I have had a box full of Insane Chicken products for a while now, so I thought it was finally time to go ahead and get those started. My first foray will be with one of their “signature” sauces, the Fire Roasted Habanero Hot Sauce. Now I have no idea whether this is an original sauce of theirs or a private label of another sauce, but that did not stop me from foraging onward with my usual tasting regimen.

Ingredients: Fire Roasted Habanero Peppers, Vinegar, Fresh Lime Juice, Fresh Onion, Fresh Garlic, Evaporated Cane Juice, Chile Extract and Xanthan Gum

First Impression: Cartoonish label that uses the “insane chicken” motif which is the mascot of their brand. Sauce aroma which is strong of habanero and vinegar. Thin sauce that pours easily from the bottle, and with lots of seeds. You can see bits of spice and pepper pulp cling to the sides of the bottle after it pours. Well-blended sauce which does not separate much with prolonged standing.

Taste: The first few seconds of tasting it straight from the bottle led me to a false sense of security regarding my taste buds. Shortly after I pondered the habanero flavor, which is the dominant one, the heat overwhelmed my palate and that’s about all I could appreciate after that. Typically, I can pick out elements of flavor of most sauces…but this being a typical extract sauce in that regard pretty much just left me sucking air and deciding on the wisdom of taking another bite.

This sauce was not one that I found many uses of pouring straight over food, or as a dipping or basting additive. I liked it as an additive to soups/stews/boils as a habanero flavor adjunct and to add a modicum of heat with just a few drops or teaspoons. Also nice added to salsas, cheese dips, or your fave egg & pasta salads to really liven them up. When the dairy component of some of those dishes neutralizes the heat a little bit, you really get a nice flavor that comes through…making it a great option for those dishes. Not what you might call a balanced sauce, but it does do the heat part really well.

Overall recommendation: It would be disingenuous of me to rant and rave about the flavor of what is essentially an extract sauce. It’s an ultra-hot extract sauce in the guise of your garden-variety hot sauce. If you want to add boatloads of heat to your fave dishes, then this sauce is for you. If you crave a balance of heat and flavor, then look elsewhere for a sauce without those fateful words on the ingredients list that say “chile extract.”

In case you don’t want to believe this review, Insane Chicken has a review of this sauce buy viagra online no rx on their own site. I don’t know who “Carl” is, but he offers up his own view of this same sauce. It is actually a decent tasting sauce, but I was sufficiently overwhelmed enough by the capsaicin heat such that I couldn’t really appreciate it. If you like that uber level of heat, then you may want to give this sauce a whirl.