Ginger Goat Hot Sauce (The Original Goat) Review

Looking for a ginger-forward hot sauce with a bit of kick? Ginger Goat Hot Sauce (The Original Goat) delivers on both. It has a punchy spiciness and gingery flavor that you’ll remember. But how’s the flavor overall? Is there more than ginger in Ginger Goat? Is that heat well-balanced with the flavors at hand? And with that ginger, how usable is it day to day? Let’s dig into a bottle and see what it’s all about.

Video Review

Flavor

Let’s start with the ingredients as there are quite a few here: apple cider vinegar, smoked pineapple, ginger, pineapple, carrot, lime juice concentrate, Carolina Reaper pepper, smoked onion, smoked garlic (olive oil, garlic), sugars (brown sugar), kosher salt, cilantro, and turmeric.

That’s a lot of fresh flavors, herbs, and spices. But really, it’s those first three (along with the Carolina Reaper) that primarily drive the flavor.

You get the tang from the apple cider vinegar (enhanced by that lime concentrate) right at the top. The Carolina Reaper’s hit first thing, too, and their natural sweetness pairs perfectly with the smoked pineapple. And the ginger root — with that pineapple — provides an exotic twist to the flavor. The ginger is very present here (hence Ginger Goat) and the mix of it with the pineapple gives this hot sauce a tropical twist. Like you could throw a few drops of this into your beach cocktail and sip it by a pool side.

There’s smokiness here, too — from the smoked pineapple and the smoked garlic and onion. It hits soon after those initial flavors and does a great job balancing out the sweetness from the sugar.

I don’t get a strong taste of cilantro in this, but you can clearly see the turmeric color, and you’ll get that texture and taste mid-bite.

Overall, it’s a tasty hot sauce, but there’s a lot going on. It’s zingy then sweet, tropical then smoky. It’s a lot for your tastebuds, even if it balances out surprisingly well. I could see how it could be too much for some.

On the sodium: The Original Ginger Goat Hot Sauce has 25 mg per teaspoon (1% of your daily allowance.) That’s not bad at all. Really, the incredible depth of the ingredients list outshines any need for abundant salt in Ginger Goat.

Heat Balance

Carolina Reaper is the pepper here, and it sits at the very top of the Scoville scale (1,400,000 to 2,200,000 Scoville heat units or SHU.) To put that in perspective, a jalapeño pepper is merely 2,500 to 8,000 SHU.

Granted, like with any hot sauce, the spiciness of the chili pepper is diluted by the other ingredients. And the Carolina Reaper, although among the hottest peppers, is far down the ingredients list here. The dilution places Ginger Goat Hot Sauce’s spiciness at roughly 55,000 Scoville heat units. That’s just a touch hotter than the heat you could get from a common cayenne pepper (30,000 to 50,000.) And it’s inline with Tabasco’s Scorpion Pepper Sauce (50,000 SHU.)

So, it’s extra-spicy, definitely, but the heat won’t have you screaming on first bite. It’s more of a slow building heat. Ginger Goat Original quickly hits you in the back of the throat and warms up your entire mouth. You get a quick tingle on the lips, too, and everything, to begin, seems a-ok. But you’ll find after a couple of big bites that you’ll need a break. The Carolina Reaper sneaks up and really becomes a back—of-throat burner without some breaks in the eating.

There’s a lot going on in the flavor, so this level of heat fits right in. Big tropical heat. The pineapple and ginger do tend to trump the spiciness at times, but overall this is a good balance between spiciness and taste.

Usability

So, when a hot sauce has this much going on, how usable is it? Pretty darn usable, I’d say. Anywhere a tropical-like sweet heat could work, Ginger Goat Hot Sauce is a good fit. It’s worked very well for me on chicken wings, tacos, and steak. I can also see it being an interesting salad dressing (though likely diluted), adding that exotic ginger punch to those greens.

Because of the huge number of ingredients, Ginger Goat is best suited as a finishing sauce. A few drops here or there provides a real tasty punch. I don’t think I’d be reaching for this hot sauce, though, as a flavor enhancer while cooking (or mixing into soups or non-tropical cocktails.) There’s just too much happening on the flavor side. You could change the expected flavor of a dish. Plus, adding a lot of this hot sauce would build up the spiciness pretty fast.

The spout opening is the size of a dime and the sauce is medium thick. It pours out pretty well, and the thickness allows for some control.

Though note: Shake Ginger Goat Hot Sauce well before serving. There are a lot of ingredients here, and they can settle. Without shaking, your first pour could be watery and inconsistent in flavor. Shake well, just as the label says.

Collectibility

The smoked ingredients are really interesting to me. I haven’t had a hot sauce that’s paired that many along with a sweet, fruity heat. It’s unique, and that goes far for collectibility.

The label is simple, but the colors can grab the eye. It pairs orange and black (perfect with the orange color of the hot sauce.) The line drawn goat head looks fierce enough without becoming unwelcoming. Though, it’s missing just something to have the bottle completely stand out from a line-up. It feels a little too 2D.

The Score

Ginger Goat Hot Sauce (Original Goat) is a bold mix of Carolina Reapers, ginger, multiple smoked ingredients, and pineapple. There’s a ton going on in the flavor department — and it works. The heat is bold, too, without being so overwhelming that you can’t enjoy it.

Must-read related posts

• Our Hot Sauce Rankings: Looking for a new hot sauce to add to your collection? We review and rank 100+ to help you find your next new favorite.
• Our Hot Pepper List: We profile 150+ chilies by name, flavor, heat, origin, and more.
• Torchbearer Garlic Reaper Review: Another hot sauce featuring Carolina Reapers to test your taste buds. How does it stack up?