I was truly excited to review a hot sauce that no one else has yet reviewed, and only a few have even tried. Talk about an exclusive! This is the type of thing that we really get into here at The Hot Zone Online.

First, some background on the Fatalli pepper, courtesy of the archives of The Chileman. Also spelled ‘fatalii,’ this pepper has its origins in Africa and is in the same family (capsicum chinense) as the habanero. Bright yellow when ripe, this pepper is both quite fruity and incredibly hot. Those who have tried it will tell you that it is every bit the rival to the habanero in terms of its place at the top of the chile pepper heat scale.

You’ll notice that this sauce is not bright yellow, and that’s due to its pairing with the chipotle. Chuck’s Smokey Chipotle hot sauce is an industry standard, being the first one of its kind to augment the chipotle, with its medium-hot, deep, smoky flavor, into an everyday hot sauce for your in-home usage. I’m not sure how such things are really quantified, but you would likely be hard-pressed to find a pair of such different tastes within the chile pepper world as these, which makes for the possibility of some interesting synergism with this mixture. Looking at the ingredients list, we find:

Ingredients: Chuck Evans‘ MONTEZUMA Brand Smokey Chipotle (R) Pepper Sauce, Capsicum Chinense (Fatalli: The Yellow Devil’s Tongue), Vinegar, Garlic

Pretty much as I mentioned above, plus a little vinegar and garlic. What I really didn’t know was how the percentages broke down of how much fatalli vs. how much chipotle was in this sauce. No better way to find out than to taste it, right?

First impression: First, I’d like to comment about the label graphics. There are a ton (perhaps way too many) out there on the market that are pretty shamelessly tacky & crude, often highlighting body parts & bodily functions. Those sauces are usually all about getting you to buy them for the tacky label. Hell, I own a few of them myself. This, however, is not one of those. Chuck was really going for a ‘burlesque‘ sorta look, and this label (along with others in the same line) does it pretty well. Suggestive without being obscene. Kudos to his graphic designer on making that work.

Moving onto the sauce itself, the aroma is a whole lotta fatalli. Wow, that’s some pungent stuff. If you have ever taken a good whiff of a fatalli sauce, then you know what I mean. It’s like the pepper invades your nose and takes up residence there! For its consistency, it was surprisingly thin and flows easily from the bottle. It’s thicker than most Louisiana-style sauces and the original Smokey Chipotle sauce, but not by much. You can see a dollop of it here on my plate:

No pepper bits or anything like that, but a pretty well-blended sauce that aims to lay siege to your tastebuds.

Taste: The taste pays homage to the smell, if only in the prominence of the fatalli pepper. The macho strength of the fatalli hits your palate like a ton of bricks both in heat and flavor. The onset of the heat, which eaten straight from the bottle, we’ll call about 8/10…and goes even higher the more you eat. However, the heat profile is different than the habanero as well. Habs usually hit me more towards the middle-to-back of my throat whereas the fatalli sauces hit me up front and then flow backwards like a pyroclastic lava flow. Despite presence of the chipotle, it’s not a prominent flavor to me…more like an undertone to the melody of the fatalli. What the chipotle does do is temper the heat of the fatalli a little, and that makes it a far more utilitarian sauce in that regard.

Where the flavor profile really changes is with food. It’s a good thing, really, since who amongst us just eats it straight from the bottle? A pleasant factoid about this sauce is there’s a secret on how to bring the flavor of the chipotle out from beneath the oppression of the fatalli. In/on foods with heavier sauces (e.g. alfredo and other creamy sauces), the dense fattiness of the sauce squishes the heat and lets you taste the unadulterated flavor of the fatalli and the chipotle as well. It seemed a little odd to me to pour it over cheesy noodles (not for you Mac-n-cheese fans, of course), but it just worked so well. In chili and stews/soups, this sauce also starred as well. It has been a daily staple of my lunchtime chili bowl this whole past week, and I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ll ever want to NOT use this with my chili. Unless you’re a glutton for heat, using it with many other foods is a hit-or-miss experiment with each meal. The sauce seems better mixed in with food than poured over it, but there are exceptions on both sides of the ledger where that doesn’t quite apply.

Overall recommendation: No matter how you slice it, though, fatalli lovers will adore this sauce’s taste. Chipotle lovers will want this sauce to be a bit more balanced towards their taste, but the end result is a very workable hot sauce that goes well in variety of dishes. Experimentation will be the key, as you’ll want to find the best combination and amounts to make the heat & flavor come out in your delicious repasts. Besides that, it’s a great looking bottle that will have people give it a second, or even third, look at the bottle before they even try it. A good sauce plus good packaging is a recipe for a great product, which I believe this will be.

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