Pomegranate hot sauce: what it tastes like

Pomegranate hot sauce is exactly what it sounds like: a chili sauce built on pomegranate rather than on tomato, sugar or plain distilled vinegar. It's uncommon enough that most people ask the same question before they try it — what does that actually taste like?

The short answer

Bright and fruity first, then savoury, then a slow warm heat. Tangy rather than sweet. Closer to a vinaigrette with teeth than to a typical American hot sauce.

The longer answer

It arrives in three stages.

First, the tang. Pomegranate vinegar is sharper and rounder than white vinegar — there's fruit behind the acid. It reads as bright and slightly sour, with a dark berry note underneath. This is the part people can't place on the first taste and keep going back for.

Then the savoury middle. Fresh garlic and cumin come in behind the fruit, with smoked paprika sitting underneath. This is what stops it tasting like a fruit sauce and makes it work on actual food.

Then the heat, slowly. Red jalapeño gives it body and a rounded warmth; Thai bird chilies add a sharper edge behind that. It builds over a few seconds rather than hitting immediately, and it settles rather than escalating.

How hot is it?

Mild to medium. It's a flavour sauce, not a challenge — designed to be used generously. If you find most hot sauces uncomfortable, this one is likely to be fine. If you chase extreme heat, this isn't built for that, and it isn't trying to be.

How is it different from pomegranate molasses?

They're not the same thing and they don't behave the same way. Pomegranate molasses is a thick, sweet-sour syrup made by reducing pomegranate juice — used in dressings, marinades and glazes. This is a chili sauce that uses pomegranate vinegar for its acid, so it's thinner, sharper, savoury rather than sweet, and it has heat. You'd finish a dish with this; you'd cook with molasses.

What to put it on

It works anywhere you'd want brightness and heat at once:

• Eggs — fried, scrambled, in an omelette. The most common answer our customers give.
• Grilled chicken and mashawi — the acid cuts through charred meat.
• Rice and beans — lifts an otherwise flat plate.
• Hummus and labneh — a spoonful on top of a dip.
• Pizza — the fruit-and-acid combination works against melted cheese the way pineapple does, but with more edge.
• Roasted vegetables — particularly cauliflower, carrots and squash.
• Avocado toast, tacos, ramen, sandwiches, leftovers — all fair game.

Who else makes it?

Almost nobody, which is part of why we made it. Pomegranate is common in Levantine cooking and increasingly familiar to American shoppers through molasses and juice, but it has barely appeared in the hot sauce aisle. Most premium sauces in that aisle are built on truffle, chili crisp, fermented pepper or fruit like mango and pineapple.

Ours is a small-batch sauce from a family brand, made in an FDA and SQF certified facility in Rochester, New York.

Try it — $11.99, free shipping on 3 bottles or more