Update 09/30/24: I picked up a bottle of this for an upcoming sort of project video wherein I needed a sauce with Scorpion and since I've largely sworn off buying sauces with that as the main pepper, I didn't have any at hand. It's very obvious that I was less disinterested in that pod when I wrote this review 6 years or so ago. Back then, it was a SOTY candidate for 2018, a year before I started doing the FOH videos, but that was a challenging year for sauces for me and while I don't now recall exactly why it had (that section has also been updated as of this writing) what I consider an inflated rating, it was probably because I needed a few more entries in the consideration pool.
Most of us are probably most familiar with Dave's from the Insanity line of his, long a staple of drunken party challenges and maybe the most well-known to break out extract to the population at large. This is not necessarily a good thing, as it did his company a disservice, causing a focus primarily to the heat, which is a shame, as there are some very good sauces output by the company. This is one of them.
Looking at the ingredient panel, there is not a whole ton going on here, basically just Scorpion peppers and the usual suspects of seasonings and preservatives. I kept catching hints of smoke and, at times, a touch of sweetness, which was interesting. The sauce is about a perfect consistency to not have a restrictor cap and I bounced back and forth from being thrown about how good it tasted, to wanting to back off a touch so I didn't get a heat overload and have my entire face tingling. Most of the time, I found a happy medium, but I've also managed to oversauce it more than a few times with this particular gem. It is a tasty sauce, without question, one of the better ones to utilize this pepper, by my reckoning.
Make no mistake, though, this one does pack a wallop and best reserved for chileheads. It's kind of like taking a bite of a lit candle flame, as the heat is immediate and sharp. It does taper off fairly quickly after that, settling into a nice, slow build, but lips and tongue will get numb and tingly after a time from the build-up, if you keep going and because I liked the taste so much, I kept going. After the initial feeling, which is kind of like, say, if you pricked yourself in the tongue with a cactus needle, it's not quite as intense, but definitely is something that requires a degree of care. If you do oversauce, it won't tend to burn for hours on end, like heavy extract oversaucing will do, but rather settle into a nice warm sort of ember-y warmth. Still, I definitely recommend caution for mid-level chileheads, probably about where I'd put myself and avoidance entirely for non-chileheads.
Bottom line: Another great entry by Dave's Gourmet, one of the longest running purveyors for a reason. This not a casual entry point for introduction to the Scorpion peppers for beginners, but something better off for chileheads. For us, it is a great-tasting, solid heating and very worthy entry into the pantheon of sauces utilizing this pepper. It is also my first SOTY candidate for 2018.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 4
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 5
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5
Overall: 5
