Hellfire Evil Bastard
Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQOqUIMaVNI
I've had this on the list for a while, along with a few others, as the final sauces I intended to do from Hellfire, both because of coverage, as in I've generally done everything I've wanted to, which is all of the sauces without onions and/or extracts, and because the process of choosing products from them is tiring. I generally do a decent amount of research for this blog, which I've always done as I like to know what new stuff is (FOMO to a degree, I suppose), but it's also both interesting and fun to me. For Hellfire, though, with their tiny ingredient label text and a not much better website, it's generally not a particularly fast endeavor. So this one was one I picked up not so much because I saw the label or name and was burning with desire to try it, but more for coverage, a sort of last bit of punctuation, some light housekeeping before closing the door on Hellfire, sans some new entries.
Even though the others on that list have been less than stellar so far and this one had a lot of ingredients I don't particularly love, I kept an open mind and mouth and was pleasantly rewarded for taking the chance. This is a quite excellent sauce, altogether. It's another with a laundry list of stuff and definitely one shooting for the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" vibe, but what is delivered here took me by surprise. Here, the superhots, the 7-Pot Primos, the Scorpions, and the Ghosties, both regular and in smoked form, come together nicely to form a solid superhot flame base, while the rest of the ingredients, including the cinnamon whiskey, do a nice job offsetting the standard superhot bitterness, while allowing some of that flavor to seep through as well. There is no one "main" flavor, but more a composite, but here and there you can catch hints of curry and the whiskey and a touch of garlic, along with some richness from the tomatoes.
A lot of the peppers are arriving by way of mash, so this is a fairly vinegar-forward sauce. I found it worked best considering it more as a Lousiana-style, in terms of application, though I did try it in a variety of settings. I found it worked best with meats and with generally uncomplex flavors. I can't say it was outright bad on pizza, for instance, but it also was not an application I'd attempt again (I would not ever use Louisiana-style here), but neither would I attempt it on something like mac & cheese. With the curry sort of hovering about in the mix, I think this could be worth a stab on Asian foods, but again, with the vinegar forward nature here, this would definitely be a YMMV situation.
Bottom line: Very surprisingly solid entry with a complex, well-orchestrated flavor profile from Hellfire on this one, though definitely hot enough to be for chileheads only.
Breakdown:
Heat level: 3
Flavor: 7
Flexibility: 6
Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8
Overall: 6
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