Lola's Mango Ginger Scotch Bonnet (Hyvee Exclusive)
I try really hard to keep an open mind and give things a chance, even when I've been underwhelmed in the past and this entry serves as good example of that principle. I previously did all of the varieties of the Lola's sauces I came across and the highest any of them rated was a cumulative 4, which is not exactly inspiring. I found them solid on ramen, which was where I used them the most, but not anything overly compelling (reviewed elsewhere here), with one of them so indistinct and uninteresting, I didn't bother to film a video of it (though in hindsight, I now wish I would have, if nothing else, pairing it with one of the others). I then nearly completely forgot about the company until I saw it during my vacation travels this year.
Where I saw it, as you may have already guessed, was at a Hyvee. The Hyvee grocery chain, for those unfamiliar, is a largely Midwestern presence and I found the stores I visited to generally be pretty fantastic, though admittedly, I didn't entirely love the layouts. I believe I may have Yelped some of the locations I visited, if you happen to be interested in my ramblings there. Regardless, I didn't glom onto the fact that it was a Hyvee Exclusive until I was getting ready to shoot the FOH video for it (link up top, when available, as per usual).
Despite some misgivings, such as the color of this, which is a sickly sort of yellowish-green, and the idea of ginger in the sauce, which often is disappointing, but fruit-based sweet hots I find myself nearly perpetually in need of and figured I may as well give their foray into this a shot. These are not expensive sauces and worst case, I was just out a few bucks. This is not, to be perfectly clear, a fruit-based sweet hot.
It is instead a sauce that more closely resembles a slightly thick turmeric-flavored vinegar. Mangos are the first listed ingredient (and ginger towards the last, which really kind of brings a nice air of confusion to the naming structure of the sauce), but they perhaps contributed a bit more to the body of the sauce than the actual flavor. This is a fairly loose sauce as well, so I'm not entirely sure how much I believe the ordering. The Scotch Bonnet contribute a bit of warmth, but not a lot of flavor, and the ginger is nearly entirely absent.
Now, I don't dislike turmeric, on the contrary, but I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out where this sauce was supposed to go...and given the nature of the Hyvee customer base, who it was for, either. Pairing this sauce, which requires something that can go with the pungency of vinegar and the very forward nature of turmeric, proved a challenge that I eventually tired of attempting. This is not a good thing for the sauce, neither was my overall impression that it was just odd and peculiar. The suggestion was to use it on anything, but those ingredients paired with, say, a mac & cheese, pizza, or even a ramen, sound more stomach-churning than appetizing, also not a good thing for the sauce. Even on chicken tendies, a lot of what flavor was there vanished and I was left with a light variety of sour notes, again, not a good thing.
Bottom line: This is not exactly a bad sauce, but more one without a place, ill-fitting in nearly every application I tried it in.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 1
Flavor: 3
Flexibility: 1
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 2
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