Devil's Gold Hot Sauce Review

Hellfire Devil's Gold Hot Sauce

I like these Hellfire kids, not so much because of the sauces (so far), but because they put a lot of thought and time and effort and probably money into their labels and I'm always entertained by them. This time, we have a sort of fallen angel mixing something into a cauldron, which is sort of inexplicable, as this is a fruit-based sauce and as far away from bottled molten lava as you can get.

There are 17 ingredients, including 3 different varieties of superhots, but the thing I taste most is the very last ingredient, which is cinnamon. Cinnamon is a very assertive spice, of course and a little goes a very, very long way. The second taste is probably the pears. If you're thinking to yourself either that those are weird items to taste first in a hot sauce, as opposed to maybe an applesauce, you're right and if you're thinking that's probably not so good, you're right again. The third thing is the superhots themselves, so we have a "nice" element of that abrasive bitter aspect that all the superhots seem to share. This one is more predominantly Scorpion of the superhots in there.

For all of those, this is not a very picante sauce, not at all, in fact. It has enough presence that you certainly wouldn't substitute it for applesauce, but it is not at all challenging, either. The first ingredient is pineapple, which is quickly drowned out by everything else, but seeing a first ingredient as anything other than a pepper usually means a pretty mild and tame "hot" sauce, which this is.  Flavor-wise, it fits in fairly well with anything you'd use a fruit-based sauce, so things like fried foods come immediately to mind. I don't find the flavor profile too wonderful, though and may not wind up making it through this bottle.

Bottom line: This is sort of a neat experiment, I guess and if you're into fruit-based hot-sauces you may like this more, but for me, it's one and out as their neither enough heat nor compatible flavor for me to consider re-upping on this one.


Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3

Belligerent Blaze Hot Sauce Review

CaJohn's Belligerent Blaze Hot Sauce

CaJohn Hard certainly doesn't need me to sing his praises. As the most awarded hot sauce company and as the creator of many of either my favorites or very well-liked sauces, it's easy to see why that would be the case and that he richly deserves it. Now, some of his sauces get a little outlandish for me, which is why sauces seemingly more...mundane is not the word, but call it "stripped-down", hold a certain appeal for me, as he always does an exceedingly good job, execution-wise.

Here we have what seems to be a very basic Habanero sauce and looking at the ingredients, it seems very straightforward. What is sort of surprising is the blast of citrus (lemon) here, which gets to be very assertive. It's not quite acidic, given that the vinegar is so heavily prominent as well, but it does give it a light and lively sort of aspect, perhaps more towards astringent. This also rather notably cuts down its flexibility.

It's not a bad-tasting sauce, but it really needs to accompany a food where you would want citrus. Fish seems a very natural fit here, maybe even chicken. In many ways, it is reminiscent of the El Yucateco Red, as both are very forceful Habanero sauces, coming out of the gate with a (relatively minor) heat blast and then quickly leveling off, but unlike that other, this one lands with a thud on anything that needs a more forceful sauce, such as tamales, for instance, rather than a very assertive lemon, which would need to be a grace note to work here.

Bottom line: I'm tempted to call it a one-note sauce and oh, what a note, but the lemon is nearly as equally distinct as the Habanero, probably due to using an extract for the fruit, so that description is out. Fans of Habanero and citrus will find much to enjoy here, but as for me, the use must be judicious and the appeal is thereby somewhat limited.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 3
            Flavor: 5
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 4

Overall: 4