Dave's Insanity and other such sauces are too hot to use

Let’s face it: there is no-one so tought that they can smear Dave’s Insanity or Blair’s After Death or any similar sauce on a sandwich or other food and eat it, sans problem (OK, there might be a few people on the planet).

For those not in the know, such sauces use pepper extract to make their sauces artificially hot. These sauces are so busy being the toughest and hottest, that they forget that people will actually trying to be use them in everyday situations. I like the overall flavor profile of Dave’s Insanity, but it is too hot to use practically:

A. You can pretty much only use them in liquids. As I said above, even a tiny amount spread undiluted on a sandwich will make it inedible or give it pain-inducing hot spots. One technique is to mix it into mayonaise or ketchup and then spread it.

B. But even a tiny, tiny dot is enough to turn a bowl of soup into the Lake of Fire. So you try to dose out just the right amount, right? But it’s too easy to overdose it, especially since Dave’s is quite a thick sauce (unlike Tobasco).

C. You usually end up sacrficing half of the dollop to the lid of the bottle (since you have to “cut” a large drop in half by artfully rotating the bottle at the last second, etc.) One result of this is that you get a crust on the bottle’s area beneat the cap, which can actually fall off into food or stick to your hand (don’t lick your thumb!).

Before someone says, “Well then, choose a different sauce!” let me explain. Most non-extract-containing hot sauces are fairly wimpy. Tobasco is like water. A good habanero sauce is fine, but I do prefer Dave’s flavor profile. So a Dave’s sauce with about 1/4 of the heat would still be a lot hotter than Tobasco but still quite hot. That’s what I want.

Wha’chall think?

Mightn’t “Dave’s Really Quite Sensible Sauce” lack a certain something as a brand name?

:slight_smile:

(I bet you would have complained about the real dead crunchy frog too)

Seriously, though, the stuff sounds lethal. If I ever so much as see it, I plan to run away fast.

Pick a capsaicin-enhanced sauce whose flavor you like, and work with it. Dilute it a bit if you need to, and figure out how much to put in your favorite recipes based on amount of liquid, etc.

I’ve developed a comfortable working relationship with “Endorphin Rush” by doing this.

And I’ve found Tabasco Habanero quite nice for use on sandwiches, eggs, etc. Hot enough for me. Tabasco Chipotle is good for flavor too, and if I need more heat, I just add more to the mix. Tabasco Green is nice and mild, and I can add up to two tablespoons to get the flavor right without overheating anything.

And actually, I find Dave’s Insanity Sauce ok for adding to sandwiches, etc. I just need to restrict it to one or two drops.

But as for all those macho sauces, frankly I find using anything hotter than Dave’s or Endorphin Rush a bit silly. Fun for tormenting my nephews, but not practical in the kitchen.

Otherwise go to www.fiery-foods.com for lots of options.

Hah ha!

I mock you Westerners with your sensitive palates!
:smiley: :stuck_out_tongue:

I completely agree. It seems to me that the only reason for Insanity is bragging rights - “I can eat this but you can’t”. I love a good hot sauce but fire for the sake of fire doesn’t do it for me.

I agree. Heat for the sake of heat is macho bullpucky. I want flavor with the heat.

The old standbys are Crystal and Sriracha. Add to taste and heat…controllably. :smiley:

I’ve tried some hot stuff (Devil Drops, habaneros, Thai hot peppers, etc) but I like to taste the food. If the sauce is too hot, I can’t taste anything else. There can be too much of a good thing.

I agree, and I like my food to make me sweat.

Dave’s Insanity did nothing for me. It was too hot, and even in dishes like beans or chili that I could add a few drops, it didn’t add a flavor that I couldn’t do without.

Blair’s Sudden Death, on the other hand, I do love. It is too hot for me to eat as a condiment, but I add a few drops to any dish I can. It adds nice heat, and has great flavor.

I like the diluting/blending idea. I’m going to have to give that a whirl.

Personally I love to take one of the real hot sauces, and mix with equal parts sour cream for a spread. It dilutes the fire a bit, but is still as hot as you wantr it. But since the hot is dairy soluable it cleans itself off your taste buds better every swallow, so you a ready for the next taste to be everybit as good, rather than the continuos heat overload which deadens the tastebuds after sa bite or two.

Thanks for the diluting and sour cream ideas, folks!

I think Daves is a flavor killer. I’d rather use other sauces that add flavor and spice. I can ‘handle’ the heat, but when dining, I am interested in enjoying the food, not surviving.

A wing place near me uses Dave’s on their hot wings (I don’t even want to know what they use on suicide), and you can’t enjoy them. I can eat them without any issues, but not indulge and enjoy.

Sirracha is an example of good spice/heat with purpose. Sure, I might even enjoy the a bit more heat than that, but as heat creeps up, flavor can suffer.

I really like the flavour/heat profile of Green Tabasco injected with Dave’s. I used an eye-dropper to squirt Dave’s into the Tabasco bottle…Delicious! By far my favorite hot sauce to use…but I am out of Dave’s, so no joy until the next trip to the US of A.

You might be able to use a small coffee straw to suck-n-blow Dave’s into the Tabasco bottle.

-Tcat

Unless Dave objects? :wink:

Hmm, I wonder whther we have that brand name in Britain. :slight_smile:

LOL. OK, I am a moron, I admit it took almost a minute for me to get that.

:wink:

Warning - video:

Heh. Stupid guy taking a shot of it.

I’ve got about 1/4" left in my second bottle of Blair’s Mega Death, and I put about 6-8 dime-sized splats on each side of my morning well-done fried egg with cheddar and bacon every morning.

Dave’s isn’t so hot.

I use Dave’s Insanity in two ways.
Sometimes extreme heat is nice even though painful, I use it like any other sauce for dipping food in. Yes it hurts, but that causes quite a nice endorphin rush.
To spice something up without changing the flavour. If I buy a decent salsa that tastes nice, but isn’t hot enough, adding a quater teaspoon of Dave’s will bring the heat up without changing the nice flavours. To do the same with tabasco would take maybe three teaspoons full of tabasco, which would make the salsa much more vinigery and possibly spoil its good flavour.

I had a bottle of Dave’s around 1995 before “everybody” (at least in my area) knew what it was. It is definitely a novelty.

I didn’t usually trick people with it. I would come right out and tell them, “This shit is HOT. It WILL BURN.” And they would giggle and roll their eyes and take a little hit of it and invariably be mad at me a few seconds later.

A few of the highlights while the bottle lasted were:

-Well known “tough guy” at school cried

-Two girls begged me to let them try it, even after I told them no because it was too hot, then when they finally tried it they wigged out, got pissed, and tried to smear some in my mouth, only I jerked my head and it went in my eyes. That was not fun.

-The demise. This guy at work kept begging me to bring it in after hearing all these stories, swearing he could eat half the bottle with a straight face or he would give me $50, etc. I finally brought it in and he put some on the tip of his finger. As soon as he put it in his mouth he made some smartass comment like “this isn’t so hot”, then giggled for a second, then I saw that familiar pissed off look come over his face. He yelled and danced around like a red-faced idiot for a minute, then unscrewed the cap and shook my precious insanity sauce out on the floor and threw the bottle in the trash, stormed out the back door, got in his car and left work for the rest of the day. Needless to say I never got my $50. It was a touchy subject.

In the maybe ~2 years that I had that bottle I learned that there’s something about Insanity Sauce that seriously pisses people off. It doesn’t matter how much you warn them, people are not ready for that stuff.