This rare sauce surfs the back currents of the internet sauce community waiting to be found. With a compass on the cover, is this sweet, thick lime hot sauce worth discovering? Ahoy; it be delicious.
Let's look at the facts: Hot Shots Hot Sauce is the island of hot freaks; bring your tired, your hungry, your bizarre, your crazy hots...they will distribute them. Its mystery shrouded in origin, this sauce claims to be "straight from the keys," though its overlord distributor, Hot Shots, operates out of Charlotte, NC. While its humble beginnings may be unclear, its flavor and sweet-hot is definitely clear.
Good Hurts: This sauce has a spicy lil' linger that does what sweet heat does best: step out of the way of taste but work hard enough to support it. It's like the bass player in the band; sure, it may not have the most on-stage bravado, but its magnetic hum will make sure you're moving. Not hot enough to make you plow through the ceiling, but definitely leaves you a spicy splash.
Flavor: The chunkier texture and use of key lime juice and fesh lime zest come tearing through in every drop. Flavorful, moderately spicy serrano chilis and apple cider vinegar (such a great substitute for regular vinegar in typical hot sauces) mix with ancho chilis and roasted garlic for a combination that eats more like a marinade than a hot sauce. Oh yes, it tastes quite good, and you'll be licking your fingers for sure. However, the peppery, garlicy sweetness would really compliment beef or chicken on the grill, or maybe even shrimps. Bottom line is that this sauce was meant to elope on a romantic Key West cruise with its love partner, Meaty Meat.
Availability: You're gonna have to find it on Hot Shots or some of the other hot sauce web page, unless you're ready for a deeply meaningful sojourn deep into the hot sauce canals of the American food subculture (AKA driving out to remote hot sauce emporiums) to find this one. But is that really a bad thing? Yes, this sauce is yummy and keeps me wanting more. But the chili flavor and heat is definitely standing behind, not next to or in front of, the citrus, garlic, cumin, and apple 4 horsemen of the taste-pocalypse.
Good for: From one grill fanatic to another, this is a grilling sauce. Slather it on ribs, steaks, pork chops, salmon...the sky is the limit, as long as the sky is filled with meat. The sweetness and fine chunks of garlic and lime in a velvety, chinese-food-sweet-sauce-like consistency won't match the variety hot sauce has with things like chips, crackers, noodles, pizza...this sauce won't upset you when paired with those things, but it will overpower, not mesh with already delicious flavors.
Review:
Heat: **
Flavor: ****
My Review: 7.1/10
Get this sauce and proceed to marinate everything in sight.
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