Local Hive Honey Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Local Hive Honey Habanero

I have this...thing in my mind, this vague sort of conception when it comes to sweet-hots, that I always kind of hope a given sauce will be like, in which it's a sort of predominantly sweet, with the other flavors and heat in balance around that. I think both the sadly departed Voodoo Chile's Voodoo Honey Dew and the Shield Maiden from Z's perhaps best approached this, but it's sort of along the lines of Blair's Pure Death, only with a touch (or more) of sweetness added to it (all of these sauces, by the way, are prior Sauces Of The Year and reviewed here, if you're interested in checking those out - handy list on a link to the right). It's like a splinter stuck in my mind, in some respects, in that I'm always half-hoping that any new sauce, while still having its own identity, will also be somewhat along those lines.

This sauce, this work of sheer genius and brilliance, is one of those I'm surprised we don't see more of and didn't come along sooner. Here we have an actual honey company, either producing or having someone make for them, this very refined and slick sauce, which sort of fuses the carrot-Habanero and garlic-Habanero sauces of yore, and runs them both under a base of delicious honey. I look for hot honeys a lot of the time and many times, I'll come across something that is a sauce masqueraded as a honey or vice versa, but not here. This definitely knows what it wants to be, which is a hot sauce, and intentionally distinct from their line of honeys, which interestingly, does not include a spicy version. 

Sweet-hots generally tend to have their own narrowing of application and this one is no exception. It is perhaps a bit on the sweeter side than some of the others, but pretty far from cloying, so creamy dishes are probably out. It is also fairly honey-forward, so things like lighter meats, particularly chicken, as well as pizza, work very nicely here, but I wouldn't try it on a burger or any Mexican food, for instance. Heat-wise, it's a Habanero, so quite moderate and I'd guess this is intentional, to make it as accessible as possible. 

Bottom line: This is a very well-done sauce, very smooth, with a wide variety of flavor notes that work together quite harmoniously.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 10
           Flexibility: 4
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6