Hometown Hot Sauce

by L

Recently, I returned to my hometown for some quality family time. As I’ve mentioned before, I had not eaten a lot of hot sauce experience prior to this blog. I come from a very large extended family that is very dedicated to meat and potatoes... very lightly seasoned. Occasionally, we spice things up with some freshly ground pepper! That’s about it. I hail from Fairfield, Connecticut, USA. You may have heard of Connecticut; you may even have heard of Fairfield. However, you have probably not heard of it in association with spicy food.

What is Fairfield known for? Being a large suburb of NYC, being burned down during the Revolutionary War, being home to the headquarters of General Electric and Bigelow Tea, being the setting for “Who’s the Boss?”, John Mayer, James Blake, and Meg Ryan. Historically, it was also known for exporting globe onions and carrots, but there aren’t many farms now. What is Fairfield not known for? Hot sauce. Well, that’s going to change with this hometown hot sauce review!

But first, the tale of hot sauce discovery: I went shopping for fresh produce with my sister and her two small children in neighboring Easton, CT. As I picked my way through the apples, my sister called me over to look at something she had found. Bottles of hot sauce from Fairfield! A local brew! She bought it for The Hot Sauce Diaries to try.

 

Sauce: Holy Hannah
Manufacturer: Holy Hannah
Chili pepper: Habanero  (Capsicum chinense)
Country/Place of origin: Fairfield, CT, USA
Score: 7/10, definitely recommended

Holy Hannah’s website shows what a careful operation the sauce-makers run, with pictures of beautiful peppers along with photos of the onions, carrots, and garlic that make the base of the sauce. The ingredients are habaneros, distilled vinegar, onions, carrots, garlic, fresh-squeezed lime juice, and canola oil. These people are not messing around with unnecessary additives and ingredients that don’t belong there. It’s truly homemade style. As for the taste, it is delicious! The habaneros pack a LOT of kick, so go gently at first, but you can still taste the fruity sweetness of the peppers and the carrots and the citrus zing of the lime juice. The carrots also lend a rich, orange color to the sauce, along with a hometown farm touch. Remarkably, you can taste the contributions of each ingredient, and the sauce adds up  to more than the sum of its parts. Our only complaint? A label typo: there’s no tilde in habanero.