Black Eyed Susan Spice Co – Red Flag Hot Sauce

Bitter: ⭐⭐✰✰

Salty: ⭐⭐✰✰✰

Sour/Tangy: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Sweet: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Umami: ⭐✰✰✰✰

Heat: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐✰✰✰✰✰

Quick Flavor Notes: Floral, sweet, tart, fruity

Texture: Medium-thick and mostly smooth

Recommended: Yes

Ingredients: Muscadine grape juice (water, muscadine grape juice concentrate), red raspberries, red onion, cranberries, apple cider vinegar, Trinidad scorpion pepper mash (Trinidad scorpion pepper, distilled white vinegar, salt), dried Trinidad scorpion pepper, salt, allspice, hibiscus powder

Based out of Frederick, MD Black Eyed Susan Spice Co was born out of three men who became friends over a shared love of beer and bar trivia nights. Using peppers grown by small quality focused growers or ones they grow themselves they have many sauces that focus on Caribbean flavors which fit their company’s pirate theme. Red Flag Hot sauce is named after that pirate tradition where flying a red flag meant no quarter would be given. Interestingly enough on the Black Eyed Susan website they sell two versions – one called the “old heat level” and the “Hot Ones heat level” which they describe as much hotter. This particular bottle came from my Hot Ones Season Twenty Seven box so should be the hotter version.

Black Eyed Susan says they part of the inspiration for this sauce was to find as many red ingredients as they could from the Caribbean up through the Atlantic coast while celebrating Caribbean flavors. The first ingredients, Muscadine Grape Juice, is something I only recently discovered myself, though in the form of Muscadine Grapes as opposed to the juice. As opposed to typical red, green, or black grapes Muscadine grapes have a strong and quite funky flavor that’s hard to describe, almost musky in a way, and they also have tons of very crunchy seeds that are supposed to be healthy and full of antioxidants. The red theme continues with cranberries, red onion, raspberries, and (presumably red) Trinidad Scorpion Peppers. Allspice, commonly used in Jamaican and other Caribbean cooking, and hibiscus round things out. Hibiscus is commonly used in the Mexican agua fresca known as Jamaica (pronounced ha-may-i-ca) which is deep red in color and has a unique sweet-tart flavor. While not super-smooth Red Flag Hot Sauce isn’t exactly chunky either. It has a medium-thick consistency and as expected with all of the sweet ingredients does have a sweet and fruity aroma, though the strong scent of the scorpion peppers comes through as well.

Scorpion pepper sauces can be very hit and miss for me. Of all of the super-hots scorpions seem to have the strongest and most pronounced flavor, that being extremely floral and aromatic to the point of being overwhelming at times. I tend to prefer sauces that blend them with other peppers, such as Haico’s Canadian Colon Cleanser as opposed to ones that use them as the only pepper source such as Queen Majesty’s Sicilian Scorpion where the scorpion pepper flavor completely overwhelmed and blew out all of the other flavors of the sauce. While scorpion peppers are the only pepper used in Red Flag there’s enough else going on, especially in the sweet and tart ingredients, that it works. There is a pronounced sweetness from the grape juice which helps take the some of the edge off of the scorpion’s sting but it’s the tartness from the cranberries, hibiscus, and raspberries that adds the complexity and magic to this sauce. Allspice is often used in Jamaican jerk seasoning and perhaps I can detect a bit of its complex flavor in the background but it’s not a forward element here. This sauce occupied the number seven position in Hot Ones which is usually when the sauces start to get some discernible heat. I found it had a quick sting on the front end with moderate heat growth after, but overall was a solid medium-hot to hot on the chile-head scale. It’s the type of heat you’ll feel and get some noticeable burning but not so hot as to overwhelm of cause you to race for a glass of milk.

I decided to try this out first with some Jamaican food as I hadn’t had it for a while and had the craving. Adding this to the rice with pigeon peas kicked it up and matched the flavor profile of the jerk chicken well. I also found it great with Cuban moro rice as well as the puerco asado. Moving stateside this sauce does work on wings, especially if you like the sweet heat flavor combination. While tart from some of the ingredients this sauce isn’t very vinegary or super-tangy so I found it didn’t quite have that edge to work for creamy pasta or fatty sandwiches but it does work beautifully mixed with some chicken salad and stuffed into an avocado.

Black Eyed Susan Spice Co Red Flag Hot Sauce is one of the view pure scorpion sauces that I’m happy to recommend. The Black Eyed Susan team did a great job of using a pepper that can have a very dominant flavor profile and finding ways to balance and compliment it all while having a fun all red theme. This sauce is also all natural with no artificial preservatives, flavors, colors, or thickeners.