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