On Wednesday I did a little more work on the Devil's brew that Jim made for the cancelled hot-wing-eating contest at Spicefest. His original mix included: Ralph's Righteous Hazmat Backdraft Pure Arson Red Savina flakes ...plus a few bottles with no labels *shriek* I sampled a bit of it, and was very glad I didn't try to eat any wings slathered in the stuff! But I couldn't see wasting that much heat. I thought, it needs something else to balance it, something obnoxious enough to stand up to the heat, something to blunt that burnt-cat extract flavor. How about some actual burning? So I gave it about three hours slowly bubbling and stirring in my smoker, over charcoal and pear wood. (Also smoked some crumbled chorizo while I was at it.) I added two large cans of Las Palmas red enchilada sauce in an attempt to dilute the heat with a neutral matrix. That didn't change the heat much but it filled in a little bit behind the heat with some rich pepper flavor. It also more than doubled the volume of the stuff, so now I have _more_ of it... Now the heat level is just a little bit below something like Dave's Insanity, and the pepper flavor is superior. The smokiness is strong enough to mask the burnt extract flavor and aroma, but after testing some with cream cheese and pretzels, I think the missing element is saltiness. Further testing from an old mustard squirt bottle on some nachos demonstrated a nice nose-running burn at application rates of one or two rat turds per chip. The burn reaches a plateau and sustains nicely. I still need to tweak it and hot-can it properly. And, I have to come up with a name for it, preferably something having to do with the origins of the stuff. I would call it Scorned Wing but there already is a line of Scorned sauces. Maybe something like Crashed on Takeoff... - A