Posted May 4, 2005 by Nick Lindauer in Makers

Blair’s 16 Million Product Review

Blair’s 16 Million compares to Tabasco the way a bottle rocket compares to Nagasaki – NY Post May 4th, 2005

Blair’s Death Sauces have always been the hottest sauces on the market and the extract line of sauces have become high dollar collector’s items. Blair’s newest reserve is called Blair’s 16 Million Reserve and it’s not really an extract. It’s pure cap, in its powdered form. This hot concoction comes in the traditional Blair’s Reserve bottle, but it is actually a small vial, almost like a salt shaker, that is stuffed inside the bottle and then sealed with white and gold wax.

Blair warned me of the heat level of this item many times. He talked about having put a small speck, a piece about the size of a salt crystal, on his tongue and apparently his tongue was wounded for a few days afterward. So when I managed to get ahold of a bottle before anyone else, I knew I had to try it out for myself. I made sure to have plenty of protective gloves on hand before even handling the container and I also made sure to take out my contacts and put my glasses on. Don’t want to lose an eye to this stuff 🙂

Blair’s 16 Million Reserve Vial Close Up

The bottle is tiny – extremely tiny. Here’s a picture of the bottle compared to a 6 A.M. bottle.

Blair’s 6AM Reserve & a vial of 16 Million

The bottles are reverse threaded so that none of the crystals fall out when you unscrew the top. Inside there is a blue stopper that looks a lot like a salt shaker. The speck that you see towards the top right of the image below is a capsaicin particle from the shaker.

Blair’s 16 Million Reserve Vial

Here’s a slightly better view of the bottle – You can see the threading and the capsaicin crystal a little better.

Blair’s 16 Million Reserve Vial

After racking my brain on how I could try this stuff without seriously injuring myself, I decided to mix one crystal into tomato soup. I took a can of standard condensed tomato soup, mixed with one can of water and brought it to a boil. The capsaicin crystal will not mix like any of the other Blair’s A.M. line, which makes perfect sense, since it’s a dry crystal and not an oil based extract. So the only way to liquify this stuff is to heat it up. So using tweezers and gloves, I picked up the tiny crystal.

Blair’s 16 Million Reserve – Use Tweezers & Gloves!

And into the pot of soup it goes.

Blair’s 16 Million Reserve in Soup

It’s important to note that the heat will not distribute throughout the soup right away, you need to continue to heat it up, preferably while stirring with a disposable spoon. After about 5 minutes of boiling, my soup was ready to go. First bite was not that hot, so I had the wife take a bite. She threatened divorce once she could speak again, so I tried it again. Then it was hot! So I took a few more bites and had to toss the rest of the pot away – it was too frickin’ hot! And it’s very rare for me to say something is too hot. But this is the hottest hot sauce product known to man.

No longer in production – Blair’s 16 Million Reserve is available as a collector’s item only. If you know where to get your hands on one – please let us know!
But then again, the bottle looks so spiffy, you probably won’t be able to bring yourself to open it. Don’t worry, your taste buds are already thanking you…