Butterfly Bakery Vermont Habs Hot Sauce Review

Butterfly Bakery Vermont Habs

I went in to this one kind of thinking the sauce would be thicker...I’m not sure why I thought that...the relative density of sauce is not always easily established with an unopened full bottle that has the shrink intact, but sometimes I get these ideas in my mind that become a bit difficult to shake...at least until the bottle is open and once is confronted with the evidence. 

This one is maybe not the thickness I was thinking it would be nor is it quite the watery nature of a Cayenne Lousiana-style, though with the modicum of ingredients: pepper, vinegar, salt, I suppose it is perhaps closest to that in application. There is quite a bit more pulp here, more body, which gives the sauce a very nice mouth feel if/when taken straight. I don’t suppose too many will actually do this, but it is quite nice and you can get a good feel for the subtleties of this sauce, which you will assuredly not get if/when you use it on food. 

This sauce, perhaps more than any other I’ve had in recent memory, puts the often-maligned and ubiquitous Habanero in its best possible setting and light. Here, they are using red Habaneros, definitely the supreme variant of that pod, and one can get a grasp of the fruitness and hint of sweetness from those in full ripeness. They are the first ingredient and front and center and if you are able to find a food pairing that will let this be the dominant flavor, one will be well-rewarded.

What I found was that the flavor would tend to vanish a bit in actual use. Even though there is a healthy vinegar hit up front, it fades quite rapidly, which is not always desirable in the usual suspects for applications of a Louisiana-style sauce. Rather, this sauce tends to meld with whatever you’re using it on, which is highly desirable in other settings. For instance, this is one of the few sauces that I think does an excellent job of stepping on tomato-based Italian sauces without interfering with those distinctive flavors. When it comes to heavier food, though, that same tendency hampers its ability to cut through richness, which is one of the attributes I’m most after, as I quite enjoy balance in dishes. 

This is an utterly delicious sauce, though, another absolute gem from one of the more masterful saucemakers out there, and I had a great deal of fun trying it in almost every setting I could think of, including Mexican, though I’m not really a fan of astringency there.. It is slightly too loose for stuff like pizza, unless you’re really careful, but there is a good amount of flexibility. Heat-wise, since we’re only deal with Habaneros, it is pretty moderate, so it should provide a nice accessibility for most people.

Bottom line: Yet another excellent entry from one of the more impressive sauce-makers out there. Those with an affinity for gourmet flavors in a vinegar forward sauce will find much to love here.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 6