REVIEW: Strawberry Scorpion Sting, by Red Hawk Premium Peppers

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Ingredients: Strawberries, hot peppers (Trinidad Scorpion & habanero type peppers), apple juice, sugar, sweet onion, vanilla, citric acid, corn starch.

And now for one of the most creative hot sauces out there: Strawberry Scorpion Sting, made by Red Hawk Premium Peppers.

Red Hawk is a company out of Spring Mills, PA, that’s making some really unique hot sauces and other chili products, combining unexpected ingredients in innovative ways. The company was founded by a guy who had been growing his own chilies for a decade and decided that it was time to start selling some. They’re also committed to environmental sustainability, using small-scale, organic agriculture to produce all-natural and wholesome products. So, I was excited to get my hands on a bottle of Strawberry Scorpion Sting.

The sauce definitely lived up to my expectations – in perhaps unexpected ways.

I mean, did you see the ingredient list above? Pretty cool, right? Notably, even though there’s no vinegar in there, the pH of the sauce is actually lower than most vinegar-based sauces due to all of the citric acid.

The packaging is very basic. And although the graphic design on the label could use some work, I like the idea of the scorpion with a strawberry for a tail.

The texture is very thin, almost watery at room temperature, with strawberry seeds and very fine bits of flesh from the berries and chilies adding just a little bit of body. It thickens up a bit and gets a little more syrupy when refrigerated, which I preferred. It has a better mouth-feel and a better pour that way. So even though the sauce has a low pH and should be shelf-stable for a good while when opened – and even though I hate refrigerating hot sauces in general – I recommend refrigerating this one for best results.

The sauce has a very distinctive aroma. And it caught me a bit off guard in what turned out to be a good way, after a few sniffs. It smells like strawberries and caramelized sweet onions with a hint of unidentifiable chilies. I think the scent of onion is what surprised me the most.

The sauce isn’t as hot as I expected to be. I think this is for two reasons: 1. the amount of sweet/sugary ingredients, which tend to zap a lot of heat, and 2. those Trinidad Scorpions must not be a high percentage of the “hot peppers” here. I had a spoonful but didn’t get the hiccups – nor any sweat, drool, snot, or tears. That’s not to say that the sauce is mild. It’s definitely pretty warm, but the heat peaks quickly, after 30 seconds or so, and subsides into a smooth burn that lasts for a few minutes. While it’s probably hotter than average folks may be used to, I think they’d find it to be quite usable.

I can’t say enough good things about the flavor of this sauce. The flavor is very complex and takes about 10 seconds to fully develop. Again, there’s a caramelized onion undertone, and there’s a hint of vanilla. But at base, it tastes like someone juiced the chilies and mixed that juice with fresh strawberry puree. The flavor was so good, I took another spoonful.

The sauce is also much more versatile than I thought it would be. The ingredients might lead you to believe that this is a dessert sauce, and indeed I think it would be nice drizzled over vanilla ice cream, but it works with savory dishes as well. I had it with several meals in the days after I recorded the video review, and it was great with the majority of applications. Notably, I had it with a tofu, seitan and spinach quiche, and I would definitely recommend it with any kind of savory pie. A warm, flaky crust benefits greatly from this sauce.

Finally, I’ll note that Red Hawk’s products are very reasonably priced, this sauce included.

Bottom line: Strawberry Scorpion Sting is a creative sauce that I highly recommend. There’s enough piquancy to satisfy chiliheads and other heat-seekers, but that’s not at all the focus of this sauce. This is a sauce with a complex flavor: dominated by strawberries, sweet onions, and habanero-type chilies. Delicious in its own right, it works well as a dessert sauce (as a spicy strawberry syrup) and as a complement to a surprising array of savory dishes.

REVIEW: Skobiyan, by The Hippy Seed Company

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Ingredients: Nashi Pears, Trinidad Scorpions, Lemon and Lime Juice, Red and White Vinegar, Sugar, Pepper Mix, Salt, and Spices.

I’ve been following The Hippy Seed Company for a long time. The guy behind it all is Neil Smith, a proud Aussie who’s famous among chiliheads for his pod tests and sauce reviews on YouTube. Neil knows his stuff, and his videos are highly entertaining and informative while maintaining a casual, DIY style.

Needless to say, I’ve been excited to try one of their signature sauces – Skobiyan – for a while. So, I decided to put in an order and have a bottle shipped to me all the way from the Land Down Under. The Hippy Seed Company’s order process isn’t automated. They do things the semi-old-fashioned way, which means that you have to send them an email and tell them what you want to order. But they were prompt with their responses, very helpful with my shipping questions (shipping to the U.S. costs more than the sauce itself), and sent my package without delay. The sauce arrived in great condition – packed in a hard cardboard tube – and it did not disappoint.

As with all their other sauces, Skobiyan is handmade and all natural. The “use by” date on the bottle is even handwritten. The label looks like it was printed at home on an inkjet printer and applied manually, but the presentation isn’t shoddy or off-putting; it’s neat, quaint, and authentic. I assume the name “Skobiyan” is a bastardization of the name of the sauce’s star chili: the Trinidad Scorpion “Butch T,” once the hottest chilies in the world.

The smell and flavor of this sauce are quite unique. When I opened the sauce, the first thing I noticed was the sweet smell from those nashi pears – or Asian pears, as we call them in the U.S. The sauce smelled great, but it didn’t “smell hot” right off the bat. Rather, the aroma of the Trinidad Scorpion chilies came up second and was very smooth.

The sauce poured nicely onto the spoon. It has a smooth texture like a thick puree and a touch of that characteristic sticky viscosity that dissolved sugar tends to produce. I could easily see coarse-ground black peppercorns and white flecks of pulverized chili seeds, but I couldn’t see bits of any other spices. So, whatever the other spices in this sauce are, they’re likely to have been in powder form.

The taste of the sauce mirrors the smell. It’s very sweet at first and goes down smooth. Then, the heat creeps in over the course of a few seconds and builds quickly. Even though those Asian pears are the base of this sauce, the scorpions make their presence known quickly. They gave me a very strong – but still tolerable – mouth-burn that sustained for several minutes. I’m not sure what other chilies they’re using in the “pepper mix,” but they surely help to round things out. The black pepper and other spices add a savory depth to the sauce.

The sauce is very hot, and it could certainly knock the uninitiated to the floor, but it strikes me as a very usable sauce. While a little would go a long way here, this is not at all a heat-for-heat’s-sake sauce. The pears, sugar, lemon, and lime quell the flames of the scorpions enough for most to be able to enjoy the flavor of these otherwise-extraordinarily-hot chilies.

Bottom line: This is a great sauce that packs a serious punch, and it’s worth jumping through the old-fashioned ordering hoops, paying the extra shipping, and waiting to get it. It successfully accomplishes something very difficult to achieve: having an odd and unique flavor profile that somehow seems like it would go with just about anything. And, as Neil would say, “It’s a rippa!”

“BACKA MA THROAT!!!”