High River Tears Of The Sun Private Reserve Hot Sauce Review

High River Tears Of The Sun Private Reserve

Note: This sauce appears in Season 14 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffzGY0ayapw

Here's a neat trick. We have all of the wonderful flavors and dynamics of the original Tears Of The Sun (reviewed elsewhere here - strongly suggest you read through that and watch through the accompanying video, as much of that applies here also), a taste profile which is kept intact, but then also improved notably. All of the original ingredients are intact, though appear to be slightly re-ordered, but there are a few other additions. Most notable of those is the Peach Ghost Scorpion, which is a hybrid of the two previous world's hottest peppers. I've not had one of these pods, but if the idea here is to bump up the heat of the Ghost, while retaining more of the flavor profile of that rather than the highly floral Scorpions, I'm all for it. Here, there are no floral notes that I can detect. I will also note that rather than increasing the heat, this hybrid seems to have tamped it down, as I've seen it rated at around 750K SHU, well below the 1M+ of the usual Ghosties and Scorpions.

Realistically, despite that pepper being first in the list, there are also papaya, mango, peach, and pineapple flavors all rounding out the tropical fruit vibe, along with orange Habs, so there is little in the way of the somewhat bitter superhot flavor profile that seems endemic with a lot of sauces utilizing those peppers. I personally think the blend here works much better than the original which, while tasty, is a flavor I also get tired of somewhat rapidly. With this sauce, I've had to forcibly stop myself eating it, so as to make sure I had enough for both the FOH video as well as the Q4 2022 Wing Thing. I should note that I have the 8 oz. bottle this sauce originally went to market with, though it has since gone to more usual 5 oz. 

Given the superhots, this is notably hotter than the original, which is a very welcome change...for chileheads. Indeed, one of the aspects I wished most was different with the original was a higher heat impact and here it is, delivered in spades. I would probably put this at mostly a chilehead only sauce, though it is also tasty enough to be tempting to the mere mortals who might wish to test their palates. Like all of the High River stuff, the pricing on this remains one of the best values in the market. In many ways, this rendition is a few steps closer to perfection for this sauce. In fact, this is probably one of my favorite fruit-based sweet hots and is pushing hard at Hellacious (reviewed elsewhere here) as my favorite sauce from High River. Also, one of the better sauces on The Hot Ones show.

Bottom line: The original was one of the most unique flavor entries in the hot sauce world and this one builds on that and pushes it to new heights. Absolute must for chileheads, especially those prone to fruit-based sweet hots.

Breakdown:

       Heat level: 3
       Flavor: 9
       Flexibility: 7
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7