Hank Sauce – The Fixin’s

Bitter: 🟡○○○○

Salty: 🟡🟡🟡○○

Sour/Tangy:🟡🟡🟡🟡○

Sweet: 🟡○○○○

Umami: 🟡🟡○○○

Heat: 🟡🟡○○○○○○○○

Quick Flavor Notes: Tangy, Garlic, Rosemary

Recommended: Yes

Texture: Medium-thin and mostly smooth with small bits

Ingredients: Hank sauce base, apple cider vinegar, assorted hot peppers, garlic, rosemary, sage, thyme

Sea Isle, NJ based Hank Sauce began as many small sauce companies do by friends encouraging the creator to take the next step. When Brian “Hank” Ruxton, who had a culinary background, would cook up his sauces for himself and his roommates at Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL he not only turned them from hot-sauce agnostics to licking the tupperware clean, he even got the push towards turning his hobby into a career which his roommate Matt Pittaluga, a marketing major, used a bottle of his sauce as a mock branding assignment in class. After his classmates started asking where they could buy bottles the two plus their third roommate Josh Jaspen realized they could have a business on their hands. I’ve previously reviewed other bottles of Hank Sauce including two of their “core four” original sauce releases Camouflage and Hank’s Heat and always enjoyed them. Hank Sauce often has special releases as well which I’ve reviewed including Skedatil, Iceman, and Fish Whistle. The Fixin’s is a special holiday microbatch release which I’m sadly now just getting around to.

Hank Sauce is no stranger to using herbs in hot sauces. After all their Camouflage and Cilanktro both use cilantro and their Herb Infused uses basil. The Fixin’s goes all in on the herbs. Starting with the Hank Sauce base, which is aged cayenne peppers, distilled vinegar, salt, and xanthan gum, this sauce also adds apple cider vinegar, garlic, and unnamed other hot peppers. What gives the sauce its name, The Fixin’s (stray apostrophe aside, a term usually used to refer to the sides and accoutrements served with big holiday dinners), is the use of herbs often associated with the holidays (and a famous Simon and Garfunkel song). Sage, with it’s earthy wood and resiny flavor is often associated with the stuffing served with turkey at Thanksgiving as well as with breakfast sausage. Rosemary’s piney fresh minty flavor brings to mind Christmas trees. Thyme, which has a warm woodsy and peppery flavor, is often used with roasted potatoes and other root vegetables and also makes a great spice for roast turkey or chicken, again reinforcing those holiday vibes (though Thyme is also very common in Caribbean cookery and is essential in jerk chicken). The Fixin’s is mostly smooth but does have some seeds and other small bits inside. It’s medium-thin in texture and has a vinegary and cayenne aroma.

The Hank Sauce base is the most prominent initial flavor in this sauce. This is still, unabashedly, a take on a Louisiana style hot sauce with the vinegary salty cayenne-forward flavor that brings. It is an exceptionally high quality Louisiana Style hot sauce as all of the Hank Sauce core four are. The assorted other peppers do bring additional pepper flavor and heat. This is still very much a milder sauce but I can detect some habanero floating underneath the other flavors similar to Hank’s Heat, though I wouldn’t be able to name everything else going on as the peppers blend into a bit of a mélange. Of the herbs and aromatics used in this sauce the garlic is by far the most prominent to the fact that it would be easy to label this as a garlic hot sauce. The rosemary comes forward to the greatest degree of the holiday herbs, bringing a piney fresh flavor that goes very well with the garlic, cayenne, and other flavors. The sage is much more subtle but there’s an earthy savoriness that brings just a hint of that breakfast sausage or stuffing flavor. The thyme is way at the back and could only really notice it if I was searching hard, there’s just a tiny bit of it at the end of the aftertaste of this sauce. Despite the holiday herb trio this sauce tastes amazingly normal and doesn’t have a very Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner flavor profile. As opposed to some holiday sauces I’ve tried that seem very limited to use during the season Hank Sauce The Fixin’s could easily be a daily driver any day of the year. Heat level is minimal as expected with a cayenne base but some of the other peppers do bump it above your typical Lousiana style sauce.

Given the Lousiana flavor profile the first thing I went with for this sauce was wings. While many of Hank Sauce sauces have butter in them already this does not but that’s an easy add and this does make amazing buffalo wings, with the holiday herbs tasting especially good on crispy chicken skin. I also found this to be a great hot sauce for breakfast burritos. I’ve been trying to make extra room in my freezer and finding a couple of El Monterrey ones stuck in the back, not amazing on their own, but certainly elevated by the tangy garlicky nature of The Fixin’s. What I found to be the perfect use of this sauce however was on sandwiches, especially rich creamy ones like chicken salad. This sauce is a perfect pairing with poultry as the herbs involved are all classic poultry pairings, add the garlic and the tangy vinegar and this cuts through the fat to give those sandwiches perfect balance as well.

While you can’t buy this right now, there’s a good chance it comes back this holiday season, and if so you should absolutely pick up a bottle because it’s great. Also, on the off-chance that anyone from Hank Sauce ever reads this, you should consider making this sauce a year-round item. While the herbs may be holiday themed, this sauce is universally tasty year round.