Hot Ones Last Dab XXX Hot Sauce Review

Hot Ones Last Dab XXX

Note: This sauce appears on Seasons 10 - 12 of The Hot Ones.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57nA47I0Y9E

This one is the first of the sauces in the #10 slot on that show for me to finally do a full review on and like most of the sauces slotted in the higher numbers on the show, this is definitely a sauce for chileheads only. This one is a modification of the original Last Dab, changing things around by adding in a couple variations of the Pepper X (hence the "XXX"moniker addition) to the mix. 

While I think I've found most of the stuff I've had Pepper X in to be favorable, I don't find that to be the case here and I believe it's because of the coriander element. That, along with cumin, points this a bit more over towards the Indian food side of things, which are flavor profiles I'm not generally a huge fan of. I don't know what Ed Currie had in mind when he was designing this sauce, but while I thought the taste was interesting initially, when it leaned a bit more towards the mustard and turmeric, it wore out its welcome fairly quickly after, given that I was not able to find any food where I thought it fit especially well. While I would not call this a bad sauce, it is not one that fits my palate particularly well.

I think it's okayish on chicken and I believe I'm going to take a wild swing and see what it does on hot dogs, at some point, but on red meat in general, while not awful, is not something I care to repeat. Even though I think it works marginally better on chicken, that is also not something I much care to repeat, as I'd rather have something else. If I liked Indian food, this would be more fitting, but I don't. The flavor profile of this also does not lend itself particularly well to meshing with other flavors, so I think to be able to reach for this, you'd have to like what's here and I can't really say that I do, though I also wouldn't say I outright dislike it, either. It is hot enough that tinkering with the heat is kind of amusing, but that's definitely lemonade out of lemons for me.

Bottom line: A sauce I find somewhat confusing, but for chileheads with a wider range of foods they enjoy, it may be worth a go. Definitely this is one where YMMV.

Breakdown:

           Heat level: 4
           Flavor: 2
           Flexibility: 2
           Enjoyment to dollar factor: 3

Overall: 3