Left Lane Hazard Lights Hot Sauce Review

Left Lane Pepper Company Hazard Lights

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7hNT20kH_k

Left Lane is another relative newcomer, starting up in 2020, shortly after the pandemic hit and lockdown took out one of their favorite restaurants...at least temporarily. They then did the natural(?) thing and made a hot sauce company, with a naming convention heavily road and driving-related theme to the various names. The hazard lights it's named for could be for either the flashers on a car or I suppose a barricade, depending on if you consider the ones on vehicles to be more orange than amber. This one seemed the hottest available that did not also have onions, possibly is also the hottest they offer outright, so this may well wind up being the only one I do from them.

What we have here is kind of an interesting take on a venerable old favorite, the Habanero mango. There are no shortage of those out there, but this one also adds in carrots, which acts a bit as a thickener. This is a fairly dense sauce and seems to contain a lot of other orange items, including orange juice and orange Habaneros. It also deviates a bit as well with the addition of ginger, and the usage of rice vinegar, somewhat a rarity in hot sauces, and with the addition of stevia, another rarity. The latter two ingredients give this a bit of a flavoring I'd put in the relative approximation of apple cider vinegar, to give you an idea how well-received that was with me.

The sauce also has what I would describe as zones. When it's more in the mango-Habanero zone is when I find it to be best, as I can really dig in and latch to that flavor. This definitely has plenty of mango flavor and errs on the sweet side of things, which is what I think sauces of this type should do. I do find the flavor notes I mentioned off-putting enough to limit how much I like to use this sauce a bit, so flexibility takes a hit there compared to some other fruit-based sweet hots. The heat is decidedly mild, which is to be expected, given the Habaneros. 

Bottom line: Another off-shoot of the Habanero-mango branch, albeit one on the thicker side and with some atypical grace notes.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 4