We came across this gem while hot sauce shopping recently, and couldn’t resist picking this one up. We’ve been looking for the Chocolate Habanero hot sauce version from this company but haven’t been able to find it, but this one looked fairly intriguing.

Periodically, I will go off on a tangent about the ingredients list of certain sauces…and how manufacturers will use poor choices in regards to quality. Either that, or I will rant about artificial colors, preservatives, or the like. Finally, I found a sauce with no such issues. You can see this list:

Ingredients: organic apple cider vinegar, organic habaneros, organic yams, organic garlic, organic sambal (tamari & spices) & organic tomato paste

Having been a customer at Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Trader Joe’s, and other natural foods markets, I have always bought into the whole “organic” food thang, having learned of the reality of what processing does to the quality of our mass-produced foods. White sugar, white flour and high fructose corn syrup are just a few of these such evils that permeate much of the food we eat.

That said, this sauce had a few things I didn’t expect in a hot sauce. Yams? Sambal? In a hot sauce? What the heck was that all about? I just had to crack the bottle open and check it out.

Here’s what a dab of it looked like poured from the bottle. It pours out fairly thick, perhaps slightly less viscous than ketchup. You can see the spices floating within the hot sauce itself, which led me to believe that the taste would be pretty good.

Taste: Surprising complex, this sauce is really more flavorful than expected. The tomato and garlic seemed prominent, with that characteristic habanero burn that follows. I would rate the heat at 7/10, which is fairly low for a habanero sauce. The key to this one really is flavor, as I really liked it on some of the usual suspects like meats (chicken & steak), soups (chili & the like), and rice dishes like jambalaya were exceedingly tasty with this sauce. The smoky taste is not too overwhelming either, and is a nice twist to the taste as well.

Overall recommendation: Unless you’re a die-hard for heat, this sauce has a lot to offer as far as habanero sauces go. Nice & thick, great complex flavor, and a respectable heat level, this sauce is one that you may wish to try. It may not always be obvious what foods to pair this up with, but that’s the fun part anyway…right? Quality of ingredients is what you may want to notice, if that’s important in your sauces. This one takes ‘all-natural’ to the next level. Enjoy!

P.S. One problem is that I don’t know what happened to this company. They may still exist somewhere in the wilds of North Carolina, but their website at www.not-cool.com is seemingly defunct. At least you can still find their sauces around at certain retailers, like we did picking this up at Jungle Jim’s.