The journey through the many different kinds of mango hot sauces continues with this version, which is the Mango Meltdown X-treme Heat by Tahiti Joe. Ok, fine…it’s really by the branch of the sauce group called the Maui Pepper Co., but it’s all from the same maker. Since reviewing the Sunset Salsa™ Pineapple Mango HOT, I wondered if the heat and taste profile would be a similar version from that salsa. Suffice to say, it didn’t take me long to figure out that this one was its own animal. There is a milder version of this sauce, but I just couldn’t bring myself to try the mild before the hot! The description of this sauce from the website says:

Mango Meltdown™ X-treme Heat is a sweet and fiery tropical sauce which combines fresh sweet mango with x-tra hot habanero peppers. Splash some on your favorite foods to spice up every bite!

Splashing some on my favorite foods was exactly what I had in mind, but first the mandatory look at its component “parts”…

Ingredients: vinegar, mango, sugar, apple juice, honey, habanero, sea salt, natural spices

Pretty straightforward. None of the ingredients leave you guessing as to what they are, and are wholly natural. Cracking open the bottle to take a gentle whiff, I could really catch the strong scent of the mango, apple, and especially honey. There is a “peppery” aspect to it, but I couldn’t identify it as habanero, though. A little poured out for closer examination revealed this:

It pours briskly and easily from the wide-mouth bottle. Bits of what must be mango are floating within the sauce morass, which is pretty homogeneous save for those.

Taste: Despite the appealing aroma, this one does deliver on taste but not so much on heat. The balance of heat and flavour seems a little off with this sauce. The sweetness of the mango & honey seems off-kilter with the habanero, and makes it seem a little less hot than I imagined. I’d say about 7/10 for heat, but it so varied depending on my choice of foods. Its flavour is certainly a unique one, but one that led to problems with food pairings.

To say that I had problems mixing this sauce into my meals is an understatement. There were a few foods I loved this with, such as fish (a great choice) and some chicken dishes, but this sauce has such a strong taste that its utility seemed limited in my usual choices of meal options. For example, it failed with my usual soups, stews, and chili…as the mango didn’t blend well with those flavour profiles. I liked it as a pour-on condiment and dipping sauce, but it was truly hit-or-miss with what I tried.

At the least, our all-too-picky food eater, Ari (who is 4), was willing to taste this sauce and though it was cool…until the heat got him! He really loved the bottle and walked around the house with it for a while. Hey, we give him credit for enjoying it in his own way.

Overall recommendation: This was the first Tahiti Joe hot sauce that I haven’t been able to rave about. It’s taste is unique and sometimes peculiar, and I found it difficult to find foods it went well with. When I succeeded (such as with fish dishes), there was no hesitation for me to consider using this sauce. It packs some heat, perhaps not truly extreme, but for a fruity hot sauce it has some schwerve. I do intend to keep using it, so see what you think when you try it. Enjoy!

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