Cholula Sweet Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Cholula Sweet Habanero

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3c8WWqgjjM

Another entry in the line and the newest flavor in quite some time from Cholula, who make what I strongly feel is one of the better and more accessible Mexican-style table sauces. Sure, there's a lot of commercialized branding here, such as the distinctive wood cap, to the graphic adoring the labels, but they're very clear that you will wind up getting what you expect by sight alone. However, a lot of their derivatives have left much to be desired. I've reviewed some of them on this blog, but while I admire deeply the Original sauce, and have probably consumed gallons of it, a lot of those variations I found myself wishing they wouldn't have done. Not this one, though.

From the very first taste of it, it was maybe not love, but something akin to familiarity. What I mean is that while I've never had this sauce before, it echoed into a literal translation of what my taste buds expect anytime I get a pineapple-Habanero sauce. This sauce is more or less what I always expect...and often don't get, but I digress. The pineapple is very forward, almost to the point of it reminding me of the forcefulness of a candy, with very little of the typical Cholula flavoring. The Habanero is almost all decidedly on the back end, but wonder of wonder, they actually brought a bit of ooomph with them this time and the heat builds up to an impressively solid (for them or any other mass market sauce maker) level. 

I didn't know what to expect, really, definitely not what was in the bottle, but for a Cholula sauce, it is drastically unlike any other Cholula sauce. There's some continuity, even in the bad ones, with the Original, but here it's so indistinct and under the surface that it takes a bit of digging to pick out and depending on where you use it, might not even be possible. This is, in essence, a fairly straightforward fruit-based sweet hot and not really a Mexican style sauce at all. So, while this takes it out of the running for things like say beef tacos or bean burritos, it does put it very nicely into categories like pizza or wings or strips or anywhere else you'd like to use that style of sweet hot. Given how delicious it is, it lends itself well to experimentation, though definitely I find it a lot better on the lighter meats, personally.

Bottom line: Absolutely unexpected banger from Cholula and a very worthy addition to the stable.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 9
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7