Jordan Brenner’s Hot-Cha Waa-Cha Original Garlic Lime Hot Sauce

The third in today’s trilogy of sauces is rumored to be the spiciest of the sauces from Jordan Brenner’s Hot-Cha Waa-Cha Sauces, so hopefully Jordan’s ready to torch me a fair bit so I can get my brain in line for the ultra-hot chile eating we’re shooting today.  The last two reviews involved some straying away from the standard stuff, experimenting with some interesting sweet fruit combinations, but now we’re back in line for explicitly savory and spicy, with the trifecta of some of the great homemade sauces from Mexico – Habaneros, Garlic and Limes.  Let’s see how a kid from New York fairs on sauces aimed towards the palate of Mexico and all its bordering U.S. states.

Ingredients:

No bones here, this isn’t going to be a sweet sauce.  I’m a little disappointed to see Water so high up on the list of ingredients and that the Cider Vinegar has more prominence than the Lime Juice, which pairs much better with habanero than vinegars do, but the kid’s been throwing me curve balls all day, so who knows, maybe I’ll just think it’s fantastic.  Habanero Chiles, Water, Cider Vinegar, Onion, Garlic, Lime Juice, Spices and Kosher Salt.

Aroma/Color/Texture

Notably this sauce is much thinner than their other sauces, and borders on the edge of being thin like the Lousiana styled sauces are, save for some extra chile, onion and garlic parts that keep it from being a completely thin sauce.  The coloring of the sauce is a brighter orange red than the other sauces.  This is definitely a habanero sauce, as the aroma of habanero chiles and habanero infused vinegar escape the bottle immediately upon opening it.  There is some noting of garlic in the aroma, but the citrus from the lime just seems missing in the aroma.

Ratings:

FIRE	FLAVOR

I have to say that the Jordan’s group does fairly well with keeping the abrasive part of the vinegar components down.  I don’t know if they sweeten it or maybe cook it down a bit, but even with this sauce having the highest presence of a vinegar in it, somehow the sharpness gets taken out of the vinegar and it seems like the chile component gets a chance to actually showcase that it has a subtle sweetness to it.  The heat level on this creeps just in to the bottom of the Medium area.  There is more to be seen from the spices as well.  There is a sense that everything has been tamed down a little with the water component, and I’d consider this more garlic and habanero, because you don’t notice the lime from it, if at all.  I still like the overall flavor of this and will rate it as a Nice, but I’d like to see a future batch replace a bit more of the water and vinegar with the lime juice so that it can stay true to the labeling of the product, and I think it would help balance out the watered down feeling some.  With those tweeks, I’d say this could be a contender for some future hot sauce show awards, because they have a pretty solid flavor base and the chile pepper is nicely presented in both its spicy and sweet forms.

Well, it looks like I lucked out and Jordan did his homework before hitting the market, so I don’t have to be the guy that smashed a kids dreams.  Keep it going kid, you’re doing pretty good so far.  Get a little more lime in the Garlic Lime one, and maybe tone down the Cilantro a bit in the Strawberry Habanero and I think you’ll have a starting line that works quite well.