My assumption before tasting Tabasco Scorpion Pepper Sauce was the heat wouldn’t really burn me, because, well….it’s made by Tabasco. How hot would they make it, really?
This scorpion pepper hot sauce brings real wrath to the table, much more than you’d ever expect from a Tabasco branded hot sauce. That alone makes this a fun collectible. But is it reasonably balanced and usable at this level of spiciness? Let’s take a closer look at Tabasco Scorpion and see how it fares.
Tabasco, the iconic red-bottled hot sauce brand, has launched a limited-edition condiment that ranks a full 20 times hotter than its flagship offering, the already fiery Original Red. As noted by Bon Appetit, the new Tabasco Scorpion Sauce is made with scorpion peppers, a dash of Original Red hot sauce, guava and pineapple. Available online and at the company’s flagship store in Louisiana, Scorpion Sauce scores 50,000 heat units on the Scoville scale — a big step up from Tabasco Original Red’s 2,500–5,000, as well as Tabasco’s now second-hottest sauce, Habanero Pepper, which lands at 7,000 Scoville heat units.
Heat Balance:
Scorpion peppers are wickedly hot. They are some of the hottest peppers in the world – ranging from 1.2 million to 2 million Scoville heat units (SHU). They bite and bite hard.
Obviously you don’t get this level kick here, but Tabasco gives their scorpion sauce a decent amount of heat – 50,000 Scoville heat units. That’s the equivalent of eating a hotter than normal fresh cayenne pepper. Compared to Tabasco Original (2,500 SHU), it’s night and day. This is a hot sauce made for heat seekers.
The good news is the heat balance works and is kind of fun. There’s a little sting hidden in that sweetness right at the get-go and a quick build of heat from there. It grows (and continues for 10 to 15 minutes), moving from your tongue to the back of your throat in the process.
For those who like to use about 10 dashes of regular Tabasco on one bite, an equivalency here is like a drop. This builds to a point where you’ll have to stop if you don’t want to be rushing for milk, versus regular Tabasco where you can go all day.
Flavor:
Tabasco Scorpion is sort of a sauce within a sauce. The ingredients are: Scorpion peppers, distilled vinegar, sugar, guava puree, pineapple, salt, guava powder, pineapple powder, TABASCO® Brand Pepper Sauce (distilled vinegar, red pepper, salt).
So Tabasco’s original sauce (review here) is the base from which this wicked mix is crafted. It has a thinner consistency like regular Tabasco and it packs enough of that classic vinegar tang. But that’s where the similarities end. There’s so much more to this sauce.
Upon first bite you’ll taste the sweet heat from guava and pineapple mixed with the natural sweetness (and obvious big heat) of scorpion peppers. The sweetness doesn’t linger, though, because they did not hold back when bringing that scorpion heat. It hits quickly and fiercely alongside the vinegar tang. The backend is all heat. Tabasco Scorpion is front-loaded with the fruity flavors up top.
The sweetness here isn’t distracting or overwhelming; it makes Tabasco Scorpion just inviting enough for your tastebuds to crave that burn it leaves behind. I can taste the guava up top and when you taste that sweet tang it makes me think about a tropical day in the sun.
FAQ
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