Heartbeat Hot Sauce – Darkside of the Grill Shiitake Szechuan

Bitter: ⭐⭐✰✰✰

Salty: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Sour: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Sweet: ⭐⭐✰✰✰

Umami: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰

Heat: ⭐⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰

Quick Flavor Notes: Tangy, umami, rich, funky, mushroom

Texture: Medium and smooth

Recommended: Yes

Ingredients: Red bell pepper, Onion, Distilled vinegar, Habaneros, Korean pepper paste (fermented rice paste, corn syrup, hot pepper powder, water, soybean paste, alcohol, salt, wheat extract, fermented soy seasoning, garlic), Aged cayenne, Lime juice, Garlic, Canola oil, Shiitake powder, Szechuan pepper powder, Cinnamon

Heartbeat Hot Sauce traces their roots to 2015 when Al Bourbouhakis and Nancy Shaw, two culinary professionals in the small Ontario city of Thunder Bay, were gifted an excess of peppers from a farmer friend. Sitting just north of the Minnesota border and on Lake Superior, Thunder Bay may seem an odd place for a hot sauce startup, being so far removed from Canada’s major popular centers, but the locals loved the sauce so much that Heartbeat had to eventually buy their own production facility and after an appearance on Hot Ones with their Red Habanero sauce in season six, their popularity only skyrocketed.

I’ve previously tried Heartbeat’s Dill Pickle Serrano which though tasty I found fairly limited in its applications as well as the sauce they make for Heatonist Poirier’s Louisiana Style which I found to be an amazing spin on the style with the addition of habaneros. This sauce is a collaboration with Mel Chmilar, a Canadian barbecue personality who’s also known by the moniker of Darkside of the Grill. Heartbeat says the goal of this sauce was to make something that could be used like a barbecue sauce to pair with meats or vegetables but that didn’t have the flavors of a traditional barbecue sauce.

Heartbeat’s Darkside of the Grill Shiitake Szechuan does have shiitake mushrooms as with as Sichuan peppercorns as the name suggests, though both are fairly near the end of the ingredients list. The heat comes from habaneros and cayenne. Other than the shiitake and Sichuan peppercorn powders the other ingredients of note are Korean pepper paste, which I’m assuming is gochujang based on the parenthesized ingredients (and I’m not sure why it’s not listed as gochujang on the label), and cinnamon. Onion and garlic, welcome additions to any hot sauce, and red bell pepper, a popular filler and bulking pepper in many sauces, are also present. This sauce has a smooth medium consistency and a smell that brings to mind the mushrooms, peppers, garlic, and some fermented aromas.

Tangy and umami are the first flavors that come to mind when I taste this sauce. The gochujang is funky and rich in flavor and a good compliment to the fruity sting of the habaneros. I don’t get any of the numbing effects from the Sichuan peppercorn powder but it does add a citrus flavor to the sauce and perhaps adds something to the tanginess as well. Though it’s not present in high quantities in the sauce the shiitake mushroom powder brings mushroom flavor forward to give this sauce an earthy taste that goes great with the onions and garlic and provides counterpoint to the tang and brightness of the peppers. While this sauce is very tangy it’s not all from the vinegar. The fermented elements provide a funky lactic tanginess that lifts the other flavors and adds complexity.

While the sauce is delicious I do have to mention my dislike for Heartbeat Hot Sauce’s bottles. Not only did this particular one deflate for some reason (I’m guessing temperature changes between when it was bottled and when I got it home) but the screw-cap top isn’t very effective at stopping sauce leakage. Several times I’d reflexively shake the bottle when taking it out of the fridge only to have little dots of hot sauce spread across my floor even though the lid was screwed fully shut.

Since Heartbeat mentions this as a great meat sauce I tried that first and used this on some pork chops and cheap thin-cut ribeyes I accidentally ordered (darn my not reading the fine print on the Walmart+ app). This is an excellent sauce with meat, which is to be expected since so many of the flavors here – habanero, mushrooms, onions, garlic, umami fermented goodness, all go well with meat. Bring tangy enough this sauce is also great on sandwiches and melts. With the Asian influence of the gochujang, shiitake, and Sichuan peppercorns I also found this was great to add some extra flavor and depth to instant ramen noodles.

Heartbeat Hot Sauce’s Darkside of the Grill Shiitake Szechuan gets my full recommendation. While I don’t care for the bottle itself the sauce inside is absolutely delicious and the best one I’ve tasted out of Heartbeat thus far.