Monday, September 25, 2023

Mythos Amun-Ra Hot Sauce Review

Mythos Amun-Ra

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2q3oKDHkx8

Here we have a sauce named after the supreme god of the Egyptian set, a mashing of the god of creation and the god of fire or the sun or light, depending on which translation you're reading. A lot of this thematically has found its way into anime, so incorporating it into hot sauces, such as the Halogi sauce line does, albeit with specifically Nordic gods and themes, makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of cool imagery and tie-ins and the symbols work well on their typically slick white labels. 

This sauce also uses the Caribe pepper, which are the pale yellow wax ones that show up every once in a while in the produce section. The heat is not really significant, maybe in the range of a Fresno, or slightly hotter, but they have a nice flavor to them and, though I don't see them often used, could make a very nice supporting flavor element. The main focus of this sauce is ostensibly the mango, all the way down to the color, which is the golden yellow to orange-ish hue of that fruit. Habanero supplies the heat and we've all seen that particular combination repeatedly. There is also the addition of bananas, which don't really show up, thankfully, as a flavor, but seem to contribute to the overall smoothness of this sauce. 

I'm mentioning all the positives up front before I get into the actual flavor, as that is decidedly less positive. The first ingredient here is apple cider vinegar and that creates a huge problem as it is, by far, the most notable taste in the sauce, which is unfortunate. There is probably a pretty great sauce hiding in here, buried underneath all the foot-vinegar taste. There is also lime, which contributes a bit to the sour, which I could probably have lived without, but the main issue is just how vinegar-forward this is. It's not just distracting, but actively overpowering, which is a shame. I really like the texture and color of this sauce quite a bit and when I can get a taste of the sauce when the vinegar isn't overwhelming, there is strong potential here. I wish they would have chosen a less obtrusive vinegar and leaned a bit harder into the mango-Habanero combination. The Habanero doesn't really show up as a flavor and is more just to be the heat, but it's at a pretty low level. I don't see anyone being challenged by this, at least on that level.

Normally, with fruit-based sweet hots, we have an array of things to put them on, but given the flavor profile, this one is pretty restricted for usage for me. Unlike the Thor sauce from them (reviewed elsewhere here), I can't really mask the awful vinegar easily, so it winds up being a chicken strip only sauce, whereas other mango-Habanero sauces (as long as they're sweet - I don't love sour hot sauces particularly) have made it onto pizza and an array of other meats. This is the second underwhelming sauce from this company and it's not necessarily the choice of vinegar as much as how they use it. Other companies have used the same vinegar and it's not show in the flavor at all, which is fine. You should not want the flavor of your hot sauce to be predicated by the choice of vinegar...I wouldn't think, anyway. So, like Rising Smoke before them, Mythos is down to the last chance before I write them off entirely, but it makes me sad, as I really like a lot of what they're doing, thematically, as well as the choice of some of their ingredients, such as the Fresno and Caribe. 

Bottom line: Habanero-mango is a fairly well established combination, but here, for a sauce that does so much right, it comes down to how much you personally like the taste of apple cider vinegar.

Breakdown:

       Heat level: 1
       Flavor: 3
       Flexibility: 2
       Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 2

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