This was one of the pile of Sweet Sunshine sauces gifted to us by Ed Federovich at this past Jungle Jim’s Weekend of Fire show in August 2008. Before and after that show, the Sweet Sunshine sauces have won nearly every conceivable industry award for their products during the past couple of years. Passow did his usual fabulous job of reviewing this sauce during his mega-review of them last year, but we wanted to deal with them just one at a time. If these sauces really are that good, we wanted to not dilute one sauce’s review with another of the same brand. This is Ed’s description of this sauce from the Sweet Sunshine website:

I import real crushed Red Savina Habanero mash and blend it into the “Warm” sauce. The resulting mix is the only hot sauce ever to earn a “Perfect 10” on the hotsauceblog.com. Our motto of “Flavor before Fire” is proven in every drop. The “fruity quality” of the habanero peppers and the slow burn (“wicked, direct and clean”) will make you a believer.

First impression: This sauce came in a unique-shaped five-ounce woosie that has now given way to a large 8+ ouncer filled with hot sauce goodness. This bottle also features the older, way-too-busy label graphics version, but you can see the helpful heat-o-meter that is a really good assessment of heat for these sauces. The newest version of these sauces have a new label design that is simpler, much easier on the eyes, and more professional-looking.

Ingredients: water, sugar, vinegar, tomatoes, red savina habanero peppers, corn syrup solids, salt, ancho peppers, mustard seed, molasses, cayenne pepper, habanero pepper, onion, spices, natural flavor, citric acid, xanthan gum

Taste: My first thought upon trying this sauce was trying to be fair to it, since it seems rather unlike many sauces that are traditionally thought of as “hot sauces.” It’s a little bit sweet, much like a high-caliber sweet & sour sauce. However, this is a sweet sorta sauce on steroids. While you can’t escape from initial molasses-rich sweetness, there follows a strong hit of red savina habanero which is delightful. Not overwhelmingly hot by any stretch, it does carry some medium heat…perhaps about 6/10 or so on our personal heat scale. The real treat to this sauce is its balance. At this heat level, the sweet and heat are damn near perfect for our tastes.

Pairing this sauce with foods was easier than expected, although our reviews were mixed for some ideas. It didn’t blend as well into foods, like our traditional mixing into chili and stews. However, it excelled poured over so many other meal options. Rice dishes, meats, sandwiches, seafood…you name it, this sauce added an wonderful element of heat and flavor to the meal.

Overall recommendation: We haven’t tried the Atomic sauce yet (which we think will be even better,) but it’s going to be nearly impossible for us to NOT have this in one of our recent favorite sauces that we can recommend. For a product that prides itself on a balance of flavor and heat, this hot sauce really gets it right. It may not be perfect, but it’s as close to a perfect marriage of tastes as you could ask for in a hot sauce. Far more utility than initially expected, you may find this goes well with…darn near everything. The only thing we didn’t like about this sauce was that it didn’t come in a one-gallon container so we did not use it up so quickly once the bottle was opened. While hot sauce purists out there might not see this as a true hot sauce, we give it a hearty thumbs up and highest recommendation to try this sauce, and we’re looking forward to trying the other varieties as well. Enjoy!