UPDATE: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4S-DwrqkE
Note: This sauce appeared in Seasons 1 and 2 of The Hot Ones.I happened to be poking around a specialty store not too long after I worked out which sauces from The Hot Ones show I had not done and would consider doing in the future and came across a couple of entries form the various line-ups. I have not really been a fan of the various "Pain" entries, either the Pain Is Good line or the Pain X% line, but in the interests of moving forward with the various show sauces, picked it up, happily in the smallest bottle I could find, a sort of mini-flask. I know flasks are probably a waste of glass comparatively, but I like them and any sauce that comes in one I will at least give a look. No, I don't know why and yes, I know that several of the lines I just mentioned come in flasks, but chalk it up to a general preference and leave it at that.
I got this one back and though this one has a very small neck, the sauce had discolored in it. After ridding myself of that, I gave it a quick smell and taste and was somewhat reminded of Blair's Pure Death. Now the last time I said that (last year), the sauce that reminded me of that also wound up being my Sauce Of The Year. So I was semi-excited at the prospect of another SOTY candidate this early in the year after several years of it being much deeper in the year. My excitement was quickly tampered as I got into this sauce, though...
I have some issues with this sauce. The first is the SHU rating they've attached to it. They list it on the website as 40K, which is woefully inadequate, sort of like Samyang listing their hot chicken noodles as having less heat than a jalapeno. Like those, this is off considerably, as far as rating, and is much hotter than 40K. They also call it 100% natural, which is an assertion largely dependent on how natural you consider extract. They have buried it in the "Natural Pepper Flavor" listing, but there is unquestionably extract in this. Pure Death itself, I believe, is rated somewhere around 40K and this is notably hotter. It also does not act like something relying solely on Habanero, nor is the flavor consistent with that, given the metallicy taste that sooner or later makes its presence known when extract is used. This also makes this sauce a bit of a chore to use, as that aspect tends to be overpowering with extended use.
Flavor-wise, in the beginning, the flavor sensation that first make me think of the Pure Death is very nice. It tends a bit more to the bitter, but it retains enough to keep that alive...that is until the extract comes roaring in, both accelerating the heat and wrecking the flavor. The label actually notes this idea, the hotter something is, the less flavorful, which is somewhat generally true, but if you click on the Table Of Contents or look at the last posts of any of the years this blog has been running, you can find quite a number of sauces that are able to do both without relying on artificial, chemical means. Unlike the Pure Death, this one has to be tempered in its usage or it can easily ruin whatever you're using it on, which is rather a pity, but the same applications of nearly everything still apply.
Bottom line: This is a great example of why I tend to eschew extract sauces. We have an otherwise solid sauce that is easily ruined with extract, which reduces its usefulness and value considerably.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 6
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 8
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 6
Overall: 6
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