Blair Presents: Zakk Wylde's Stronger Than Death Berserker Hot Sauce
This is the second to hottest of the four Zakk Wylde signature sauces. My first impression was that it was far different than the Original Berzerker sauce, which I was partially nervous about. While the Original Berzerker is not a bad tasting sauce, the garlic can get a bit overbearing. This one is both far more graceful and considerably more punchy at once.
The sauce is somewhat deceptive, starting out with a sort of mild and muted habanero flavor with the more flowery and bittery aspect of the ghost chilis. The garlic is there as a very minor grace note, but after the first five to ten seconds or so, the ghost chilis kick in and the heat becomes progressively more pronounced. Once that begins, the chipotles also assert themselves in the nose and palate, lending a very nice smokiness to the proceedings. This is a sauce that can become overpowering in heat, but not especially so in flavor and Blair has done a phenomenal job of masking the tinny aspect of the extract here. This one is much more flexible than the Original Berzerker and I'd rate the flavor as good to very good but not great.
As noted on the bottle, this did and does go very well with seafood and pizza and smoked ribs and spiking barbeque sauce and frozen tv dinners and cheeseburgers almost everything I tried it with. I presume it would also, as noted on the label, also go fantastically with beer. I'm struggling to think of anything I didn't like it on...Hot Pockets, I guess, but we're not talking any sort of culinary treat there, of course. Using it on them is a waste of this sauce and better reserved for something like Red Devil.
It is also not a sauce I enjoying having by itself. At ~59K SHU (literally stronger than Death, as in the original Death sauce also, cleverly ticking in a literal meaning as well as the borrowing of a Black Label Society album title), putting sauce on top of sauce tends to ratchet the heat level up to a level a bit beyond what is comfortable at work, which is where I keep this one, but not so much that it causes an immediate trot to to the can. The heat will dissipate nicely in about 10 minutes or so. With that nice level of warmth, this can be used sparingly and indeed, treating it more as an accent accompanies food very well and rises the taste experience, especially on McDonald's cheeseburgers, up very nicely.
UPDATE 12.26.12
I noted in another later post, but as I got towards the end of the
bottle, the extract really came to the fore, to the point where it was
obnoxious. I always shake the sauces well before using, so it wasn't a
matter of agitation. Possibly it was due to the age of the sauce, but it
got to the point where I didn't find the experience enjoyable and
disposed of the remainder of the bottle and alternately vowed not to
again engage any of the extract sauces. I've sort of hemmed and hawed
over down-rating this, but despite the initial good taste, overall, I
could not, in good conscience, leave the rating as it was, given that I
was unable to enjoy the entire bottle.
Bottom line: It is a very well-flavored sauce but many elements are going to be reserved more for the discerning chilehead. For most of the population, I think they're going to be distracted by the heat, which didn't appear to have a top ceiling on it and miss many of the subtleties of this (again) extremely brilliantly crafted sauce. At $10 for 5 oz. and for how long you can make this stretch, at least by not being stupid, this is a pretty good deal and you still get the keychain and the entertaining label pic of Wylde and one of his famous bullseye guitars as well as the "traveling case" look to the outer box packaging. I'm not so in love with this that I would have to have another bottle when I run out, but this is on my short list of sauces to potentially get again...or was until the update. This, along with all other extract sauces, is forevermore excised from any future purchases.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 7
Flavor: 7
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7
Overall: 7
Re-rate 12.26.12
Heat level: 7
Flavor: 5
Flexibility: 7
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4
Overall: 6
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