Actually Food – Green Primotalii Pepper Sauce

Bitter: 🟡🟡🟡○○

Salty: 🟡○○○○

Sour/Tangy:🟡🟡🟡○○

Sweet: 🟡○○○○

Umami: 🟡○○○○

Heat: 🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡○

Quick Flavor Notes: Citrus, Earthy, Astringent, Bright

Recommended: Yes

Texture: Thin and smooth

Ingredients: Green Primotalii Pepper, Lemon Juice, Vinegar, Water, Garlic, Salt, Spices

Actually Food Hot Sauce is a company that’s surprisingly difficult to find much information on online. I think part of that may be that they’re apparently a very small team, only three people according to the bottle, and part of it may be that their brand name is particularly hard to Google – searching for “actually food hot sauce” tends to bring up a lot of hits for Hot Ones, despite the brand never having collaborated with the show as far as I can tell. Regardless it’s a hot sauce brand I’ve become increasingly interested in both because I love their commitment to making all-natural small batch hot sauces by hand with no additives and because they seem to get ahold of some rare peppers that you don’t often see in hot sauces. I previously reviewed and loved their Habanero Horseradish Hot Sauce, so this time I decided to tackle their take on a green sauce with their Green Primotalii Pepper Sauce.

The Primotalii pepper is hybrid of the 7 Pot Primo pepper invented by legendary pepper grower Troy Primeaux and the Fatalii pepper which, despite a very Italian looking name, actually hails from central Africa where it’s believed to have evolved over time from habaneros. The 7 Pot Primo is itself a hybrid of the Trinidad 7 Pot pepper and the Naga Morich, an especially hot version of the ghost pepper from Nagaland, India. This makes the Primotalii interesting in that it’s a hybrid of a pepper that’s already a hybrid. The Primotalii is also interesting in that many people who have tasted it, including the inimitable Johnny Scoville, have said that it’s hotter than the Carolina Reaper. Having tried some hot sauces based on the 7 Pot Primo such as Primo’s Peppers Swampadelic and Burns & McCoy’s Exhorresco I can attest that one of the Primotalii’s parents does pack a wallop that meets or exceeds the Carolina Reaper already. Actually Food chose the immature green pods for this sauce and puts the Primotalii first. The rest of the sauce keeps things simple with lemon juice, vinegar, garlic, salt, and some unnamed spices. The aroma of this sauce is unmistakably super-hot with a scent that tickles the nose with heat. While not chunky at all there is smoothly blended pepper pulp in the bottle and true to their word on this being free of any additives it will separate if sitting in the same spot for a while requiring a quick shake to reincorporate.

Green Primotalii Pepper Sauce comes with an orifice reducer which is something I almost immediately remove on any sauce I find one on. In this case something told me not to do that and I’m glad I didn’t as this is one of the absolute hottest hot sauce I’ve ever tasted. Actually Food rates this sauce as “ridiculously hot” on their website and they’re not overstating it. Just a few drops on a spoon taken straight was enough to cause hiccups and lead to my lips going numb. The flavor is super-hot chile forward with all that that brings. There’s the astringency and bitterness that all super-hots share to some degree, something unavoidable when it comes to extreme capsaicin content. At the same time the green primotalii has a unique flavor. It’s simultaneously earthy, citrusy, vegetal, slightly smoky, fresh, and herbal. The 7 Pot Primo DNA clearly comes through in the smoky earthy flavor as well as in the extremely prolonged burn while the citrusy fruit of the fatalii is also very present. Combined with the lemon juice this sauce has all of that bright ‘green’ freshness that I always crave in a green sauce. With the strong flavor of the pepper and the extreme heat the garlic plays a very small backseat role but does help round out the sauce and is mainly evident on the very tail end. I don’t know which other spices are used but they’re overwhelmed by the flavor of the chile. There’s also something about the natural chile oils in this pepper, likely furthered by Actually Food’s small batch fresh processing, that not only makes the heat from this sauce last as long or longer than any other sauce I’ve tried but that also leaves the chile pepper flavor on the lips even after taking a drink and eating other food. The scary this is that this isn’t even their hottest sauce – they have a Primotalii Ultra using the red pods with twice the Primotalii content.

Typically for green hot sauces I naturally gravitate towards pairing them with rich foods or with lighter flavored proteins like chicken, seafood, and pork where the freshness and vibrancy can really stand out. My first try with this sauce was with some frozen Tennessee Pride sausage biscuits (what can I say, I’m a sucker for a Publix BOGO deal). Aside from leaving my nose running, my lips numb, and my entire mouth burning this sauce is absolutely perfect with the pork sausage and biscuits being both bright and just the right amount of tangy and sour but also bringing that earthiness and slight smoke to the table that’s perfect with sausage. Similarly I loved this with grilled shrimp and broiled lobster tail. Dipping each in melted butter before dipping them into the sauce helped tame the heat some and also brought out more of the complex flavors of the pepper carried by that melted butter and really let me appreciate some of the more citrusy and fruity notes of the green primotalii. The lemon juice in the sauce is also tailor made for seafood. Finally, you can’t have a green sauce and not try it with Mexican food so I tried this out with a grilled chicken taco and with a steak and eggs burrito and it’s an amazing pairing with each, bringing the freshness and acidity needed to elevate them and excite the taste buds. This works like a green Cholula replacement with immensely more heat and chile pepper flavor.

Actually Food’s Green Primotalii Pepper Sauce gets my enthusiastic review. Not only does it feature a pepper that you don’t often see in hot sauces it’s made by a company who focuses on quality and clean ingredients and of course it’s absolutely delicious. The big caveat with this is that this sauce is extremely hot and you may be in for a bad time if you don’t have some tolerance. I’ve had some other extremely hot hot sauces and this stretched even my limits. In fact I may have to go back revise down some of my heat scores for older hot sauce reviews as this sauce is hotter than Torchbearer’s Garlic Reaper and Goblin Blood, Butterfly Bakery of Vermont’s Red Ghost Reaper, and possibly even Karma Sauce’s Burn After Eating. It makes me a bit afraid to open up their even hotter Primotalii Ultra. This sauce is also all natural with no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or thickeners.