by pinback » Fri Nov 10, 2006 9:34 pm
The sauce review news is:
HotSauceBlog.com is soliciting for new reviewers, and I'm on the list of those requested to write a sample review, replete with color photographs. If this sample review is well received (which, if you see the kind of writing which passes for professional on HSB, there is little question that mine will be the best), then I will become a regular reviewer for the site, which unlike this site, will provide me with FREE SAUCEZ for the purpose of REVIEWZ.
Therefore, enjoy these reviewz, folks, because this could be the BEGINNING OF THE FUCKING END of this.
With that out of the way, let's review:
Blair's Jersey Death Sauce
Those regular readers out there already know my affinity for the Blair line of products, having spent well over $100 on their sauces in the past couple months. The latest addition to the collection (as well as the latest addition to the Blair line) is Jersey Death, which is hailed as being the hottest sauce in the Death line, hotter than Original Death, After Death, Sudden Death, Mega Death, whatever you want. The top of the Blair line (not counting the pure extracts). I've seen Scoville estimates of about 750,000, which would make it about the hottest sauce possible that you can still, if you look really hard, find some actual "ingredients" in, other than pepper extract.
All that being said, one thing is not in question:
Jersey Death is the most gruesome, noxious sludge in the universe. It just looks... wrong. It is an impossibly deep reddish-brown, and you can actually see veins of black extract swirling around and smearing on the sides of the bottle. Attempts to shake it up and blend the extract just sends it snaking through some other part of the bottle. It is the most dangerous looking thing I've ever seen in a five ounce woozy. The label, dark mahogany with the flaming skull on the front does little to ease your mind.
The top of the bottle is affixed with a regulator, easing the process of doling it out one drop at a time, and this is well appreciated. I dare say a single drop in a bowl of soup should be more than enough for most eaters. I had pizza tonight and tried to make sure there was no more (but no less) than a single small drop on every bite I ate. But I'm not well.
The recipe includes such exotic ingredients as pirri-pirri chiles and pumpkin seeds, and if you try really really hard, you can fool yourself into thinking that beyond the searing extract, there's some actual flavor to the sauce -- heck, I even convinced myself of it in the two seconds before your mouth explodes. This is not surprising, though, given that Blair's other extract sauces, as rancid and punishing as they tend to be, all do seem to have honest-to-goodness flavor behind them, even if it soon gets lost in the extract rush. So Jersey Death is just like all the others, but more. Way more.
In the end, though, we're faced with the same old hard truth about these ultra-hot extract nightmare sauces: They're virtually indistinguishable in taste, and since they're meant as food additives, the only thing you're likely to taste anyway is the heat, and capsaicin is capsaicin, and one bottle of this or any of its brethren will last you the rest of your life. So, as I've said before, it really just comes down to:
1. Economics. (Where can I get the most heat for the dollar.)
2. Convenience. (Is it easy to use?)
3. Style. (Is it cool or not?)
Economics: Five ounces of Jersey will run you $10 on Sweat 'n' Spice. Given the aforementioned fact that one bottle will give you as much heat as you'll need for the rest of your life, it's hard to imagine a better deal than this.
Convenience: A 5oz woozy is not the easiest thing to carry around with you, but the regulator works perfectly, and turns the bottle from a prankster's tool into something you can actually use with food.
Style: It's cool. It's hot. It's frightening and beautiful to look at. It's still all-natural and still has no artificial preservatives or stabilizers in it. It still comes with a free keychain. And, hell... it's Blair.
I give Jersey Death FIVE STARS.
The sauce review news is:
HotSauceBlog.com is soliciting for new reviewers, and I'm on the list of those requested to write a sample review, replete with color photographs. If this sample review is well received (which, if you see the kind of writing which passes for professional on HSB, there is little question that mine will be the best), then I will become a regular reviewer for the site, which unlike this site, will provide me with FREE SAUCEZ for the purpose of REVIEWZ.
Therefore, enjoy these reviewz, folks, because this could be the BEGINNING OF THE FUCKING END of this.
With that out of the way, let's review:
[b][i]Blair's Jersey Death Sauce[/i][/b]
Those regular readers out there already know my affinity for the Blair line of products, having spent well over $100 on their sauces in the past couple months. The latest addition to the collection (as well as the latest addition to the Blair line) is Jersey Death, which is hailed as being the hottest sauce in the Death line, hotter than Original Death, After Death, Sudden Death, Mega Death, whatever you want. The top of the Blair line (not counting the pure extracts). I've seen Scoville estimates of about 750,000, which would make it about the hottest sauce possible that you can still, if you look really hard, find some actual "ingredients" in, other than pepper extract.
All that being said, one thing is not in question:
Jersey Death is the most gruesome, noxious sludge in the universe. It just looks... [i]wrong[/i]. It is an impossibly deep reddish-brown, and you can actually see veins of black extract swirling around and smearing on the sides of the bottle. Attempts to shake it up and blend the extract just sends it snaking through some other part of the bottle. It is the most dangerous looking thing I've ever seen in a five ounce woozy. The label, dark mahogany with the flaming skull on the front does little to ease your mind.
The top of the bottle is affixed with a regulator, easing the process of doling it out one drop at a time, and this is well appreciated. I dare say a single drop in a bowl of soup should be more than enough for most eaters. I had pizza tonight and tried to make sure there was no more (but no less) than a single small drop on every bite I ate. But I'm not well.
The recipe includes such exotic ingredients as pirri-pirri chiles and pumpkin seeds, and if you try really really hard, you can fool yourself into thinking that beyond the searing extract, there's some actual flavor to the sauce -- heck, I even convinced myself of it in the two seconds before your mouth explodes. This is not surprising, though, given that Blair's other extract sauces, as rancid and punishing as they tend to be, all do seem to have honest-to-goodness flavor behind them, even if it soon gets lost in the extract rush. So Jersey Death is just like all the others, but more. Way more.
In the end, though, we're faced with the same old hard truth about these ultra-hot extract nightmare sauces: They're virtually indistinguishable in taste, and since they're meant as food additives, the only thing you're likely to taste anyway is the heat, and capsaicin is capsaicin, and one bottle of this or any of its brethren will last you the rest of your life. So, as I've said before, it really just comes down to:
1. Economics. (Where can I get the most heat for the dollar.)
2. Convenience. (Is it easy to use?)
3. Style. (Is it cool or not?)
Economics: Five ounces of Jersey will run you $10 on Sweat 'n' Spice. Given the aforementioned fact that one bottle will give you as much heat as you'll need for the rest of your life, it's hard to imagine a better deal than this.
Convenience: A 5oz woozy is not the easiest thing to carry around with you, but the regulator works perfectly, and turns the bottle from a prankster's tool into something you can actually use with food.
Style: It's cool. It's hot. It's frightening and beautiful to look at. It's still all-natural and still has no artificial preservatives or stabilizers in it. It still comes with a free keychain. And, hell... it's Blair.
I give Jersey Death FIVE STARS.