Hawaiian Hot T’s P.O.G.2 Hot Sauce Review

Hawaiian Hot T’s P.O.G.²

Note: This sauce appears on Season 28 of The Hot Ones.

The worst thing about this is the label and yes, it’s apparently time for me return to grousing about labels and label design. I think there is a pretty strong correlation between sauces I find favorable and me doing this, because I think it potentially works against the sauce. Here, we have a few problems. The level gap is excessively large, which makes the ingredients and nutritional information section too small. The front part, with the Ghost pepper in a ghost costume, is mostly fine. I could live without the foil, but it’s ok for all that. Then there is the section between the two I mentioned, where we have an unholy onslaught of label foil with insufficient contrast and it’s just...not great. In that text, after searing my eyes, I detected that this sauce is meant to have Scorpion in it, an ingredient which does not appear in the ingredient list. I’m certain this is an oversight and the version used here is probably powder, but it’s hard to proof-read stuff like that when the label design is so poor. Amusingly, the ingredient list on the Heatonist website and the Hawaiian Hot T’s website is completely different from my bottle, so I’m going to presume I got a wrong or incorrect label or possibly different batch. 

That aside, the important part is the sauce itself. As I’ve mentioned numerous times, I’m no fan of either Scorpion or passion fruit and I kind of went into this sauce more for coverage than any other motivator, but I was happily and quite pleasantly surprised by the sauce, which does a lot of things at once. It is a very much composite mix of the flavors and there is a nice tropical vibe from the fruits and Habs, along with every once in a while a shot of what seems like a straight cane sugar. This is a thick and somewhat pulpy sauce, so agitation can be a challenge, but if I can get hits of that cane sugar in amidst the overall atmosphere, I want that. I really like the way this sauce approaches sweetness. I can’t really pick out individual fruit flavors, but this is evidently an island drink concoction ported over into a hot sauce, so I’m thinking the blend is probably the idea.

As for heat, there is a bit of a floral note and plenty of bitter superhot notes that seem to me beyond what the Ghost would impart in the dead last ingredient slot, as it is here. It seems likely there is some Scorpion in there somewhere, maybe around where the Ghost is. This was in the 7 slot for the show and it does have an appreciable punch to it, but nothing overwhelming. With heavily tropical flavors, I think this generally works best on lighter meats, so seafoods, chicken, and pork would probably do nicely here. I haven’t tested it on all of them, but of the ones I have, I did find this quite enjoyable.

Bottom line: Definitely dig what they’re doing here and this is another enjoyable entry from the show, presuming you like tropical flavors and a good bit of punch to your sauce.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6

Overall: 5