Dave’s Gourmet Insanity Sauce has been on ‘must try’ list since I was about 18 years old (some years ago) when I used to buy hot sauces from ‘Hot Headz’ mail-order service (pre-Internet!). One of the reasons I hadn’t bought this sauce before is that it’s chuffin’ expensive! I recently received a modest royalty payment for one of my books so while at the Chilli Farm in Mendlesham (Suffolk) I decided to push the boat out and splash out on some Dave’s Gourmet Insanity Sauce.
Last night I spotted the new bottle on my ‘shelf of pain’ (more on that later) and decided the time was right for a taste test drive. The meal used to test drive this sauce was Chilli con carne on jacket spud, which might seem like an odd choice but this is a Chilli cooked by yours truly taking into account the tastes of my wife and child, so it has almost no native heat.
I’ve learnt from previous hot sauce accidents to try just a few drops of anything new before generously sloshing it all over supper. A drop or two of Dave’s Insanity Sauce was quite divine, this sauce has quite a unique taste and is really quite moorish. Because the test had gone well I added another drizzle to my food; not much mind you – this stuff is expensive!
Well the meal rolled on well enough but I was becoming increasingly aware that I appeared to be loosing a lot of water from my face. I didn’t quite reach total annihilation but I don’t think I was far off. This wasn’t an intense or even unpleasant type of burn, it fact it was quite nicely rounded and only mildly incapacitating. The sort of heat in your gob that you can nod and appreciate without any desire to intensify it.
About ten minutes after I had finished eating I had to resort to a glass of mild and a choc-ice to cool the flames, but they did subside and at no point was I in serious discomfort. At least until this morning…
I feel like I’ve been dealt a blow to my lower stomach, I won’t go into too much physiological detail but if this were a scene in a movie then I know which Jonny Cash song would be on the soundtrack. The other unpleasant side-effect of this sauce is – and there’s no polite way to say this – a feeling a bit like the one experienced around half an hour after crushing ones knackers, but this has been lasting for hours.
As I sit down to write this little review I’ve noticed that ‘Dave’ doesn’t list which peppers go into this sauce but does declare ‘hot pepper extract’ in the list of ingredients. Pepper extracts is something Tim over at East Coast Chilli Company once proudly told me he never uses, and if this is how they make your innards feel then I can see why.
Last Updated on March 18, 2023
I once drank six drops of this in a shot of Vodka. My mouth hurt for hours, I couldn't stop shivering and it was in the middle of a hot summer.
Great stuff!!