I think, were someone to say I was a fan of Blair, I would find it a fair assessment. A lot of people credit him for inventing the whole "Superhot" and/or "Chilehead" craze and while I'd consider that something of a stretch, truth be said, he does make some fine sauces. This, however, is maybe the most confusing entry I've come across...On the label, we have the "funky Q" as the scientific symbol for heat. So far, so good. We have Blair himself, purveyor of absurd levels of heat deliverance while maintaining great taste. Again, very promising. We have a 8.5 oz. bottle of hot sauce for $8, with very prominent chunks, presumably peppers AND a list of peppers that includes habanero, jalapeno, chipotle and cayenne. Forget promising, I'm thinking an unholy value and the deliverance of all that is good and right and spicy in the world.
Damn straight I picked it up when I saw it and then it sat in my closet, while I attended to other sauce matters. Finally, the streak of El Yucateco came to a (sad) close and I had need of some sauce for some Mexi-food and nothing open in the fridge to fit the bill. Time to fire up the blades and bust this bad boy out. My early impression were the Zakk Wylde Original Berzerker sauce minus the crazy garlic aspect. The lime came through a lot more here and I could finally detect hints of cilantro, but holy shit, my man Lazar, where is the goddamn heat? It's somewhat of a marvel that someone can make a sauce like that, utilizing those chiles and come up with such a lack of heat.
Sure, the taste and the blend displays Blair's typical (I say this so far only for him as a sauce artisan) sauce magic and artistry. The level of finesse here is astounding, but goddammit, when someone uses the scientific symbol for heat, I damn well expect some heat to be there. The heat level here is at the level of Red Devil, which is to say, more than not at all, but not a damn sight much.
So, to rationalize things, I say maybe Blair just wanted to test himself, take some peppers and neuter them and just make a well-balanced and somewhat tasty sauce for the candyasses out there. If he could pull it off, it's a feather in his cap as a cook, as a chef, as an artiste. Then I slug through more of the sauce and think what a damn shame it is. This is a good tasting sauce, overall. The lime is a bit heavy and the astringent nature frequently threatens to overpower what you use it on, but put this on some fish tacos and tell me you're not in flavor heaven. If this was even half as much as the Stronger Than Death SHU, I think we're done talking about other people's hot sauces and the new conversation is about making Blair the Food Emperor of the planet.
That's not what we have here, though. What we have here is a decent-tasting sauce, that works very well on certain things and less well, sometimes considerably less well, on everything else. I seriously am confused as to the target market of this. Is it Rubio's or some other purveyor of fish tacos? It's not bad on regular tacos, but it needs something like fish to really shine. It's complex and intriguing, at first, by itself, but the taste quickly wears and approaches boring, due to the distinct lack of heat. Where is the Slam?
Bottom line: Blair is a skilled sauce maker. I take nothing away from the Jersey boy and love his attitude, his approach to business, his dealings with Zakk Wylde and his sauce mastery, all of it, to death (no pun). I seriously don't understand what he's doing with this sauce. There is little to no incentive for a chilehead to buy it -- I've seen the SHU estimated at 800, which I consider accurate and which baffles me further -- and who else but a chilehead will seek out the wares of Mssr. Lazar? It's not in grocery stores and takes some doing to find out its very existence. but shit goddamn, under 1K SHU? So baffled...and never buying this again.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 0
Flavor: 5
Flexibility: 5
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2
Overall: 3
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