Blair's Original Death Hot Sauce Review

Blair's Original Death Sauce

NOTE: This sauce appeared in Season 1 of The Hot Ones.

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REaH37rO9_g

I had thought, for quite some time, that I had reviewed this sauce. It was a recurring thought, as I had gone on a pretty good tear of Blair's sauces for a bit, but I checked the list exhaustively and was never able to find it. Then I forgot about it until the resurgence last year, of the blog and with the FOH video series, and then forgot that I'd already checked and re-checked again, but still no review. Once I decided to move forward with trying to sift my way through the sauces of The Hot Ones, it came up again in the list, so I then tracked down a bottle and here we are.

Once I opened it, it was pretty clear to me that I hadn't worked my way through this sauce yet, for reasons that are now unclear to me, but I'm guessing it was due to a few Habanero sauces I'd recently had and my general innate sort of disinterest in that pepper. The Habanero is the the hottest pepper of the crew here, which also has Cayenne and Chipotle. The Chipotle reads more as an accent and the Cayenne is somewhat lost. The predominant taste is that of the smashed garlic, which is prominent and was clearly fresh, as there is no processed taste at all to it. For me, though, garlic reading that strongly precludes this sauce from a lot of applications, as I'm not fond of strong garlic addition in my sauces, for most foods, unless there is already a garlic component (Mexican food, pizza, etc.). This rules it out as a dipping sauce, but does extend it nicely to things like fish tacos, particularly with the additional accent of the lime in there.

Like all of the Blair's sauces I've had, this is very smooth and well-blended. It's not a surprise to me that it took off as well as it did and put the "Death" name on the map, though it's not anywhere near the awesomeness that is Pure Death. Heat-wise, it's on the lower scale of things, perhaps slightly past what I call the dividing line where things become too hot for non-chileheads. I'm not sure what happened with Blair's, but their sauces have been increasingly challenging to come by. This one I'm definitely not sorry I sought out, but I don't believe I'll be replacing it once the bottle is done.

Bottom line: Blair Lazar is a legend of the industry and this sauce provides several aspects of why. Solidly versatile, with a moderate heat level, worth a go if you haven't had it before, but this one is really reliant on individual taste.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 6
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6


Overall: 6

Tonguespank Scotch Whiskey Trinidad Scorpion Hot Sauce Review

Tonguespank Scotch Whiskey Trinidad Scorpion Hot Sauce

Note: I'm not clear exactly on what transpired with this company and its ownership, but this sauce no longer appears to be made.

Note: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNIKT6kIKZM

I had this one on the shelf for a while, quite a while, expecting it to come across as a superhot, open bottles of which do not tend to rotate super quickly through my open fridge door sauces. I think it was one of the first ones I picked up after learning that Burn Your Tongue was back in action, which has been for some time now. Adding to that is that 2020 (and 2019, to a degree) has seen me having the opportunity and thus eating a lot more sauce than in previous years, there is the fact that I am finding the flowery notes of the various Scorpion peppers less and less attractive to my palate.

It reminds me a lot of IPAs, actually. When I first got into home brewing was the first time I'd ever had one, now well over a couple decades ago, and like most people when they first encounter it, I went hog wild with IPAs, seeking, finding, trying, and slugging down all of them I could find. Somewhere along the lines, the microbreweries latched onto this and a trend I call the "hop wars" ensued. Around that time, I was also well sick of the flavoring, had my fill and then some, and drifted away into less flowery beer flavors. So, too, is what is going to be happening with the Scorpion sauces, I imagine, in 2021. I have a few left, as I write this now, but once those are concluded, I don't foresee those being very high on the list of sauces I will want to acquire, much like the Habanero sauces. Those, however, I have somewhat come to terms with, but the superhot I find most favorable lately is the venerable ghost, the Jolokias.

That aside, it took me a while to get a handle on this sauce. It is very runny, as in Louisiana-style runny, but with some very nice flecks of pepper in there, which I always appreciate. I don't know why boozy sauces aren't more of a thing, since I can't think of any sauce with booze in it I haven't found favorable, but here, even though Scotch is not my hard liquor of choice, it works to great effect here, creating a nice unami effect in the aftertaste. The flavor is a bit subtle, kind of like CaJohn's Dread, though, despite the label warning, unlike the Dread, you won't get blasted too much consuming a lot of it to chase the flavor down. The addition of the Habaneros, Jolokias and Scotch whiskey also do a very nice job of rounding this sauce, and taking down that flowery edge of the Scorpions somewhat.

There is not a definitely flavor to this, however. For most sauces, this would seem like it was lacking an identity, but here, it lends itself to a wide variety of applications. The flavor profiles of Scorpion peppers and Mexican foods strike me as clashy, and that applies here also, but it did work, to a degree, on some of the foods that could be considered of that style. Heat is definitely present, and should appease most chileheads. It is more of a flash heat and doesn't really build up to what I was expecting, both from the label and from the presence of a superhot as the main pepper, but does have a very nice linger to it. I'd call it overall pretty pleasant, as far as mouth heat and the burn goes. Definitely will not appeal to non-chileheads, though.

Even if this was still available, I probably wouldn't keep a bottle around, as it does not fit into categories particularly well, but is a very good all-around superhot sauce, so if you didn't want a fridge door full of sauces, but did want to have some hotter than normal sauces, this would be a good choice. I'm a bit disappointed I missed it when it was still produced, even still, and will be checking out whatever sauces I can still find from the company. I also note, once again, my list of SOTY candidates has increased for 2020 with this entry.

Bottom line: Another SOTY candidate for 2020 and one of the most curious and unique sauces I've had. Well worth picking up for any chilehead who has not yet experienced it and can still find a bottle.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 9
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10


Overall: 8

Salsitas Mendoza Hell Fire Hot Sauce Review

Salsitas Mendoza Hell Fire Hot Sauce

Note: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp7oR4usa8Y
 

I'm almost tempted to do this review in the form of suggestions. This definitely feels a lot like a fairly ground level operation that is starting to try to expand the gamut a bit, doing farmer's markets, sourcing local product, all the stuff that makes you want to root for a company. The focus, clearly, is on salsas, and most of their product comes in much larger, metal screw-on lidded jars. Their website does not have any product information on it, and has a slightly unfinished feel to it, so I'm not sure what is in it, precisely, but I have yet to see any of those jars of product not have onions in it (save for one particular Kroger product), and that sort of thing is a bit beyond the confines of what I would consider "hot sauce," and hence this blog.

As to this product...I get the desire to have a hotter Mexican-style table sauce. Most of them, particularly the commercial ones, are woefully lacking in this department. Partially, I think this is customer driven, as there are sometimes some fairly complex spice balances in play and over-adding too much can tend to diminish returns fairly readily. I think people also like heat on this type of food, but of a fairly moderate variety. The hottest pepper I've seen added to this style is the Ghost Pepper, and when done with care and judiciously, that can work quite well.

In a few ways, this reminds me of El Yucateco Red, particularly in terms of how the heat reads as an immediate flash heat, though I don't think the sauce overall has quite that kind of polish. This one is far harsher and abrasive, with a fairly prominent bitter tinge that I don't care for. I suspect this is due to stepping on the sauce with various powdered ingredients. Using powders and other concentrates is somewhat of an art, in any style cooking, and if you don't give it some time to gel and mesh, the full effect may not be known, which can prompt an impatience chef to add more to try to get to a desired taste.

I also note that this bottle used a fairly tough shrink plastic to keep the cap on, which is sort of a nuisance, but not the end of the world. Of far greater concern was the bottle being full literally to the cap when I opened it. I managed not to accidentally spill any of it, but wound up having to pour out a certain amount of the neck in order to create enough space to agitate it properly, given that it had separated in the bottle. If you're going to fill to the top, there needs to be an emulsifier or some other agent to hold ingredient suspension, though even then, I would say there is little reason to actually do that. The company seems very devoted to fresh ingredients, so the use of emulsifiers or preservatives is likely not happening.

My final piece of commentary is on the name of the sauce itself. Hell Fire, Hell, Hellfire, et. al. are in fairly steady usage already in the market place. Having customers look for something called by any of those names is certain to lead to brand confusion. The sauce is also nowhere near hot enough for that moniker, realistically, so I'd suggest a name change in the near future.

Bottom line: Very hearty stab at a more picante Mexican style table sauce, but one that I also find still needs refinement before I would consider buying again, let alone keeping at hand.


Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 4
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1


Overall: 3

Diablo (Scorpion) Pepper Sauce Review

Cactus Candy Company Diablo (Scorpion) Pepper Sauce

UPDATE: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXGbtjR6VSM

Much like the Lola's sauces, I get the impression we're dealing here with another base sauce, that then has whatever other pepper added to it. In some respects, it's not altogether a bad idea. You come up with a solid base sauce and then modify it with various super hots to get different flavor profiles. However, like as in many, many other areas of life, the theory is better than the reality. Execution is really what is going to make or break this concept and with both of the sauces, this and the Lola's, it is broken by poor execution. I get that you need to have a recipe that can be scaled up to fit into a heavy production setting and, unquestionably, it is harder to do that than maybe any other aspect, which is why we see so few national commercial (i.e. grocery stores, Wal-Mart, etc.) hot sauces of merit.

For this one, having a base sauce is fine. It is the same one as the Jalapeno styling from this company I reviewed earlier and either it hits or doesn't. It did not, at all, resonate with me, but generally, with the base sauce, you have your spice load in place and then just add a single different component. What happened here is that they added the single component, which was itself a product of multiple components, meaning the Scorpion pepper mash, which was the Scorps + salt, etc. The result was an acceleration of salt, to the point where this sauce immediately oversalts whatever one puts it on. This effect is slightly less noticeable on Mexican style food and pizzas, but in any instance where there are not other flavors for it to meld with (or to make that aspect somewhat), it's immediately noticeable and has the effect of diminishing returns.

Honestly, it's a bit of a shame, as adding the Scorpion element improved this sauce notably. With a relatively tame sauce like this, one can taste the somewhat flowery notes of the Scorpion readily, without needing to worry about excessive mouth burn. Not really useful for myself and other chileheads, but for "normals", this is a good way to experience the flavor profile and a small modicum of the attendant heat, which shows up here mostly in shadow form. However, with it wrecking half of the food it is used on and not, overall, being an especially wonderful-tasting sauce, the oversalty aspect is one I can't ignore and this is another that will be binned immediately after the video support is filmed.

Bottom line: If you have a fondness for salty sauces and want to get a good read on the flavor (without much of the heat) of Scorpion peppers (or want to introduce a non-chilehead to that profile), worth considering.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 3
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 1


Overall: 2