Maritime Madness Simple Tropical Habanero Hot Sauce

Maritime Madness Simple Tropical Habanero

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DuHoMzZlPM

I like the premise of this line, with more of a focus on less complicated sauces, allowing the pepper to ostensibly shine. The label design, in conjunction with the bottles, if I didn't mention before, is le magnifique...mostly. Not having a white point (or enough contrast) behind the ingredients I didn't love and once it gets towards the bottom of the bottle, upending it and keeping it there may prove a bit of a challenge, but the soft nature of the plastic and the tapered tip on top lend themselves well to squeezability. Now, whether or not you need that aspect in a hot sauce is a discussion I'm leaving for another day, but if you are going to do it, do it well and they do it perhaps better than everyone, yes, including Yellowbird. 

For this sauce, there are Habaneros as the lead and a bevy of other ingredients, including pineapple, mango, and maple syrup, all of which contribute to a nice generalized "tropical" sweetness, without detracting much from the Habaneros. In a way, this is a shame, as I don't love the flavor of Habaneros, still, despite having had many, many sauces with them in it - I suppose you could say I have an uneasy alliance with them, to a degree - but that was the intent of the sauce and they certainly lived up to it. Mostly, this reminds me of the aggressive blast of the El Yucateco Habanero Red (reviewed elsewhere here) by way of an underlying tropical sweetness.

For me, this means that it's flexible enough to use on pizza, but not everywhere I might normally use a less adorned pineapple-Habanero sauce. So, burgers are out, Mexican food I'm still undecided about, on chicken tendies it's ok, but not something I'd generally seek out. In a way, it's kind of a lost sauce, in that there doesn't seem to be a natural place for it to go, but with the bottles being 9 oz., it is flavorful enough that I've had a lot of fun playing around and experimenting.

Bottom line: While it may not be the instant hit I was hoping for, there's enough here that I find it to be overall pretty intriguing, with a heat level low enough to be quite accessible for those chile-curious looking to dip their toes in.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 5
           Flexibility: 4
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 4