Da' Bomb Beyond Insanity Hot Sauce Review

Da' Bomb Beyond Insanity Hot Sauce

Note:  This sauce appeared in Seasons 2 - 21 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Video support available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEFoZEtE0hk

This is another from Spicin' Foods, purveyors of the Pain lines (Pain [X]%, Pain Is Good) as well as various Da Bomb offerings. I don't recall this being the hottest of the Bomb line, but I've scrupulously avoided it, given the heavy dominance of extract, which I do not find to be a pleasant flavor. I have found precious few entries in any of their product line to be worthwhile, across all 3 of the ones I mentioned. The snack foods I've come across have been generally ok, but quite pedestrian. To be frank, I would not be bothering with this either, save for the sustained run it had across the various seasons of The Hot Ones. With this one sauce, I now have coverage in 13 of the 14 Hot Ones seasons, with only the current one (as of this writing) untouched. That is my sole motivation here.

This is not to say I haven't been testing it. Every sauce that comes across I absolutely give a fair shake and benefit of the doubt. This one, initially, I felt might have a good sauce in there trying to come out and maybe, just maybe, it was to try to coax it forth that Sean Evans kept it in the lineup on The Hot Ones, but no. That, I can say rather conclusively, is incorrect (more on this shortly). With the ingredients of Chipotle and Habanero, two sometimes great tastes that go great together, which have conspired to come up with some truly wonderful sauces elsewhere, there was a chance...

The problem here is that the vile taste of extract bitters out everything, leaving a noxious metallicky chemical flavor, which is pretty far from palatable. This is another sauce that ruins everything it touches, including the ingredients. The Chipotle, always an ingredient that must be used judiciously so the smoke doesn't become overwhelming, here is the other taste, though modified to be far more bitter than usual, that battles back and forth with the extract, leaving you the less than wonderful choice of either tasting metal shavings or ashes.  This ruins any food it happens to touch and this has been universal across all of them I've tried it on.

So...why the Sean Evans love? I'm going to play amateur theorist here for a moment, as this mannerism is exactly the sort of thing my best friend in high school used to do (though he would do it with rotgut liquor). The idea here is that you only eat it around other people and it's a weird sort of machismo/hazing thing. As I've mentioned, another friend and I used to keep around Dave's Insanity sauce for a similar purpose, which we would bust out for drunken party dares, etc. I think this is Evans moreso testing/tormenting his guests than because the sauce is great or flavorful or anything, as it is not. It is, indeed, entirely dreadful.

Bottom line: While (obviously) hot, this is also not a sauce that seems particularly meant for eating (se preceding paragraph) and definitely not for enjoying, despite the manufacturer calling it "delicious." I will be eating it two more times, ever, when I film the video and for the Q1 2021 Hot Ones wing homage and then I will be thankfully done. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 6
            Flavor: 0
            Flexibility: 0
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 2