Cape Fear Pepper Company: Red Savina Habanero Premium Hot Sauce (wow, what a long name for a sauce). Ingredients: Red Savina Habanero Chilies, Vinegar, Onion, Tomatoes, Lemon Juice, Salt, Garlic.

Following closely on the heels of Joe and Linda’s excellent review of this same product, I too received a bottle from the main man himself, Tracy Campbell.

The first thing I have to comment on is the graphic design, done by Ryan over at Angry Pepper Graphix. It’s oh so snazzy with the demented looking skull and swash buckling swords. As cool as this logo is, it’s a little bit fuzzy. This is most noticed when comparing the edges of the “Cape Fear” logo to the ingredients list, which has a nice, crisp edge to it (they probably took a low res image, say 72-150dpi and bumped it up to 300 dpi for printing). Other than that, this is one of my favorite graphics that I have seen in a while.

Now onto the main topic at hand, the taste. After consuming nearly half the bottle in one day, I can officially state that this sauce is incredible. I’m going to go even a step further and say this sauce is in strict competition with CaJohn’s Ace for my favorite sauce. I had to double check the ingredients list upon first tasting for any fruit names. The Red Savinas, combined with the Lemon Juice present such a fruity flavor that it fools one into thinking there’s some sort of passion fruit involved. But, alas, there is none. Tracy must just pack this sauce with Red Savinas to get that taste to really shine through. It is truly exquisite.

Working past the heat to get to the rest of the tastes is a little difficult. I detect just a hint of tomato and a slight overtone of salt. The salt lingers on the front and middle of the tongue as the heat dies down, which is an interesting sensation.

Speaking of heat, this sauce as an impressive amount. It body slams your tongue the instant the sauce touches it and then spreads out to torture the rest. While the label says “XX HOT”, I would only give this one X. The heat hits quick, but also dies down to a low flame quickly as well. Then again, I gave some of this sauce to less heat tolerent Sydney (one of the great bartenders at BJ’s Brewery) and it sent him running into the kitchen for water. That’s the fastest I think I’ve seen a human run. Upon his return, someone asked him what that was about. All he did, while sucking down copious amounts of water, was throw a finger at me, and a dirty look.

Taste: 10 Heat: 8

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