Out Of 10 Mouth-Burning Hot Sauces, This Had The Best Flavor-To-Spice Ratio

Any time you try a new hot sauce you are going out on a limb. These spicy condiments run the gamut in terms of both flavor quality and heat level, with labels that often aren't helpful, even if eye-catching. The worst hot sauces can overwhelm you with mouth-numbing heat without warning, or fall completely flat despite claims of intense spiciness. The best hot sauces are the ones that perfectly balance the savory and spicy notes — something with real fire to it that will make you sweat, but also genuinely tastes good, adding more than just a kick to your dishes. 

There are endless hot sauce options out there, so if you don't already have a favorite, where do you even start? Thankfully, the Mashed Brothers are here for this exact situation. Brothers Brian and Scott Wilson took all the risk in burning their taste buds off in their latest video. They bravely tried 10 unique hot sauces, ranking each one on a scale of one to 10 for heat, flavor, and the artwork design on the bottle. 

The names of just a few of the sauces should give you an idea of what they were in for — including Torchbearer's The Rapture Deadly Heat, Elijah's Xtreme Regret Reserve, and Hellfire's Pure Hell. Some left them gasping for air, others had them barely breaking a sweat. But only one delivered the perfect harmony of heat and flavor they were looking for.

While a few hot sauces put up a good fight, The Spicy Shark's Mako Snake was the clear winner for the Mashed Bros. With a curry-forward flavor, it immediately blew both Brian and Scott away with its great taste compared to all the other sauces. The sauce features ghost pepper, habanero, and Carolina reaper to bring the spice, but balances that out with creamy coconut milk, tangy apple cider vinegar, and other rich ingredients including sweet potato, ginger, and pineapple. While it didn't knock their socks off on heat, Mako Snake still landed a respectable five out of 10, with enough punch to satisfy without overwhelming the palate. 

Of the more intensely spicy sauces they tasted, the Carolina-Reaper-based Fat Chang Devil's Potion got the most praise. It had a strong heat without being as brutal as some options (like Elijah's Xtreme), and a unique flavor profile featuring piquillo and peri peri peppers. However, many of the most spicy bottles the brothers tasted scored a rock-bottom zero or one in flavor, with some being compared to battery acid or dog food. The hottest sauce they tried was Torchbearer Sauces' The Rapture, which also scored strong in the flavor department, but it was so brutally spicy that it was actually painful to consume.

Static Media owns and operates Tasting Table and Mashed.