Smokin' Ed's Hot Goji Berry Pineapple Hot Sauce Review

Smokin’ Ed’s Hot Goji Berry Pineapple 

When I first saw this sauce, it struck me as curious. I’m not super familiar with the goji berry, other than peripherally, acai as well, but the visual of the sauce made me think that pineapple was playing a fairly moderate role here. If not, the idea of the berries I was familiar with, raspberry, blueberry, blackberry, strawberry, cranberry, did not lend themselves at all well to the idea of being blended with any tropical fruit. So, I was curious and added it to the backburner list, figuring I’d get it once Ed put out one of his trademark storewide sales.

I wound up getting it last year (2024), where it joined a few others, just sitting on the shelf, minding their own business, being put off and forgotten for far longer than intended, like so many others, with the main problem being that now that I had it, I had no idea quite where to use it. Pineapple suggests many things to me, but berry suggests many others, often contradictory. Additionally, my unfamiliarity with the goji was not helping. Was it a nice, sweet berry in its natural form, like the first four I mentioned above, or something far tarter, like the cranberry? After getting into it, I would say more like the latter, but as all those berries are distinct from each other flavor-wise, so too is the goji.

After opening the sauce, it became pretty clear that I was going to have a little bit of a challenge on my hands finding a place where it could fit. The flavor is definitely on the tart side and I will just say that this sauce is for sure in need of some sugar. Perhaps that was the role of the pineapple, but if so, it was not nearly enough, particularly not with the addition of vinegar to boot. We have a tart berry merged with the superhot bitterness of the Reapers and those are the two main flavors. This sort of brings up another consideration in that I have no real idea what is behind the design of the sauce. Usually, I can guess where someone was trying to go, but here...despite my best efforts, still no idea. Goji is considered a superfood and like many of those, one of the major uses seems to be in drinks, smoothies, etc. I don’t think that was the idea here, but I suppose it could be. I found it worked okayish on ice cream and on fried foods, but not to the point it would be my first choice. Interestingly, I didn’t like it on either burgers or roast beef at all, but I suppose this is probably closer to a cranberry on the sweetness scale and I would not ever considering combining either of those foods with that.

The texture here is also a bit on the grainy side. I understand goji berries are generally consumed in a sort of dried out form, closer to a raisin, sometimes chewier, and dried goji were used here. Using a dried fruit I think will always give you a bit of that, given there is no real way to re-hydrate the cells fully once desiccated. In this case, it makes it a bit clumpy. As mentioned, the Reapers are here and are a bit forward, so you can get a sense of the flavor. Heat-wise, it probably won’t challenge chileheads much, but I can definitely see it pushing some normies.

Bottom line: Props to Ed Currie for using a unique ingredient (I don’t recall seeing goji used elsewhere before this), but this is another sauce that I don’t find fits in particularly well.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 4