Review – I’m No Angel Hot Sauce

It has been billed as “The Habanero Hot Sauce with the Angelic Flavor and a Halo full of Feisty thrown in.” Does I’m No Angel Hot Sauce provide the best of Heaven and Hell in a handy 5 oz. woozy bottle? Is this review full of Biblical references? Well, on that last part I tried to keep them to a minimum, but read on to find out what I thought of this sauce…

Ingredients:
Tomatoes, Habanero Pepper, Water, Honey, Tic Gum, Spices

Aroma:
2 out of 5. A solid whiff of this will reveal tomatoes and honey. This may sound pleasant or interesting, but it’s really, really bad – the combination produces an overly bitter, medicine-like odor. If you can imagine what a V8 Juice-flavored Nyquil would smell like, you’re pretty close to the scent of this.

To be fair, the nasty medicine stink is really subdued after I’m No Angel Hot Sauce is refrigerated for a while, to the point of making this tolerable. So as a compromise, I’ll award this 2 out of a scale of 1 to 5.

Appearance:
2.5 out of 5. This is a thin, orange-tinted red liquid with a tad higher viscosity than Tabasco Sauce. Although this has finely ground-up ingredients, this does have an occasional habby seed floating in it. Overall it’s dark and has a hue that’s just unappetizing for some reason.

Taste Straight Up:
2.5 out of 5. This is nowhere as bad as it smells, with no medicine-like traces and the stuff is actually pretty sweet. Upon licking a spoonful I received a nice n’ mild sugary hit from the honey and a second later felt a dim spark from the habaneros. Sliding up behind was the faint taste of tomato juice…no, it’s not tomato paste or the watery, canned Del Monte juice one would use to make Bloody Marys. Imagine taking a fresh tomato, cutting a slit in it and squeezing the juice into your mouth (watch so that it doesn’t squirt into your eye!). 20-30 seconds into it, the aftertaste of honey darts back around for an after-aftertaste (if there’s a such thing) and lingers in your mouth for minutes. I wasn’t a fan of this flavor as I prefer (with some notable exceptions) for honey to be placed primarily on bread-like products for breakfast or semi-dessert circumstances.

Taste on Food:
2 out of 5. I doused an omelet with I’m No Angel Hot Sauce. Nice, unassuming, providing a touch of sweet and a dash of fire, the sauce was just plain bland and did little to improve or enhance the flavor of the food. There was nothing unpleasant about I’m No Angel, but it just needed a heavy dose of personality to make it a flavor profile I’d want to return to again and again. Or even a second time. I simply couldn’t find anything really redeeming about this.

Heat:
1.5 out of 5. Despite habanero chiles being listed as the second ingredient in I’m No Angel Hot Sauce, the distinctive fire (not to mention the flavor of this capsicum chinense variety) was buried WAY down in the mix. For a sauce that claims that it’s no angel, it sure could be a bit more devilish (I bet you couldn’t see that reference coming?).

Label:
3 out of 5. Features a red to orange gradient background underlying a leather jacketed cherubim. Neither poor nor great artwork, I was kinda indifferent about the presentation. Therefore, I’ll give this a 3.

Overall:
I couldn’t bring myself to recommend I’m No Angel Hot Sauce. If you’re interested in trying it out for yourself, hop on over to SweatNSpice.com and grab a bottle for $5.35 plus shipping.