Well, I finally got around to using some of the “hotter” hot sauces from the folks at Arturo’s Hot Flavors of Hawaii. I have been carrying this sauce around with me for a few weeks now, and each time I sit down to try and write something…I’m not sure what to say. It’s not bad, mind you, but I seem to have suffered a bit of “writer’s block” about this hot sauce, and it bugs me a little.

One of the things I can say about this sauce, as well as others that I have tried from Hot Sauce Hawaii, is that it’s just plain different than mainland hot sauces. The list of ingredients is similar to many sauce I’ve tried, but they just seem to be a different breed in taste and consistency:

Ingredients: water, habanero chiles, thai chiles, vinegar, modified food starch, and salt

The plainly stated label warns you to use this sauce with caution, but I did not despair. Without the words “extract” somewhere associated with capsaicin or oleoresin, I felt pretty safe being able to use this sauce with reckless abandon. The website description has this to say about this sauce:

All three North Shore Nitro sauces were created to inflict a truly flavorful, endorphin-inducing heat upon our unsuspecting public. Force 3 is the introductory version of our volcanic Thai and Habanero Pepper Sauces.

First impression: Simple design with an easy-to-read label. The aroma is almost exclusively one of vinegar, with just a hint of peppers within it. Fairly thin sauce that pours easily from the bottle…moreso if you remove the annoying flow-restrictor cap on the bottle.

Taste: This sauce is indeed strong with vinegary tartness, but that fades away quickly to a strangely dominant Thai pepper & habanero melange of taste. It’s cool to have the mouth feel of the Thai pepper but with the taste profile of the habanero, which makes for a unique flavor. Not much else is in the sauce in the way of spices, so it’s very minimalist in that way. The heat is what I would describe as medium-hot, or about a 6/10 to my taste buds. Not much in the way of accumulation of heat, but a nice simmering burn.

I used this sauce on so many different kinds of food, and loved the utility of this sauce. Like many vinegar-heavy sauces, such as Louisiana-style sauces, this sauce actually requires a bit of moderation in your dishes unless you know that the tartness of the vinegar won’t affect the food. A sprinkle here and there over fish and chicken were perfect for me. I also liked this in a number of stews and sauces, but it was also hit-or-miss depending on the which ones. With their high acidity, tomato-based sauces/stews almost always were a good mix with this sauce. Good sauce poured over your food as well as mixed into it.

Overall recommendation: This sauce is aptly described as an “introductory” version of their hotter sauces, it is both delightfully left-of-center and somewhat ordinary at the same time. The capsaicin heat is only medium-hot rather than hot, but the taste profile is different enough to keep you coming back to it time and again. Where this sauce’s strength truly lies is with its utility. If you’re at all like me with your hot sauces, you could spend quite a number of meals finding out all the great dishes this sauce can be used upon liberally. Tangy and tasteful, this sauce is a good first step to the hotter sauces in this series. Enjoy!

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