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I have to agree with Cornmuse, Ive been using Garcia Silicon grease and oil sense the early 1960s. At one point I was servicing alot of Spinning and Mitchell conventional Saltwater Reels for the Offshore bunch. Stuff is good, although getting harder to find these days. I put away a case of each but my supply is dwindling to just a few bottles of each these days so most likely if I cant find it again will have to experiment with and open mind the alternatives.
I had a friend back in the very early 80s his two sons were in our high adventure boy scout troop. On a couple of our golden trout advertures and campories, the subject of Garcia Silcon Grease came up. Now this guy was Retired Air Forse, workng for Rockwell on some kind of classified JPL projects over at the Los Angeles Air Forse base at the time. But the point Im getting at is that they looked at the properties of that Garcia Silcon lube, found out the manufature and had an even higher grade produced for whatever they needed it for. The stuff was in little one ounce tubes lots of gvt numbers on the stuff, looked the same to me though, however I was told it was fireproof and good from -300 degrees F to + 300 degrees F.
Anyway I used to get the leftovers from some of the guys at the Los Angeles Base, they rod the same greenline commuter bus to work in the morning as I did, and it worked great, especially so mixing it with pure Graphite for the bolt on my rifle for Alaska hunting at the time.
The Garcia (Mitchell line) of spinning reels and conventional reels were packed with some kind of grease at the time that turned to the consistancy of melted crayons in short order. The paperwork said it was a breakin grease and the owner should completely remove it or have the reel serviced professionally at year one. Never met anyone who did that. I got the nasty guys after around year 6 or so, the big 488s and 498s alot, the were way past time for a good cleaning. I would use about one ounce of that Silicon Grease cases to pack the bearings, gears and shafts and walla the reels were better than new, Im still fishing quite a few from the late 60s loaded with 50 and 80 pound power pro for Albacore and Tuna with my son every year (pum 498 models) on custom made Fenwick Sticks, point being that lube works, a few drops on my fly reels seems to have the same effect.
By the way Ive used HOT SAUSE and have no complants, it seems to work just fine for a full season of fishing. I think I will pickup some of your Reel Butter and try it too. I fish here around 300 days a year so I give my equipment a good run fo rmy money each year before I clean everything up.
Guess what Im saying is try em all, seems that under normal maintance all three will give outstanding service, just remember to do for real maintance at least once a year, nothing lasts forever and good tackle deserves to be maintained well.
Richard

Hi Les, well I clean my reels so you can eat off any of them when winter hits, so they are spotless and inspected completely, then relube them and after Ive cleaned the fly line and backing and allowed it to dry I respool the works too, ready to go soon as I need them. Ive seen no real difference in the hands on use between the much older Garcia Silicote Grease and Hot Sause, I had some reels worked on by Bulldog awhile back and they came home lubed up with his favorite Hot Sause, my first exposure to the stuff. Frankly it works just as good as the old Garcia Grease or my uses. Again, my reels are rinsed and air dried at the end of the day when exposed to river water silt or alot of blowing silica sand on windy days here. And that helps alot. If I see grit buildup on any greased surface I wip it down clean and relube, that does happen more often than I would like to admit too. Again Ive never been able to just lube the spindle once in a season, just the high winds here and all except winter, the fast flowing water with lots of silt mixed in. Reel gets into the water and river sand and silt gets into the thing and onto the grease.
I am looking forward to trying the reel butter though, Im always interested new things. The Garcia Silcote is getting more expensive as it gets harder to find as well. The one ounce tube is running $10 when I can find it now.
Richard