Cry Baby Craig's Habanero & Garlic Hot Sauce Review

Cry Baby Craig’s Habanero & Garlic

Hailing out of Faribault, MN, which is...somewhere, perhaps even relatively close to the place where I found it, we have here a sauce which is very clearly meant to be an everyday table sauce. Those are great and there is always a place in any rotation for an excellent-flavored sauce, which this surely is. For those to be successful, they have to be good in near ubiquitous usage, which means that a lot of sauces would really like to be that, but few pull it off well. This one is close to doing just that very thing, but doesn’t quite make it all the way.

To be sure, this is because it is fairly thin and bordering on watery. For me, it seems to be trying to delicately skirt a cross between a Mexican style sauce, which this one has strong flavor references toward, and a Cajun style sauce, with more the looseness and somewhat vinegar forward nature of the latter. Trying to do those two styles at once is kind of an interesting proposition, as I don’t find Mexican food with heavy shots of vinegar to be particularly pleasant, and conversely, do not want primarily Mexican flavors like cumin anywhere near where I might use a Cajun style, but this one manages the balancing act deftly, with a foot planted firmly in each style, but not so much that it is exclusive to the other. That this is also done with fresh ingredients is an especially neat trick.

The flavor here is quite embracing, easily accessible, and with some pretty nice flavor dynamics that develops as you get further into it on whatever you’re eating that will also take some vinegar. For instance, where this falls a bit short, for me, is on something like pizza, because watery sauces and pizza do not go well together. Watery sauces in general need to have a place where they can be somewhat absorbed or you run the risk of creating a saucy mess and that is definitely the case here as well. I did find it quite nice not only on all the Mexican foods I tried with it, but additionally where I might use a Louisiana-style or Cajun, so fried foods, creamy dishes, and the like. Heat-wise, it is a bit reminiscent of the El Yucatecos, where the punch is generally up front and whatever that initial hit is as hot as the sauce ever winds up getting.

Bottom line: While not quite meeting what I would consider a great or great table sauce overall, this one is fairly solid in terms of flexibility and is right there in terms of flavor. 

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 1
           Flavor: 8
           Flexibility: 8
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 6