Bitter: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Salty: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰
Sour/Tangy: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰
Sweet: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰
Umami: ⭐✰✰✰✰
Heat: ⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰
Quick Flavor Notes: Sweet, Tangy, Salty
Recommended: Yes
Texture: Medium-thin with some seeds and bits
Ingredients: Honey Field Farm Cherry Bomb peppers, white vinegar, Champlain Orchards Cortland apples, Northwoods Apiaries honey, lemon juice, salt
I picked up this sauce in a recent Butterfly Bakery of Vermont order of a bunch of their microbatch releases that I hadn’t had a chance to try yet. While I normally try to open up bottles in a roughly first-in-first-out manner it had been a while since I’d had a sweet-heat hot sauce and the super-colorful label on this one just stood out to me. Being a lover of apples the use of them in a hot sauce was interesting to me so I was excited to open this one up.
My favorite Butterfly Bakery of Vermont sauces are often the ones that are exercises in creativity and restraint. In this case we have a sauce with only six ingredients (five if you don’t include the salt) but which aims for a new flavor profile you don’t see in many sauces. Honey Cortland Cherry Bomb Hot Sauce starts off with cherry bomb peppers. These are a type of cherry pepper with low-medium heat, about the same as a mild jalapeno, but with a very fruity and sweet flavor. These come from Honey Field Farms, a small 35 acre farm in Vermont specializing in organic produce and chile peppers. White vinegar provides the acidity and then we go to Cortland apples. Cortland apples are a hybrid between McIntosh and Ben Davis apples that was first developed in 1898. They’re grown extensively in New York and have had a history of cultivation in Vermont as well. It’s a soft and sweet apple that’s known for being particularly cold-tolerant. These come from Champlain Orchards, one of the oldest orchards in Vermont that produces over 175 varieties of apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, nectarines, and berries. Finally we go to Northwoods Apiaries for the honey. Another Vermont producer Northwoods Apiaries not only sells their local craft-made honey but also sells complete ready-to-go beehives for budding beekeepers who’d like to breed their own.
Butterfly Bakery of Vermont Honey Cortland Cherry Bomb Hot Sauce has the more rustic presentation that I really love. There are plenty of seeds and bits inside which makes it very attractive especially with the vibrant red color. It’s of a thinner consistency like most Butterfly Bakery of Vermont hot sauces but the honey content does give it a tad more body. The aroma matches the vibrant color with sweet notes mixing with the vinegar and peppers. The flavor is a great blend of not only heat and sweet but also sweet and sour and sweet and salty. This sauce does have more sodium that most Butterfly Bakery of Vermont hot sauces at 80mg per teaspoon, but in my opinion it’s necessary here as this sauce does lean heavily into the sweeter side so that saltiness is a great counterbalance to keep it from tasting cloying. There’s some good pepper fruit from the cherry bombs as well as a hint of bitterness from all of the seeds, another layer of depth so that this doesn’t read as “sweet only”. While apples have a fairly mild flavor I can taste some of the fresh coolness they bring to this sauce and there’s a tiny bit of honey funk laying way down underneath. Like most sauces from the brand this is vinegar-forward but being a high quality vinegar it’s not harsh. The heat level is very low, I had no discernible burn from this sauce but I could tell that there were still chile peppers involved.
I broke this sauce open first to enjoy with an Italian salami stromboli. Hot honey has been all the rage on fancy pizzas these days so I had a feeling this would be a great match and indeed it was. Cherry peppers are usually what are used in the pepper relishes at sub shops so they have an affinity with Italian food and the sweetness and sourness of this sauce were perfect against the salty fatty meat and cheese. Playing of that sweet and sour flavor I also loved this with some fried shrimp from a Chinese take-out place. This can easily stand-in for that neon-red Chinese sweet and sour sauce while tasting much more natural and without having the cornstarch-laden gloopy texture. Breakfast is also a perfect home for this sauce, especially with fried ham steaks and biscuits (ham and apples seem like a classic match made in heaven). It’s not too hot for the morning and it has enough sweetness that it hits that morning sweet-tooth craving without actually having to cook something sweet.
Butterfly Bakery of Vermont Honey Cortland Cherry Bomb gets my strong recommendation, especially if you enjoy hot sauces with a sweeter side. It’s a style I don’t personally typically love but in this case they’ve masterfully balanced the sauce so that sweetness doesn’t become cloying and the whole thing is cohesive. This sauce is also all natural with no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or thickeners.
by MagnusAlbusPater
1 Comment
Bitter: ⭐⭐✰✰✰
Salty: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰
Sour/Tangy: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰
Sweet: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰
Umami: ⭐✰✰✰✰
Heat: ⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰
Quick Flavor Notes: Sweet, Tangy, Salty
Recommended: Yes
Texture: Medium-thin with some seeds and bits
Ingredients: Honey Field Farm Cherry Bomb peppers, white vinegar, Champlain Orchards Cortland apples, Northwoods Apiaries honey, lemon juice, salt
I picked up this sauce in a recent Butterfly Bakery of Vermont order of a bunch of their microbatch releases that I hadn’t had a chance to try yet. While I normally try to open up bottles in a roughly first-in-first-out manner it had been a while since I’d had a sweet-heat hot sauce and the super-colorful label on this one just stood out to me. Being a lover of apples the use of them in a hot sauce was interesting to me so I was excited to open this one up.
My favorite Butterfly Bakery of Vermont sauces are often the ones that are exercises in creativity and restraint. In this case we have a sauce with only six ingredients (five if you don’t include the salt) but which aims for a new flavor profile you don’t see in many sauces. Honey Cortland Cherry Bomb Hot Sauce starts off with cherry bomb peppers. These are a type of cherry pepper with low-medium heat, about the same as a mild jalapeno, but with a very fruity and sweet flavor. These come from Honey Field Farms, a small 35 acre farm in Vermont specializing in organic produce and chile peppers. White vinegar provides the acidity and then we go to Cortland apples. Cortland apples are a hybrid between McIntosh and Ben Davis apples that was first developed in 1898. They’re grown extensively in New York and have had a history of cultivation in Vermont as well. It’s a soft and sweet apple that’s known for being particularly cold-tolerant. These come from Champlain Orchards, one of the oldest orchards in Vermont that produces over 175 varieties of apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, nectarines, and berries. Finally we go to Northwoods Apiaries for the honey. Another Vermont producer Northwoods Apiaries not only sells their local craft-made honey but also sells complete ready-to-go beehives for budding beekeepers who’d like to breed their own.
Butterfly Bakery of Vermont Honey Cortland Cherry Bomb Hot Sauce has the more rustic presentation that I really love. There are plenty of seeds and bits inside which makes it very attractive especially with the vibrant red color. It’s of a thinner consistency like most Butterfly Bakery of Vermont hot sauces but the honey content does give it a tad more body. The aroma matches the vibrant color with sweet notes mixing with the vinegar and peppers. The flavor is a great blend of not only heat and sweet but also sweet and sour and sweet and salty. This sauce does have more sodium that most Butterfly Bakery of Vermont hot sauces at 80mg per teaspoon, but in my opinion it’s necessary here as this sauce does lean heavily into the sweeter side so that saltiness is a great counterbalance to keep it from tasting cloying. There’s some good pepper fruit from the cherry bombs as well as a hint of bitterness from all of the seeds, another layer of depth so that this doesn’t read as “sweet only”. While apples have a fairly mild flavor I can taste some of the fresh coolness they bring to this sauce and there’s a tiny bit of honey funk laying way down underneath. Like most sauces from the brand this is vinegar-forward but being a high quality vinegar it’s not harsh. The heat level is very low, I had no discernible burn from this sauce but I could tell that there were still chile peppers involved.
I broke this sauce open first to enjoy with an Italian salami stromboli. Hot honey has been all the rage on fancy pizzas these days so I had a feeling this would be a great match and indeed it was. Cherry peppers are usually what are used in the pepper relishes at sub shops so they have an affinity with Italian food and the sweetness and sourness of this sauce were perfect against the salty fatty meat and cheese. Playing of that sweet and sour flavor I also loved this with some fried shrimp from a Chinese take-out place. This can easily stand-in for that neon-red Chinese sweet and sour sauce while tasting much more natural and without having the cornstarch-laden gloopy texture. Breakfast is also a perfect home for this sauce, especially with fried ham steaks and biscuits (ham and apples seem like a classic match made in heaven). It’s not too hot for the morning and it has enough sweetness that it hits that morning sweet-tooth craving without actually having to cook something sweet.
Butterfly Bakery of Vermont Honey Cortland Cherry Bomb gets my strong recommendation, especially if you enjoy hot sauces with a sweeter side. It’s a style I don’t personally typically love but in this case they’ve masterfully balanced the sauce so that sweetness doesn’t become cloying and the whole thing is cohesive. This sauce is also all natural with no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or thickeners.