Bohica Hawaiian Lava Hot Sauce Review

Bohica Pepper Hut Hawaiian Lava

I was unfamiliar with the usage of "bohica" and so found a lot of the verbiage on the label kind of strange, but upon finding the sort of vulgar pretext for what seems to be military slang, it seems more fitting. It doesn't really apply to the sauce, but it is less nonsensical now, if that makes sense, and no I'm not describing it here. You can look it up if you don't already know and are interested.

That aside, this is another sauce in which I’m tempted to do a very short review and call this “just another” pineapple-forward fruit-based sweet-hot with one pepper subbed out for another, which is true, but there is an entire litany of ingredients, including three separate fruit juices and a host of spices. While I think that it is mostly the case that this is a fairly uncomplex sauce, in terms of flavor, and a lot of pineapple flavor and pulp doing most of the lifting, there is also a fairly notable pepper presence, probably from the combination of the yellow Bells and the yellow 7-Pot Primos.

I don’t think I’ve had either a yellow 7-Pot Primo or a pineapple sauce with any 7-Pot, at least not in memory if I have, but the main difference here is a slight bitterness whereas the sauces with Scotch Bonnet or Habaneros tend more towards the fruitier side of things. The Reaper sauces have a foot in both worlds and that is mainly how those read out. This one, like many other pineapple sauces that tend to be on the pulpier and pale yellow side, is not anywhere near as sweet as some others I’ve had, which is a bit of a shame, as that is my preference, but it’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with some good pineapple puree and pulp in the proceedings, to be sure. It also falls more or less in the middle of the pack in terms of thickness, with a bit of looseness, but no actual separation, happily.

Given the 7-Pot, one might expect this sauce to be a bit on the roaring side, but it is not. Indeed, it is far, far from it, with the sauce overall being rather tame, despite the odd label intimation. This does allow one to get more of a read on the ingredients and try to pick up the grace notes, but by far, the more prominent flavors here are the pineapple and the pepper combination.

Bottom line: I don’t mean to damn it with faint praise, but this is, when all is said and done, a sort of middle of the pack entry into one of the more established sauce types.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 5