Sudden Death Hot Sauce Review

Blair's Sudden Death Hot Sauce

I had a list of all of the Blair's sauces I wanted to try because I think he's a very gifted sauce chef. I may not be in love with the majority of what he has done and for bringing extract to the fore as much as he has done, but I recognize and admire his skill and when he nails it, such as on the Pure Death (reviewed elsewhere here), he is nearly untouchable.

Not so much with Sudden Death. In fact, Sudden Death is what I call a "damn shame" sauce. I like the packaging and the coffin bit and so on, but when I opened the bottle, the contents had very clearly separated. I find that annoying, but not too big of a problem (most of the Wicked Cactus products need to be agitated basically before every pour), but it was off to a bad start. I tried the taste solo, a bit more than the suggested "microdrop" and found the flavor to be very intriguing. I liked where he was going for the 1.5 seconds before the extract hammer hit. I pressed on, though, undaunted, trying to get a handle on the flavor and here is the biggest fault of this sauce. There is a very good-tasting and flavorful sauce buried in there...somewhere, which is difficult to get in the smaller amounts, but increasing the dose just means you will be subject to a gigantic extract hit.

Rinse, wash, repeat.

When I saw extract (as pepper resin) in the ingredients (not sure how I missed it when I ordered), I figured I would probably be giving this one away, since the Stronger Than Death Berzerker sauce turned me completely off extract. I tried it anyway, just out of curiosity and will probably give it another shot or two, but the sauce, while good until the extract kicks in (not very long) is absolutely nasty once it does. After 3 or 4 bites, my thought was that I don't need to do this and I stopped shortly after that.

The heat, as might be expected, is up there quite a bit. I think this is Blair's 3 hottest Death sauce. I saw somewhere it was rated at 105K SHU and I don't doubt it. This is the hottest sauce I can remember purchasing (this puts me over the 100K mark) and the heat is pretty much immediate. It wasn't hot enough to make me hiccup -- not found anything that does that yet...should be an interesting effect if I ever do, but the heat is not really the issue here. It is the disgusting taste of extract.

Bottom line: I would keep this site around for drunken challenges at parties (parties that I no longer throw and haven't for years) and that's about it. I wouldn't purposely consume it, aside from curiosity (satisfied now) and to continue testing it until I get the chance to pass it on to someone else who may enjoy it more. It's too bad the extract is so forceful. The small part I was able to taste before that hit was pretty enjoyable, just not enough to endure the extract. I'm hopeful this will be the last sauce using extract I ever buy.

Breakdown:

        Heat level: 8
        Flavor: 1
        Flexibility: 0
        Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 2