Coney Island Saucery Vault-Tec Hot Sauce Review

Coney Island Saucery Vault-Tec Industries

I've had my steely little eyes on this one for a bit, ever since I stumbled across it on Amazon. While I'm a Fallout fan casually, it's not to the extent that I collect that particular media, despite really liking the imagery and motif of everything from Fallout 3 onwards, and this sauce, like other licensed sauces tend to be, was a bit on the expensive side, too much for this poor lad. Then this, and another sauce that will also be in these annals at some point, if not already, depending on when you read this, were part of a set called the Vault-Dwellers pack, which was on sale, and like usual, I needed to throw a little more in the kitty for free freight, so here we are. I'm kind of a sucker for vanity sauces and vanity products generally, so this hit a couple of sweet spots for me. Of the two, I had higher interest in this, given the pineapple nature of things, but when opportunity shows, strike with a high hot iron fist and so on...

Anyway, with this kind of sauce, which I've had plenty of and which always tends to grab my interest, there are a number of approaches one can take. I prefer the more pineapple forward and sweeter ones, but sometimes makers will opt for the sour side. I'm not a fan of sour hot sauces particularly, so this decision is not met particularly approvingly by me most of the time. Part of this has to do with my impression that they're using unripe fruits. As a kid, I loved the sourness of that to a great extent, to the point where I'd hurl my little boy self into gastrointestinal distress, and more than once, I might add, which has given me a healthy respect to enjoy overly sour stuff in moderation and made me a bit gun shy. Where it concerns hot sauce, though, I think it undermines the idea of a condiment where you'd use it to increase your enjoyment of food. So, while we do have a solid amount of pineapple flavor in this quite pulpy and medium-thick sauce, it is compromised by the vinegar and the two additional acids added to this. 

I find this also tends to dial down the flexibility of things. If the sauce runs sweeter, you can use it on burgers or pizza as well as on lighter meats, where this kind of thing really shines, but when it's sour, both of those two options are out. Sour burgers and sour pizzas are not something I will ever really want, nor the omelets the label copy suggests, and while this could potentially serve a function in a cocktail, that's not really something I either indulge in or think of hot sauces towards, particularly. It's fine on fried chicken and that's where I think this works best, but I'd still rather have a different sauce. It's by no means a bad sauce and is quite palatable, despite being on the sour side, and I think this is more just a reflection of where my preferences lie. As far as heat, this is very much on the tame side, as expected, and isn't challenging, probably for anyone.

Bottom line: I know it's a collectible - it even has a glow-in-the-dark label - as much as food product, but this is tad on the pricier side. If you like sour fruit-based hot sauces and/or are into the Fallout universe, this is probably worth a look, but definitely I'd recommend waiting for a sale. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 3