Review - Habitually Orange Hot Sauce

KneppersPeppers.com - "Habitually Orange

Online Order - Yes - arrived quickly via Priority Mail, well packed.

Ingredients -
Mandarin Orange, Carrot, Habanero, Brown Sugar, Lemon Juice, Vinegar, Onion, Garlic

Packaging / Labeling
The label design is intentionally clean and basic, which gives it an attractive look.

Aroma -
The first thing to hit the nose is the vinegar with citrus tones from the lemon juice. There's a fruity aroma which seems to be split between the aroma of the habanero and the aroma of the mandarin orange, with neither having prominence over the other.
The aroma gives a fairly good clue to the heat level, there's just a hint of pull-back as you inhale, suggesting this sauce has a nice kick to it.

Consistency -
This hot sauce has a medium thin consistency and shows a fairly good amount of pulp with a little seed, though quite finely pureed. There's some cling to the bottle and you can see the fine solids as you invert the bottle and set it upright again.

Color -
The sauce has a palish red/tan color, pretty much what you might expect from the combination of habs and oranges.

Taste and Heat
There's a really nice tangy zest and fruitiness which is quickly accompanied by the heat from the habanero. It has a medium sweetness and really shows off the subtle differences between the flavor of an orange and the flavor of a mandarin. There's no mistaking this for an orange flavor, the mandarin is very identifiable and very pleasant indeed.
I don't find this hot sauce to have the intense vinegar bite that so many sauces seem to have. It strikes me that the formulation has been carefully worked out to create a balance between sweet and sour with a good level of heat to bring the two together - a nicely balanced flavor profile. In fact I'd say the balance is almost perfect, with the sweetness coming in from the brown sugar and mandarin and the lime juice and vinegar cutting the sweet to just the right level. I don't pick up on much garlic, which suits my taste buds fine. Though I use a lot of garlic in cooking, I prefer my hot sauces with just a hint.

The sauce surprised me pleasantly with its level of heat. It gives you a nice all-round sensation of heat starting from the front of the tongue and working back, without ever getting into the throat in an irritating way.
Taken neat on a teaspoon the heat doesn't overwhelm, but it gives you a good mild burn which lingers around for a few minutes before gently drifting away. There's no esophagus burn to speak of, which makes it a good sauce for an intermediate user, looking to kick it up from the mainstream table hot sauces like Tabasco and Frank's. I like the heat level a great deal, it makes it versatile for use on a wide variety of foods, without ever masking the food flavor through intense heat. So far I've tried this on chicken, mac 'n cheese, cheese/crackers, smoked trout and on a veggie wrap, and it worked deliciously with everything. I was hesitant to use this on something as delicate as the lightly smoked trout, but it didn't overwhelm the fish, it just gave it a nice zesty flavor with a blast of heat.

Conclusion -
I like the versatility of this sauce, it fits my personal heat level preferences pretty well, and the zesty mandarin flavor is really great on just about anything. I have a bottle of HAbermelon and Piney Hab from the same make that I'm really looking forward to giving a try. If they're anywhere near as good as the Habitually Orange hot sauce then it'll be a winning trio.

Highly recommended.

Ratings -
Packaging 3.5 from 5
Aroma 4 from 5
Consistency 3.5 from 5
Color 4 from 5
Taste 4 from 5
Heat Balance  4 from 5