I was a Melinda's fan for a very long time. Not too long ago, we had a discussion on this forum about Melinda being Marie Sharp's and vice-versa.
We had all concluded that based on my independent, Melinda's really was Marie Sharp's recipe and that it was essentially the same sauce.
Then I received a copy of the news article published in the October 2004 issue of BELIZE magazine. which explained what actually happened.
I purchased my first bottle of Marie Sharp's from Hot Shots at the Fiery Foods show. As such, you get to be the first recipients of a reaction to this, my all-time favourite sauce, as made by the woman who actually created Melinda's. I'm going to be so disappointed if it's not at least the same, if not better!
The label is a shiny high gloss gold colour with an illustration (low grade photo?) of the key ingredients in a stylized heart shape. Fwiw, I think it's a pretty home-made looking label design, but Marie has taken the effort to make the high grade leap, iow, it's not the bubble jet printer label that we all started out with.
The ingredients list reads just the way I want a hot sauce to read:
Select red habanero peppers, fresh carrots, onions, lime juice, vinegar, garlic and salt.
In other words; no guck! She's even put a best by date on the label.
The first odour I pick up from the bottle, is like onion glazed carrots. I can almost feel the habs, but don't smell them. The vinegar shows off the garlic almost as if it were a pickled garlic ingredient rather than two separate ingredients. The scent says "taste me".
Interesting... The onion and garlic jump right out at me. I can't really taste "carrot", but the hab heat is immediate, very centralized. It's not quite the same taste as Melinda's, in fact, it's less sweet. more vegetable-like. But, it is essentially the same flavour as Melinda's; enough for me to say there isn't much difference.
That said.. why eat the pretender, when one can easily get the original.
Marie's is definitely the mainstay, I was hoping she'd be. Phew!
T
We had all concluded that based on my independent, Melinda's really was Marie Sharp's recipe and that it was essentially the same sauce.
Then I received a copy of the news article published in the October 2004 issue of BELIZE magazine. which explained what actually happened.
I purchased my first bottle of Marie Sharp's from Hot Shots at the Fiery Foods show. As such, you get to be the first recipients of a reaction to this, my all-time favourite sauce, as made by the woman who actually created Melinda's. I'm going to be so disappointed if it's not at least the same, if not better!
The label is a shiny high gloss gold colour with an illustration (low grade photo?) of the key ingredients in a stylized heart shape. Fwiw, I think it's a pretty home-made looking label design, but Marie has taken the effort to make the high grade leap, iow, it's not the bubble jet printer label that we all started out with.
The ingredients list reads just the way I want a hot sauce to read:
Select red habanero peppers, fresh carrots, onions, lime juice, vinegar, garlic and salt.
In other words; no guck! She's even put a best by date on the label.
The first odour I pick up from the bottle, is like onion glazed carrots. I can almost feel the habs, but don't smell them. The vinegar shows off the garlic almost as if it were a pickled garlic ingredient rather than two separate ingredients. The scent says "taste me".
Interesting... The onion and garlic jump right out at me. I can't really taste "carrot", but the hab heat is immediate, very centralized. It's not quite the same taste as Melinda's, in fact, it's less sweet. more vegetable-like. But, it is essentially the same flavour as Melinda's; enough for me to say there isn't much difference.
That said.. why eat the pretender, when one can easily get the original.
Marie's is definitely the mainstay, I was hoping she'd be. Phew!
T
