How do you like your hot sauce? Tangy? Sweet? Scorching? Hot enough to set your hair on fire? We rounded up a few hot sauces from various islands to find out which one was the hottest. Watch our brave panel of tasters take the tongue-burning challenge.
Hotness scale: 1 (mild) to 4 (scorching)
Video shot and edited by: Stevan Llewellyn
Adoboloco Hawaiian Pineapple Hot Sauce – Maui, Hawaii
Verdict: This light sauce from Maui was more of a sweet hot. It’s not too heavy on the tongue, with a mild heat.
Rating: 1
Buy it here: Adoboloco Hawaiian Pineapple Hot Sauce
Eaton’s West Indian Hot Mustard Sauce – Jamaica
Verdict: This hot sauce tastes like a spicier version of mustard. It would add a nice kick when added to a sandwich or a pretzel.
Rating: 1
Buy it here: Eaton’s West Indian Hot Mustard Sauce
Aunt May’s Bajan Hot Pepper Sauce – Barbados
Verdict: At first, you won’t taste the heat so much. But Aunt May sneaks up on you, and the heat creeps into your throat. Wait for the kick at the end.
Rating: 2.5
Buy it here: Aunt May’s Bajan Hot Pepper Sauce
Marie Sharp’s Habanero Pepper Sauce – Belize
Verdict: This one is hot. As you taste the hot sauce, you feel the heat building… lingering… with a bite at the end. A few of our panelists likened the flavor to a spicier buffalo sauce (someone even described it as “buffalo sauce on steroids”).
Rating: 3
Buy it here: Marie Sharp’s Habanero Pepper Sauce
Pickapeppa Hot Mango Sauce – Jamaica
Verdict: The heat for this milder sauce is on the sweet side, tasting more like mango than peppers. This was the general favorite flavor for all of our taste testers, but not the hottest hot sauce.
Rating: 2
Buy it here: Pickapeppa Hot Mango Sauce
Real Guyana Original Hot Crushed Pepper – Guyana
Verdict: Don’t let the label (a peaceful scene of a waterfall and a humming bird) fool you. This hot sauce is a straight-up scorcher. Fire-engine red that looks like liquid pepper. The heat starts in our throat and keeps burning. A panelist described the taste as “lighter fluid on my tongue.”
Rating: 4
Matouk’s Trinidad Scorpion Pepper Sauce – Trinidad
Verdict: This hot sauce was definitely the hottest. It mostly left our panel speechless and reaching for yogurt to quell the burn. It makes your “sweat glands start to churn” and even garnered a FIVE on a scale of four for heat level.
Rating: 5 (!)
Buy it here: Matouk’s Trinidad Scorpion Pepper Sauce
