 | |
| Industry | Food products |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1989 |
| Founder | Blair Lazar |
| Headquarters | , U.S. |
Area served | United States |
Key people | Blair Lazar |
| Products | Hot sauce Snacks |
| Website | deathsauce.com |
Blair's Sauces and Snacks is a United States snack company founded in 1989, most famous for their Death Sauce line of hot sauces, known for their extreme range in Scoville heat ratings.
Blair's Sauces and Snacks is a New Jersey-based food company specializing in hot sauces and spicy snacks. Blair has been featured on FoodTV Unwrapped, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, QVC Japan, Rolling Stone magazine, The Wall Street Journal, the Daily News, the New York Post, and more.
Blair Lazar, founder of Blair's Sauces and Snacks, introduced Death Sauce in 1989 while bartending on the Jersey Shore. He began bottling and distributing this "Original Death Sauce" and a full line of hot sauces later followed (e.g., After Death, Mega Death, Sudden Death).
Blair's produces a variety of hot sauces under the brand name Death Sauce. The sauces range from the more modest heat of Sweet Death to the extreme heat of Ultra Death Sauce. The hotter sauces have pepper extract added for additional heat.
| Name | Details |
|---|---|
| Ultra Death Sauce | Replacement for Jersey Death Sauce (Red Habanero Pods, Cayenne Chilies, White Vinegar, Natural Pepper Flavor (Contains Soybean Oil), Tomato Puree, Pirri-pirri Chilies, Lime Juice, Salt, & Spices) with added Naga Jolokia peppers. |
| Mega Death Sauce | A habanero sauce with cayenne, white vinegar, ancho chilies, chipotles, natural pepper flavor, molasses, guava nectar, ginger, salt, and spices. |
| Sudden Death Sauce | A habanero sauce with cayenne, white vinegar, honey, lime juice, ginseng, and spices. |
| After Death Sauce | Original Death Sauce with added pepper extract for extra heat. First sauce in the series to be labeled with a "warning". Notably hotter than previous sauces. |
| Pure Death Sauce | A sauce with naga jolokia and habanero peppers, vinegar, and Hawaiian red salt. |
| Salsa de la Muerte | Latin America variant of Original Death Sauce with more chipotle taste. Contains the same ingredients but with a higher concentration of habaneros. |
| Original Death Sauce | Blair's flagship product. A habanero sauce with vinegar, cayenne, garlic, chipotle, lime juice, cilantro, herbs and spices. |
| Golden Death Sauce | Released in 2010, at around the same heat level as Original Death Sauce, [1] containing Scotch Bonnet Chilis, Fresh Onion Puree, Turmeric, Ground Mustard Seeds, Chipotle, and Habanero Powder |
| Jalapeño Death Sauce | A jalapeño hot sauce with tomatillos, garlic, onion, and tequila |
| Sweet Death Sauce | A mild habanero sauce with a vinegar base. Contains sweet tropical ingredients such as honey, mango, passion fruit, and sugarcane |
Blair's Q Heat Collection was a line of sauces used as marinades or dipping sauces. The Heat Sauces included: Habanero Mango, Jalapeño Tequila, Chipotle Slam, and Wasabi Green Tea. The Q Heat Line has been retired since 2018
Blair's Reserve Collection includes a selection of award-winning, limited-edition, hand-crafted, signed and numbered bottles. Each Reserve edition commemorates a significant event or experience, beginning with the "A.M." series noted above. This series originated in the early 1990s when Lazar was bartending on the Jersey Shore. Patrons wanting to stay past the 2 am closing time were dared to try "Blair's Wings of Death", made with Blair's Original Death Sauce. Anyone who survived could stay as long as they wanted, thus, giving rise to the remaining items in the "A.M." series (e.g., 3am, 4am, 5am, and 6am Reserves). Other significant reserves include "Caldera," "Blair's Holiday Reserve," "Blair's Halloween Reserve," and "the Firecracker 500 Reserve." All but the 2am and 3am reserves are completely sold-out and are shown in Blair's vault. Collectors have been known to resell their reserve bottles for extremely high sums as per the Blair's website quoting "It has been reported to us that a bottle has recently (late 2004) sold for $5,450 (sold in a private sale to a buyer in Europe)." [2]
The strength of Blair's hottest product, "Blair's 16 Million Reserve", is 16 million Scoville units (Tabasco, in comparison, is 2,500 to 5,000 [3] Scoville units). It contains only capsaicin crystals, and is the hottest possible capsaicin-based sauce. Only 999 bottles of "Blair's 16 Million Reserve" were produced, each one signed and numbered by the firm's founder, and have all been sold. This reserve was certified by Guinness World Records as the hottest product available.
The Scoville scale is a measurement of pungency of chili peppers and other substances, recorded in Scoville heat units (SHU). It is based on the concentration of capsaicinoids, among which capsaicin is the predominant component.
Chili peppers, from Nahuatl chīlli, are varieties of the berry-fruit of plants from the genus Capsicum, which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for their pungency. Chili peppers are widely used in many cuisines as a spice to add "heat" to dishes. Capsaicin and related compounds known as capsaicinoids are the substances giving chili peppers their intensity when ingested or applied topically. While chili peppers are pungent or "spicy", there are other varieties of capsicum such as bell peppers, which generally provide additional sweetness and flavor to a meal rather than "heat".
Dave's Gourmet is a company notable for creating and introducing Dave's Insanity Sauce, which formerly held the title of "world's hottest sauce." The sauce is widely distributed through gourmet hot sauce boutiques and online hot-sauce sites.
Hot sauce is a type of condiment, seasoning, or salsa made from chili peppers and other ingredients. Many commercial varieties of mass-produced hot sauce exist.
Cholula Hot Sauce is a brand of chili-based hot sauce, based in Stamford, Connecticut, manufactured in Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico, and licensed by José Cuervo. According to its manufacturers, Cholula hot sauce rates 1,000–2,000 on the Scoville scale though other sources measure it as being over three times as hot, at 3,600 Scoville units. The product is packaged in a glass bottle with a distinctive round wooden cap. Six varieties of Cholula are widely marketed in North America.
Valentina is a brand of "pourable" hot sauce manufactured by Salsa Tamazula, a company based in Guadalajara, Mexico. The sauce, like the parent company's Tamazula hot sauce, is made with puya chilis from Jalisco state, similar to the Guajillo chili and known by the name guajillo puya.
Búfalo is a brand of hot sauce and other condiments produced by Herdez Group of Lomas de Chapultepec, Mexico. Búfalo sauce has been produced since 1933. The company produces Búfalo and Tampico sauces, salsas, and other condiments. In the United States, English-labeled bottles are distributed by MegaMex Foods, a joint venture between Herdez and Hormel Foods.
The Naga Morich is a chili pepper grown in Northeast India and Bangladesh. There is no consensus on whether this is synonymous with the Bhut Jolokia, or a different variety. It is also one of the hottest known chilli peppers and the only naturally occurring chili pepper that measures 1 million SHU on Scoville scale.
Siling labuyo is a small chili pepper cultivar that developed in the Philippines after the Columbian Exchange. It belongs to the species Capsicum frutescens and is characterized by triangular fruits which grow pointing upwards. The fruits and leaves are used in traditional Philippine cuisine. The fruit is pungent, ranking at 80,000 to 100,000 heat units in the Scoville Scale.
Frank's RedHot is a hot sauce made from a variety of cayenne peppers, produced by McCormick & Company. The Original blend ranks low on the Scoville scale, with 450 SHUs, but the XTRA Hot variety measures 2,000 SHUs.
Nali Sauce is a popular sauce from Malawi dubbed, "'Africa's hottest peri-peri sauce'. It is one of Malawi's most popular sauces. The Nali sauce brands have attained cult status with chilli lovers both in Malawi and throughout the world for their hotness and taste. The heat level of Nali sauce is approximately Piri piri 175.000 scoville heat units
The Carolina Reaper is a cultivar of the Capsicum chinense plant. Developed by American breeder Ed Currie, the pepper is red and gnarled, with a bumpy texture and small pointed tail. In 2013, Guinness World Records declared it the hottest chili pepper in the world.
The ghost pepper, also known as bhut jolokia, is an interspecific hybrid chili pepper cultivated in Northeast India. It is a hybrid of Capsicum chinense and Capsicum frutescens.
The hot pepper challenge is an Internet viral video fad, consisting of a food challenge that involves filming oneself while eating and swallowing a chili pepper that is high on the Scoville scale and known for its piquant (spicy-hot) qualities, in particular the cayenne pepper, Thai pepper, habanero, ghost pepper, and the Trinidad moruga scorpion pepper; the video is then uploaded to the Internet. Hot pepper challenges have been featured on television series, including Man v. Food.
Capsicum is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae, native to the Americas, cultivated worldwide for their chili pepper or bell pepper fruit.
The habanero is a hot variety of chili. Unripe habaneros are green, and they color as they mature. The most common color variants are orange and red, but the fruit may also be white, brown, yellow, green, or purple. Typically, a ripe habanero is 2–6 centimetres long. Habanero chilis are very hot, rated 100,000–350,000 on the Scoville scale. The habanero's heat, flavor and floral aroma make it a popular ingredient in hot sauces and other spicy foods.
Hot Ones is an American YouTube talk show, created by Chris Schonberger, hosted by Sean Evans and produced by First We Feast and Complex Media. Its basic premise involves celebrities being interviewed by Evans over a platter of increasingly spicy chicken wings. Several spin-offs have been produced, including the game show Hot Ones: The Game Show on the cable television network TruTV, and Truth or Dab, a truth or dare style competition that also airs on the First We Feast YouTube channel.
Pepper X is a cultivar of Capsicum chili pepper bred by Ed Currie, creator of the Carolina Reaper. Pepper X resulted from several cross breedings that produced an exceptionally high content of capsaicin in the locules of the pepper. The exceptional pungency of the chili was developed over 10 years of cultivation.
Especially among growers in the US, the UK, and Australia, there has been a competition since the 1990s to grow the hottest chili pepper. Chili pepper species and cultivars registering over 1,000,000 Scoville Heat units (SHU) are called "super-hots". Past Guinness World Record holders include the ghost pepper, Infinity chili, Trinidad Moruga scorpion, Naga Viper pepper, and Trinidad Scorpion Butch T. The current record holder, declared in 2017, is the Carolina Reaper, at more than 1.6 million SHU.
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