Maritime Madness Fire Candy Series Hot Sauce(s) Mini-Review

Maritime Madness Fire Candy Candied Blueberry
Maritime Madness Fire Candy Candied Cranberry
Maritime Madness Fire Candy Raspberry Habanero

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyUKOgfRj4c

These are, to vary extents, applicable of the adage "great in concept, but not so great in reality (and/or execution)." I really like the idea of basing fruit-based sweet hot sauces around the idea of candied fruit and think there is potentially a lot of mileage there. That is not quite what we have here, unfortunately.

All of them share a universal characteristic in that, particularly for something calling itself "candy" or "candied," there is a decided lack of sweetness. Candied fruit frequently will have a concentrated sweetness about it, which none of these have. I think part of it is the issue they all also have in trying to occupy too many worlds. These are listed on the website as hot sauces, which tend, overall, to have a level of astringency to them, and trying to serve that master, which nearly always invariably involves vinegar, sort of spikes the project. In my view, had they tended more in the direction of syrups, with a lot less vinegar, all of them would have been improved. As it is, I just find this line to be mostly confusing.

For the Blueberry, we see the addition of unnnamed spices and hops. I don't know if they were trying to use a blueberry Hefeweizen as inspiration, but the addition of hops makes this just taste...wrong. I don't know of another world to describe the combination of flavors, but they do not feel at all like they belong together. This particular sauce also suffers from the xantham gum jiggle, which makes mouth feel a touch icky and globby. This is also the least hot of the sauces and my least favorite.

For the Cranberry, I love the coloration. It is very bright, lively, vibrant red. What I don't like is the addition of lemon and ginger into the mix, which wore out its welcome quickly. It was sort of interesting seeing how they meshed with the quinine of the cranberry, but maybe I'm just too much of a snob, but I like cranberry sauce to be cranberries and sugar and that's all. This one has a slight degree of heat to it, but nothing major. 

For the Raspberry, this one is more like a thicker and more raspberry forward vinaigrette. I found this one to be the most flexible (and hence my overall favorite) in terms of foods it works with and the heat about the same as the Cranberry. I do wish this one would have been less vinegary, since both the raspberry and Habanero flavors come through and if it were sweeter, I think it could make a potential worthwhile grill sauce.