Thursday, June 26, 2025

Captain Mowatt's Canceaux Turbeaux Hot Sauce Review

Captain Mowatt’s Canceaux Turbeaux

The original version of this sauce, the Canceaux, was evidently named in reference to a place in Nova Scotia and was the sauce that put Captain Mowatt’s on the map. This version, with the Turbeaux (turbo) designator was the hotter variant of that sauce. I don’t know what the exact difference in peppers is - this one has Cayenne, Red Jalapeno, Bird’s Eye, and Japone - but definitely opting for the hotter one was the good move here, even though the heat level is decidedly mild. Given those peppers I just mentioned, none of which I would consider hot, that’s probably to be expected. One of those whole peppers was also floating in the sauce, but I’m not sure which, exactly. 

To be sure, they are in delicious combination, though. I believe this combination was also used the phenomenal Sharks’ Bite Mustard from this same company (video in the Spicy Mustards YouTube playlist at right), and it is a solid winner. This is definitely one of the most flavorful and utterly excellent sauces I’ve had this year. This pairing of peppers and the cane sugar is an outstanding base and the garlic here is used judiciously. It is definitely there, but not aggressively so the balancing act this sauce performs is exquisite. 

This was portrayed as a seafood sauce, but the website suggests it is more a “Swiss army knife of sauces.” To an extent, this is true and re-affirms what I’ve said time and time again, being that if you make a great tasting enough sauce, it is good on anything, making it by default an “everyday” or “table” sauce.. However, while I obviously like this sauce a great deal, I would not go quite to that extent. This is, in essence, more of an Asian-style sweet chile or sweet Thai chile type sauce, though probably one of the best versions of those I’ve had. Still, while I don’t doubt mixing this with cream cheese would make a delightful treat, I can’t say that I think it works with everything. Definitely fried foods, definitely seafoods, definitely anything where that sauce would be used and a good portion of what is described on the website, but I can’t see this working well, if at all, on tacos, for instance, or on pizza either, for that matter. I do think it is more flexible than that style of sauce tends to be those and this shouldn’t take away from what is a brilliantly designed sauce.

Bottom line: Extremely flavorful Asian sweet chile sauce, with a tempering of the garlic in favor of a wholly delightful mix of peppers and the cane sugar, just an utterly fantastic version of that style. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 9

Overall: 7

 

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