Heat Hot Sauce Shop Limited Edition Roasted Habanero & Garlic
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3tmnqcGsjE
As one might expect, I get a lot of bumps during the holiday season, for Black Friday and so on, from various heat dispensaries. I don't remember if I'd gotten anything from this outlet in the past or not, but when they showed up, I took a peek at what they had to offer. I must say it's heartening to see a couple of younger chileheads pursuing their passion and they're off to what I'd say is a pretty strong start. As mentioned exhaustively prior, I don't do a lot of online shopping of sauces, given my proximity to the brick-and-mortar outlets of one of the all-time greats, Burn Your Tongue, but the more the merrier when it comes to the chilehead community at large.
Anyway, whilst poking around the site, I found a few things that I could not get at BYT, which were less than both Amazon and Heatonist, so I put together a little order and needed a fill-in. That's when this was offered up in the suggestions. It immediately spoke to me of the vaunted Irazu Roasted Habanero & Garlic (reviewed elsewhere here) hot sauce, which was half of my custom Mexican-style blend, but this one had the addition of sugar. That seemed an intriguing twist and so, despite the apple cider vinegar, I went forward. I chose the LE version over the regular one, as the LE used red and orange Habaneros, which led me to suspect the regular version uses green. I'm much less a fan of those, but I could also be wrong in that thought. If so, then depending on how this sauce went, I might be inclined to take the non-LE version for a spin in future.
Vanity sauces for hot sauce outlets I've frequently found to be a mixed bag, ranging from solid to pretty good, all the way down to better left collecting dust on a shelf. I'd put this one more in the solid range and most of this has to do with the apple cider vinegar, which proved itself, again, to be an unwelcome flavor distraction. When I could get the roasted Habanero flavor, it was very nice, deep, and rich, really the best of what that pepper can be, in my estimation. The sweetness was also a nice touch and this is notably hotter than the Irazu as well. Very nice amount of warmth from the Habs and all was good there...but the apple cider vinegar...
This was clearly going to be a Mexican-style sauce, so I went through an array of foods. Depending on how much of an apple cider vinegar hit I wound up getting, the results again ranged pretty widely. I found it to work best on refried beans, which did a nice job of muting out a lot of the apple cider vinegar flavor while also melding quite well with the roasted Habanero. As to the roasted garlic, it winds up being somewhat lost here, drowned in too many other competing flavors. I understand the need to differentiate and set yourself apart somewhat, but here, it wound up working a bit to the detriment of the sauce.
Bottom line: A variation on the theme of roasted Habanero and garlic that winds up getting in its own way a bit too much...if you like apple cider vinegar more than I do and that style, this is definitely worth a go.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 2
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 2
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 4
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