I’ve heard more than one person rave about how good that Marie Sharp’s hot sauces are, so I recently had the opportunity to pick up a few and try them for myself.

For one thing, there are quite a few from which to choose. Fourteen kinds, to be exact. This one is one of the habanero pepper sauces, of which the heat ranges in 6 levels from ‘Mild’ to ‘Beware.’ This one, the Fiery Hot, ranks at 3 on their heat scale. It both looked and sounded like a good place to start.

The Fiery Hot is described as:

This sauce has much more Habanero pepper added and was originally developed especially for the Mexican market. If you want to experience the Mexican level of hotness, give this one a try.

As the company is Belizean, they obviously esteem their capacity for hotness as well above the Mexicans…which makes me wonder how the Mexicans view the Belizeans…hmmmmm.

Rather than just list the ingredients, I’ll show you a picture taken straight from the bottle:

Pretty much a standard brew for habanero sauces, without a lot of bells & whistles. It doesn’t have to be complicated to be good, so off to the tasting to see if this brand & sauce lives up to its reputation.

First impression: Wow, does this one smell like fresh habanero peppers! That’s pretty much it, though. Habanero peppers and a hint of lime. Consistency-wise, this also scored well with me. It pours thickly, but overly chunky, with a fair amount of noticeable seeds within the mix. In fact, it’s just thin enough to pour…but is inhibited by those flow-restrictor thingies (anybody know what they’re called?) that some hot sauces have. To get enough out of the bottle to suit me, I had to pry that off and toss it. No restricting my hot sauce usage, dammit!

Taste: The first thing I noticed was simply great habanero taste, truly doing homage to the fruit right off the plant. The second thing I noticed was that it wasn’t as hot as I expected either. Perhaps a 7/10 for heat, which seemed a little low for a habanero sauce…and then I remembered that this was only supposed to be 3/6 on their heat scale as well. Reveling in the flavor, it’s mostly habanero with some noticeable onions and garlic overtones. It performed well poured over food, such as chicken breasts, steak, and rice dishes, although there is some cumulative heat effect if you eat enough. It was equally as good mixed into foods, such as I did with salad dressings (& other condiments), marinades, and soups/stews. It was particularly good adding habanero heat & flavor to chili con carne.

Overall recommendation: With this sauce, Marie Sharp’s takes a step towards being one of the staple brands in your everyday collection. Simple but effective & healthy ingredients, a healthy but not overwhelming heat level, and a ton of habanero flavor is they key to this sauce. It has pretty wide utility for most dishes where you can use habanero, and you can even tone the heat down if need be. If you’re Belizean of course, you may need something hotter…but I’ll save those sauces for another review. Trash that flow-restrictor it comes with and pour this sauce liberally on your food and see what you think. I’m glad that I did. Enjoy!!

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