Hellfire Fiery Fool
Note: This sauce appears on Season 6 of The Hot Ones.
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwBNqxsR8SE
I can't really get into this without discussing the label. Strictly graphically speaking, again the character on the label, as is the case with most of the Hellfire labels that have a character on it, is fantastic. I really admire their commitment and dedication to art with the various figures that adorn the labels. However, from there, things skitter sideways pretty rapidly. The text they use, aside from that around the figure, is either too small and shadowed with a horrible color combination or is too tiny to easily be legible, the latter being the case on nearly all of their labels. Back to the copy around the jester on the front, though, this sauce calls itself the "the hottest sauce in the world without extract," though I do notice, before I get too far into this review, that the label on the Hellfire website has been modified to back away from this claim, deleting it from the bottle entirely. This is probably a smart choice. My previous hottest no extract sauce pick was Torchbearer's The Rapture (reviewed elsewhere here), though I don't that I would still consider it such today. Even on Season 6 of The Hot Ones, it was not the hottest sauce (The Last Dab Reduxx was, if memory serves) without extract. Indeed, most, maybe all, of The Last Dab sauces, which similarly do not have extract, are likely hotter than this. I'm speculating here, as I've not tried them all, but the series is predicated on increasing heat scale sauces as the show progresses. I would not say it is as hot as the Hot One Constrictor (also reviewed elsewhere here) that is the current final sauce in my Wing Things lineup.
Ok, so I'm not going to shadow debate too much a claim that is apparently no longer being made (you can see the label of the bottle I have in this review), and I will say this sauce is definitely hot.There is not really a way you can have Reaper mash, followed by Scorpion mash, followed by 7-Pot Primo mash, followed by Ghost mash as the first listings in your ingredient panel and not have a good degree of scorching to this. Given that both the Reapers and 7-Pots both like to get a nice build to inferno crescendo, this is definitely hot enough to be way, way in the chilehead only category. I don't imagine that too many normies will be able to tolerate this.
This is also not a sauce that will be saved for them by flavor. The flavor here, given how high Scorpions are in the mix, has a decidedly floral note, along with that intense bittery superhot flavor, given the preponderance of them in there.This is clearly a stunt sauce in the main, designed to be a combination of 4 of the hottest superhots, not an actual food enhancer. There is the presence of sun-dried tomatoes in there, which makes this rather reminiscent of the First Blood (reviewed elsewhere here), also from Hellfire, but while it's a nice addition for me, it's ultimately not quite enough to overcome the pounding. I will also note that this is oddly salty, notably so. I find that a bit baffling, but all of these aspects lend it to be somewhat of a challenge to find suitable food pairings, which is, of course, my main concern. This is also a very thick, rather sludgy sauce, which is fine, as you need very little of it.
Heat-wise, this things starts off punchy and never really relents with the wallop. Being both immediately hot and then continuing to build is clearly what they had in mind and this sauce is well-engineered to meet that goal. It's not a sauce I would say is so wonderfully flavorful that it demands one keep eating it and driving the heat higher, despite oneself, at least not for me, but there is some complexity of flavor in there a bit.
Bottom line: I think sometimes a lot of the early season sauces get a bit forgotten, but this is another example of the better sauces on the show. Definitely not a flavor star and with heat hot enough to park it firmly in the chilehead only camp, it is still an overall enjoyable sauce.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 7
Flavor: 6
Flexibility: 6
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8
Overall: 7
No comments:
Post a Comment