A dog who likes spicy food and chile peppers is definitely our kind of dog! Thanks to Mick & Rita from Kato Productions for donating a couple of sauces and a not-big-enough Habanero chocolate bar (for us) to the cause. Woof!

Kato Productions is the creation of Mick and Rita Pinckney. The name for their sauces came from the love of their beloved Dalmatian, Kato, who is featured prominently on all their products. (What a cutie!) Besides being previous Scovie award winners, the Pinckneys are also veterans of the Food Network’s Food Finds show. From their glorious hacienda in the Sunshine State of Florida, Mick & Rita graced us with a little bit of info about their products and themselves….

Tell us a little about yourselves. What else do you do besides create really tasty sauces & chocolate bars?

We started making hot sauces in 1998. Then we decided to start our website business in 1999. Kato has always been the spokes-dog for our line of products. Kato’s Island Sauce is our original product and has been our best seller. Our other sauces came along shortly afterwards. We are continually refining our recipes. We just recently changed Kato’s Mean Green to Kato’s Meaner Greener to incorporate green habaneros instead of Jalapenos.

How would you describe the ‘perfect’ hot sauce?

The perfect hot sauce should incorporate both flavor and heat. But as we know, heat is relevant so what is hot to one is just spicy to another.

Most habanero sauces have a great deal of heat to them, yet yours manage to keep the heat from being too overwhelming while maintaining the great taste. Was that by design or did it just turn out that way when you mixed it up?

Our first batch of the Island Sauce was super hot! We started cutting back on the habanero peppers until we found what we thought was the perfect balance between heat and flavor.

So is Kato the official taste-taster of all your products, or does Ms. Skidmark REALLY rule the roost?

Kato is the President and CEO of Kato Productions. He has been the inspiration of our company since the beginning. His picture looks much better on a bottle of sauce than either one of us. Skidmark just looks pretty. She doesn’t even answer the phones around here.

[After this article was written, Kato the Dalmatian passed away at the ripe old age of 13. He will be much missed by those who knew and loved him. Fare thee well, Kato...perhaps you can share your chile peppers wherever you are.]

Any plans for new products from the drawing board there at KP’s?

We have BIG plans for the future of Kato Productions. We have one sauce in the works now and several in R& D. We have just recently relocated our operations to the St. Augustine area and plan to grow datil peppers for our sauces.

So what’s in all this stuff? An Ingredient List!

Kato’s Meaner Greener Sauce: Tomatillos, green habaneros, garlic, onions, cilantro, cider vinegar, lime juice, and spices

Kato’s Island Sauce: Habanero & cayenne peppers, mangoes, mustard, brown sugar, vinegar, spices

Kato’s Habanero Chocolate Bar: Sugar, chocolate liqueur, pure habanero powder, fractionated palm kernel oil and hydrogenated palm oil, cocoa powder, non-fat dry milk, milk fat, soya lecithin and vanillin

Joe’s $0.02 “Listen up…”

Kato’s Meaner Greener Sauce: I expected this sauce to be hotter since the sauce features green habaneros, but the tomatillos mellow this sauce out a bit. The garlic and spices give great FLAVOR and make this more of a multi-purpose hot sauce, and I found it tasted fantastic both in AND on food. I liked it best as an condiment on top of chicken salad. I hope no one saw mean licking my fingers after I ate….

Kato’s Island Sauce: Unless my taste buds have gone to meet their maker, I also expected this sauce to be hotter, but I found it mild enough to pour on food liberally. Meat-wise, this sauce seems ideally suited for chicken. As a marinade or even used like a light glaze on the grill, the taste is top-notch. The ingredients are simple but well-chosen, and I liked this one almost as much as the Meaner Greener.

Kato’s Habanero Chocolate Bar: Dark chocolaty taste at first which tasted quite yummy. My first thought after I ate part of the bar was, Great flavor, but not all that much heat. Then I ate another bite, and the heat grew?and grew. The more I ate, the hotter it got. Bottom line is that it?s the hottest of the chile chocolates I have ever tried, and that?s a compliment. Might also taste good, melted or not, with your favorite ice cream or to make some campfire s?mores that you won?t soon forget.

Linda’s $0.02 “I’m brilliant…”

Kato’s Meaner Greener Sauce: Mmmmm…chocolate. Wait. Wrong product. OK…so this is a habanero sauce I can get in to. It’s not so hot that it renders your taste buds useless, while still keeping that traditional habanero flavor. This sauce literally goes in and on everything. The bottle here is nearly gone, and I can’t say that about every habanero sauce. I think this is a great sauce to try if you’re afraid of habanero sauces, but still want to get the flavor of the pepper.

Kato’s Island Sauce: Really nice flavor balanced with appropriate heat. This sauce is tremendous on chicken, but don’t rule it out to spice up boring things like rance dressing, sour cream or cream cheese. It adds a pleasant burn while punching up the flavor.

Kato’s Habanero Chocolate Bar: So, maybe it’s because I’m pregnant, but the instant I tried this, I thought of using it on frozen bananas. Remember the chocolate covered frozen bananas you had as a kid? It’s just that the flavor of the chocolate combined with the building heat of the habanero screams out for something cool and fruity. Or, maybe melted as a fondue with some chilled cheesecake. It’s wonderful, but I can’t see myself eating a whole bar of it because it seems like it needs a buddy.

Don’t just take our word for it! Here are some online reviews of these products:

Saucerater
TheHotPepper Reviews
Island Sauce Reviews
Meaner Greener Reviews
Habanero Chocolate Reviews
Hot Sauce Blog review

Give these reviewers a shout and ask them to review Kato’s products as well:

Feeling Saucy
Alien Zombie
Carl’s big list

Want to review Kato’s products for yourself? Go here and leave your own opinion:

www.rateitall.com/t-1125-hot-sauces.aspx
www.thehotpepper.com/viewforum.php?f=3

Recipe Ideas

Kato has own recipe forum (not bad for a dog, huh?) and you can check it out HERE. Lots of recipes to be had, and some do use some of these sauces.

Joe’s Hamburger Condiment

3 tbsp. mayonnaise
1 tbsp. mustard (we used Gulden’s brown)
2 tbsp. Kato’s Meaner Greener Sauce

Mix together in a small bowl until smooth consistency. Ad hoc creation by us during a night cooking on the grill. Makes enough condiment for a couple of burgers, depending on how much you use on each.