on the website both made me feel a bit dated (I have not, nor will I ever, consume avocado toast, which is a relatively recent "thing") and curious (air-popped popcorn??!!), but the idea of pulled pork or chicken is sound. Indeed, on lighter meats generally, this is quite phenomenal. I also used it to very nice effect on pizza and generally anywhere a bit of a sweet would go well, such as certain Asian foods.. If I do have a complaint, it's that this sauce is way too loose for my liking. It clearly is taking pains to be a hot sauce, rather than a hot honey, but the sauce aspect it has chosen to mimic is the watery nature of Louisiana-style sauces (though this would not be something I would attempt on creamy sauced foods). This works fine for things like pulled pork or chicken, but is rather a nuisance on pizza, for instance, where the sauce has no real chance to either grab or soak in. Having spilled this on my fingers a few times during testing, I can say it is not anywhere near as sticky as one would suspect, given the components, which makes it somewhat of a challenge to use on things like pizza, the toppings of which it struggles a bit to grip (this is also why I don't use Louisiana-style on pizza). It does come with a restrictor cap, but the issue there comes with honey itself, which tends to be somewhat of a more subtle flavor and with a restrictor cap limiting the sauce, this also tends to limit the impact of the sauces flavor, so it's a very fine-lined delicate balancing act between getting enough to enjoy the flavor of this sauce, which is really quite nice, and getting so much that it runs and pools on the plate.
Bottom line: Very pleasant surprise here with a sauce that does a great job of keeping honey as the focal point, while clearly being, albeit a very runny one, a hot sauce at heart.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 7
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8
Overall: 6
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