Hot Sauce Odyssey: Secret Aardvark Habanero Hot Sauce

Hi. My name is Dan Hoppen, and I’m a pepper-head.

So will begin my story when I’m inevitably forced to join a support group for fellow hot-sauce fanatics in a few years. I’ve always been a fan of spice, but the older I get, the more adventurous and obsessed I get about spicy food and hot sauces. There are few meals that I don’t put at least a few dabs of sauce onto, and I’ve become known around the Hudl offices as the guy who keeps a vat of Sriracha sauce in his locker. Often times I’ll just eat an entire habanero pepper by itself because I like the taste and the brilliant afterburn it leaves.

While I fully acknowledge that I’m probably slowly dissolving my stomach lining and singing off my taste buds, I just can’t stop. I’m addicted to hot sauce, but I’ve decided to turn that into an obsession and start reviewing sauces for fellow spice lovers.

Keep in mind, my pain tolerance is quite high. I took down the Hot Ones Season 3 lineup with relative ease, and I now routinely put Blair’s Mega Death Sauce on my food. But I’ll do my best to provide reviews that less insane people can put to use.

First up is one of my favorite recent hot sauces, Secret Aardvark’s habanero hot sauce. The logo–a cartoon aadvark sucking the sauce straight from the bottle–basically sums up how I feel about this product. I could literally toss a straw in the bottle and drink it like a juice.

The sauce is made in Portland and can go on basically everything. The flavor is a blend of Caribbean and Tex-Mex highlighted by (obviously) habanero peppers. It combines the pepper with roasted tomatoes, giving it a bit of a chunky texture.

It’s got some kick, but it’s not overwhelming at all. It’s got enough heat to please a serious spice lover and enough flavor to attract those that aren’t obsessed with heat. The sauce’s motto is “Dump it on everything”, a statement I fully endorse.

Hoppen Hierarchy: 9.5 out of 10

Flavor: 9.6 out of 10

Scoville scale: 5,000 (upper echelon for a jalapeno pepper)

Ingredients: Tomatoes (tomatoes and fire roasted tomatoes, tomato juice, citric acid, calcium chloride), white wine vinegar, carrots, water, yellow onion, habanero chile pepper (habanero chile peppers, water, salt, citric acid), mustard (distilled vinegar, water, mustard seed, salt turmeric, spices), organic cane sugar, salt, modified food starch, garlic, sunflower oil, herbs and spices.