Hot Sauce Review: Supernova Original Hot (Fancy Frank’s)

Supernova Original hot sauce is about as basic as it gets without becoming Franks Red Hot. Hot peppers, vinegar, garlic, and salt are the main ingredients in this hot sauce. With a minimal lineup like that, you can’t expect too much flavour. However, Original Hot definitely gets the job done.

Introducing: Supernova Original Hot

Original Hot by Supernova is a minimal Scotch Bonnet and Red Thai pepper-based hot sauce. In total there are only 9 ingredients including hot peppers, pineapple, and garlic. To me, this sauce is a classier substitute for Franks Red Hot.

This sauce comes in the standard 148mL woozy bottle and looks similar to its brother Garlic Jalapeno by Supernova. Their hot sauces are made in Toronto, Ontario, and can be found at many grocery stores in Ontario.

The Original hot sauce claims to add a tropical twist by adding pineapple to the ingredients, for me I didn’t quite get the tropical flavour. I have been tasting a lot of Caribbean-style hot sauces lately so maybe my palate is exhausted.

Nevertheless, Original Hot by Supernova hot sauces was a good addition to many of the meals I tried it on. I would recommend this to someone who is looking for something better than Franks with a little more heat.

Manufacturer: Supernova
Made In: Ontario
Heat Rating: 4/10
Size: 148mL
Price Range: $8-$10
Buy on Hot Sauce Unlimited

Ingredients: Scotch Bonnet Peppers, Red Thai Peppers, Onion, Pineapple, Distilled Vinegar, Water, Lemon Juice, Garlic, Salt

Appearance

The bottle is sleek, minimal and to the point. A black label with the simple Supernova logo and a heat rating is wrapped around the belly of the woozy bottle. Up top is a black cap with a full neck shrink wrap. Supernova does a pretty good job with the presentation although I find it to look a little too domesticated.

The hot sauce inside has a similar consistency to Franks but is a little chunkier. You can clearly see that this is a real hot sauce made with real fresh ingredients. The sauce is bright orange, although I have had another bottle of Original that was a much brighter red colour.

Supernova’s Original hot will pour onto just about anything easily. You don’t need to worry about this hot sauce gunking up at the top of the bottle. The sauce is thin and flows out of the bottle quickly.

Smell

I’m going to try to describe the smell without making it seem bad. Original Hot smells pretty briny and garlicky. This is no surprise really as this is a vinegar-based hot sauce with some lemon juice as well.

Behind the briny smell is a very slight hint of something sweet. At first, I thought it might be maple syrup but as soon as I read the ingredients and saw pineapple it clicked. The pineapple adds an almost woody and citrus smell to this hot sauce. Which is actually quite nice.

You can smell the peppers in this sauce, but they are not very pungent. Anyone not used to hot sauce could take a whiff of this sauce and not recoil in fear of the heat inside.

Some more works I would use to describe the smell are tangy and garlicky.

Taste

Supernova Original hot sauce has a salty and vinegary taste with a mild burn. Surprising given that this hot sauce is made with Scotch Bonnet peppers.

The first element you taste is the vinegar and salt, followed by some heat and a taste of garlic. I wish I could say more but this hot sauce delivers a basic but OK flavour with a tolerable amount of heat.

Heat Level

As mentioned above, the heat level in a batch of Original Hot is pretty mild. The side of the bottle says it is a 4 out of 5 on the heat scale but I would give this more of a 4 out of 10. 

For me, the heat comes pretty quickly but dissipates fast. Even after pouring a lot of this on the heat was pretty mild. The burn was concentrated around the tip of my tongue and did not really spread. I did sweat a very small amount while taste testing this one. A little bit of a sweat bead appeared on my upper cheeks.

Although this hot sauce is made with fresh peppers, the heat is not fresh heat. I think the vinegar and salt take over too much of the flavour for the heat to feel fresh.

Flavour

There is not much to this hot sauce, usually, when I write this section I have to really think about how to describe the flavour. With Supernova Original hot sauce it is pretty easy to describe.

Fancy Frank’s Red Hot.

I’m sorry to the team at Supernova, but that is what I’m reminded of. There is a lot of vinegar and salt flavour right off the bat. You can also taste the garlic, but I mean, you can taste garlic in just about anything you put garlic in.

I don’t get the sweet tropical flavour of the Scotch Bonnets as it is masked by the briny taste. The pineapple flavour was also not present when I tasted this, I was surprised to see there was pineapple in the sauce.

Conclusion: Overall Thoughts

This is a great hot sauce for adding a little bit of saltiness and some heat to a meal.

It tastes like a hot sauce, burns like a hot sauce, so it must be a hot sauce.

Supernova Original hot sauce would be a great introduction to hot sauce for people who are not used to good hot sauce. This is not a grocery store hot sauce even though you can find it there. I would not call it a craft sauce but it is good.

Original hot was great on wings, added a kick to a caesar salad, and helped me spice up a lunchtime sandwich.

Keep this one in your fridge for your friends that aren’t chili-heads.

Please remember that taste is subjective and everyone will experience hot sauce uniquely. These reviews contain my own thoughts and opinions. If you think you’ll enjoy a hot sauce then you should definitely try it out.