Our next entry into the HZOB’s Homemade Hot Sauce feature comes from Gordon Cameron from Washington, D.C. His amateur venture, called Capitol Punishment, features a current stable of five hot sauces, including this one called Must-Have-Mango.

Gordon’s intro for this sauce goes like this:

Move aside and let this mango through!

Tropical Mango and fiery Hab’s kick up this island inspired hot sauce. Use on any of your favorite jerk poultry dishes, great on roast ham and pork Also try some on a juicy grilled burger with avocado and jack cheese.

Ingredients: Mango Puree, Orange habaneros, onion, garlic, herbs, spices, vinegar, water, salt, sugar, prepared mustard.

First impression: Wafting from the bottle, the aroma is strongly habanero and not so much mango. Its orange-yellow color is in contrast to the reddish-brown in the landscape of habanero sauces out there nowadays. What really struck me was the consistency. Many homemade sauces can be a little uneven, but this poured from the bottle nice and smoothly. It does seem a little thin in consistency, but it has just enough viscosity to coat my tasting spoon just nicely.

Taste: Dominant habanero, with accompanying heat, and not so heavy on the mango sanguinity. I like that in the so-called “fruity” hot sauces, where the fruit taste is almost an aftertaste rather than sweetish dominant flavor. It balanced the acidity of the vinegar fairly well where I wasn’t puckering after trying it. I didn’t taste the herbs & spices as much as expected, but that may have been the heat effect from the habaneros. I tried this on a deli sandwich and with some gumbo, and the sauce definitely added complexity to both. By complexity, I mean gasping for air after I started sweating and my tastebud heat sensors were complaining…:)

Overall recommendation: This sauce is good stuff. I think the spices need a little tweaking to balance them with the habanero and mango, but this is a solid effort. I can see this going well with the lighter meats like poultry and fish, but it has enough habanero shwerve going on so that it will add that characteristic hab taste to any meal you desire it.

Gordon has four other hot sauces we’ll be reviewing, but those write-ups will be coming from a couple of our other celebrity reviewers. Stay tuned!!

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