Hellfire Devil's Blend Bourbon Chipotle Hot Sauce Review

Hellfire Devil's Blend Bourbon Chipotle

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcmRcH6INT4

I don't now remember exactly when I started the Hot Ones project, in which I started sailing through as many sauces as was on that show as possible, but Hellfire had a sauce in Season 14, which was early 2021 and it was one of the Devil's Blends. That particular one had onions, but I noted there were others in the Devil's Blend line, including this, which did not have onions. I started looking for this as soon as I was aware of it, so probably pushing 2 years, at this point, and, like the Full Shred from Hellfire (reviewed elsewhere here), it proved a bit difficult to come by, in terms of fitting into my normal hot sauce purchasing. 

I don't know recall how I came across it, but it wasn't in time for grill season, which is a pity, as this is yet another of those sauces that will probably work fantastically in that setting (and fear not, as I will be keeping what is left of the bottle, post FOH video, to try there next year). As it is, we have what is essentially a very Chipotle-forward sauce, with a little burst of heat from the Habaneros, but a fairly heavy smokiness to it. While there are a lot of fruits in there as well, I find they contribute more to a certain chunkiness and add more in bits to mouth feel rather than the sweetness I would anticipate from a barbeque or grill sauce, the former of which this somewhat resembles. We have oranges, mangoes, papaya, and peaches, but none of those read particularly forcefully. Neither does the vanilla or the wide array of other spices in there, as it is all subsumed  under the heavier mask of the smoked peppers.

What does read through a bit is some astringency from the garlic and more than a touch of rawness from the bourbon. While it is somewhat less so than in a number of other sauces I've had, it is still present enough to be a bit of a distraction. This sauce is somewhat better warmer than colder and I've played around with trying to concentrate it a bit using the air fryer, which works much better than even I had anticipated. Overall, I do think it balances the line between being a barbeque and hot sauce quite nicely, but ultimately, this seems to be much better if you can find a way to smooth off that rawness from the bourbon, which using it as a grill sauce should do well. The rating is, as usual, as an actual hot sauce, though flavor in particular, goes up somewhat under the conditions I mentioned.

Bottom line: Very solid and accessible sauce, for those who don't want to go too hot and prefer their hot sauces to tend more towards being a barbeque sauce.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 6
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 4