High Desert Not Mama's Chamoy Hot Sauce Review

High Desert Sauce Co. Not Mama's Chamoy

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook.

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

I am officially going to add High Desert to the list of sauce companies with a streak of inventiveness and creativity as this is the third sauce in the row of theirs I’ve had which I’ve found highly unique and unlike nearly anything else that comes to mind. This time, they’re taking on a fruit-based sweet hot, with raspberry as the fruit. That berry is not one that I find used frequently in sauces, so I was already interested. Additionally, the reference was to chamoy, which I honestly am only familiar with in passing from those goofy red pickles that the kids like to eat in their short form videos.

The pepper here is a 7-Pot Douglah, a superhot I’m only passingly familiar with and intended to explore a bit more in 2024, but thus far, I can’t say I’ve had a sauce with it that I’ve really liked. The pepper reads to me as sour and part of my exploration was to determine if that was those particular sauces or the pepper itself. I still have at least one more Douglah sauce to go, but I’m leaning pretty hard towards the pepper itself being sour, as it is here. The Douglah is definitely a superhot, though, so this is probably a sauce better reserved not only more for chileheads, which the labeling is pretty clear about, but also chileheads who are also foodies, so as to better appreciate the balance and harmony of flavors masterfully created here.

This works to the sauce’s advantage in the right hands, though, such as here. The additional of the raspberries and honey, leaning in a bit and combining with the Douglah sour notes, creates a very intriguing and quite flavorful balance. While the sauce is definitely more on the tart side, it is overall quite pleasant. The thickness of the sauce also lends itself well to sticking to things and since this is a berry fruit-based sweet hot, it does very nicely with pretty much any meat you might care to throw at it. And cheeses. And chocolate. Honestly, part of the joy for me with this sauce was just trying it on different stuff to see how it would go, including everything suggested on the label. While I didn’t love everything, it was definitely a lot of fun.

Bottom line: A very intricately balanced sauce, leaning into the strengths of the ingredients, all which delivering a pretty satisfying heat charge. If you like fruit-based sweet hots and are a foodie chilehead, put this on the list. 

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 2
           Flavor: 9
           Flexibility: 8
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7