Da Bomb Evolution
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mifUWX3Ugtc
It's been no secret, in the annals of this blog, that I'm not much of a fan of the Original Juan/Spicin Foods line-up, which tend to overly rely on extracts for heat, which mars otherwise potentially pretty tasty concoctions (though I did notice the Ghost Pepper sauce from Da Bomb does not contain extract, so I may try that at some point, but it's not especially high on my list). One of the more notorious offenders in the line-up is Da Bomb Beyond Insanity (reviewed elsewhere here), confusingly popularized largely due to the insistence of one Sean Evans to put his guests through one of the more awful-tasting sauces available and possibly the worst on the entire show.
Because of the extract being non-natural, Heatonist declined to carry that fabled sauce in their stores. With the main complaint being the noxious flavor, simply removing the extract and maybe adding in a super hot would seem like an easy fix. This is, actually, how this sauce was initially portrayed, but that's not what they did. No, they took the noxious flavoring of extract and replaced it with the nearly overbearing flowery tones of Scorpions. This reminds me quite a bit of the Hot Ones Eye Of The Scorpion hot sauce (also reviewed elsewhere here), which was so overpowering that I could not bear to keep it around long enough to use the entire bottle. That will actually probably be the case with this one.
I will stop short of saying it's the same sauce as Eye Of The Scorpion, despite sharing a number of ingredients. This one has a much longer ingredient list panel, with things such as paprika, turmeric, minced garlic, sugar, lemon, mint(?!), and cilantro, all of which get drowned out nearly immediately by the floral notes. If you continue on with this sauce, you can sometimes pick out little hints of garlic, since there is also garlic powder as well, but this is overwhelmingly a very Scorpion pepper flavored sauce. So, it falls down to the equation of how much you like those floral notes. I'm not particularly a fan, so this sauce is a pretty hard miss for me.
To compare further, since Heatonist really wants to pretend this sauce is actually on the show (it's not) and they (a bit deceptively, in my opinion) offer it as a 1:1 for the #8 slot, this is a somewhat hotter sauce than the Beyond Insanity and very much for chileheads only. The main issue with Beyond Insanity is the hideous flavor and not so much the heat. With the extract, it ramps up immediately to the heat level and stays there. This one will keep building and chasing through the floral and bitter superhot notes of a not very good-tasting pepper is not really worth the grace notes of the other ingredients for me. I can't say what it pairs well with, as I strongly find it ruins most food I use it on, by overpowering it, of course, and I always wish I had something else. Good on them for subbing an actual pepper in favor of an extract, but I'm still not convinced this company is interested in making good sauces, but rather to rely on stunt or novelty for their base.
Bottom line: Is this better than Beyond Insanity? Yes, but how much directly depends on how much you like the flavor of Scorpion peppers.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 6
Flavor: 2
Flexibility: 0
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0
Overall: 2
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