The Hot Zone Online Review Lava Gourmet Hot Sauce - Extreme

March, 2006

Review: LAVA Extreme

By: Joe on March 18, 2006- 3:23 pm Product Reviews • Trackback URI • Permalink

First impression: Before sitting down to taste this sauce, I made sure to re-visit our previous Feature about the Loco Luna sauces. I’m glad I did, as it was a way to return to the mindset I had after trying them the first time. Same cool bottle & label, with sauce within that beckoned to be eaten. It pours easily from the bottle and is somewhat thin in consistency, with flecks of pepper remnants interpersed within the mixture.

Taste: What struck was that this tasted a lot like the Hot version of the Lava sauces more than anything. It had that characteristic Worcestershire taste profile with habanero overtones, that simmered just nicely on the heat scale. Perhaps my heat sensors are on the fritz, but the Extreme isn’t extremely hot. It’s one step up from the Hot, but not too extreme. Great use of a little capsaicin extract without that chemical taste that it can transfer to hot sauce.

What foods would it be best with? Alternate uses? The key to this sauce is in its utility. It’s pretty multipurposeful, and I liked it in nearly everything I tried it with. It made a good accompaniment to pasta dishes and chicken enchiladas, but its strength seemed to still be with bringing the taste out of darker meats.

Ingredients: habanero and other chili peppers, garlic, worcestershire sauce (water, vinegar, corn syrup, molasses, salt, hydrolyzed corn, soy, and wheat protein, chili pepper, caramel color, dehydrated onion and garlic, sugar, spices, anchovies, tamarind, natural flavors, sodium benzoate (a preservative)), cane juice, lime juice, salt, vinegar, tomato sauce (tomato puree(water, tomato paste), water, less than 2% salt, citric acid, spices, tomato fiber, natural flavor), capsicum extract, and other herbs and spices.

Overall recommendation: This is another solid effort from Loco Luna, but far from the top of the scale in regards to heat. The wonderful thing about this hot sauce formulation is that the taste seems to get better the hotter it gets. When Brian ramps up the heat yet again, I’ll be waiting to try that one as well. Until then, this bottle’s contents aren’t likely to last long with as quickly as I’m using it.

Don't forget to check out the new Articles and Information pages for more great chile pepper and hot sauce stuff!  CLICK HERE TO READ NOW!