Showing posts with label Hot Sauce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hot Sauce. Show all posts

I first discovered Huy Fong Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce when I saw it sitting on the table of a cheap  Chinese restaurant in Carson City, NV, of all places. This is especially surprising when you consider that I spent the first 23 years of my life living right on the edge of Chinatown in San Francisco.  Yes, yes, I know that Huy Fong's Sriracha is a Vietnamese variation of a Thai sauce, but I'm saying it's funny that I grew up in a major city, surrounded by several cultures and cuisines, and it took me moving to a much smaller, much less ethnically diverse city to discover Sriracha.

Ubiquity!

Sriracha is the sauce that made me realize I probably did like hot sauce after all.  After Tabasco scared me off of hot sauces, I spent several years in my young adulthood simply sprinkling cayenne pepper on food in order to make it spicier.  This was mostly effective, but not the most flavorful or pleasant way to add heat to things.

But then I sat there in that restaurant in northern Nevada with a bowl of won ton soup in front of me and this big bottle on the table caught my eye.  It was a red-orange sauce with a bright green cap and a little rooster on it.  I mused aloud about it and the friend who was with me said, "Oh, yeah...that's rooster sauce.  I mean, it has a real name, but all my friends call it rooster sauce.  It's really good!"

I was intrigued, but hesitant.

I have to pause for a confession.  I am actually, by nature, a huge coward about spicy food.  Perhaps it's because I'm from the Land of the Bland.  Perhaps it's because I was always a picky eater growing up.  Or maybe it's just an expression of my general, deep-seated cowardice.  Whatever the source, my traditional first instinct when approaching something spicy has been fearful caution.  It's only been through a series of accidentally eating things that are "too spicy" and then finding I'd enjoyed the experience that I've trained myself to know that I should probably plow ahead when faced with that fear.  But this story takes place very early in my capsicum-laced journey, so the fear was real and very present.

I bravely tasted a tiny little bit.  It was great!  It was spicy, but with a mild sweetness that complemented the savory garlic flavor really well. Emboldened, I gamely went to add a little bit to my soup, but accidentally squirted out way more than I'd meant to.  The broth turned red and cloudy...almost opaque.  What had I done?!?  But I steeled my nerve and tasted the soup, which turned out to be scrumptious and spicy.

And then I immediately swallowed it wrong and choked on my own hot peppered throat for a while.

Undeterred, I dove back in, drinking the searing brothy elixir.  I was hooked.  I bought a bottle of my own at my next opportunity, which was pretty shortly thereafter because there were not one, but two Asian markets in Carson City at the time.

I got so into it that at one point, I mused it might make a pretty good pasta sauce all on its own (which it really actually doesn't).

Okay, maybe not good for EVERYTHING.  But do you think I can pay for Sriracha on my FSA?
To this day, it's still my most common day-to-day hot sauce.  Eggs, pasta, soup, pizza, sandwiches, potatoes, rice, chicken, hamburgers, steak, etc., etc.  It's good on almost everything.  I've seen people put it on Mexican food, and I'm not judging, but I find its sweet garlicky taste is not ideal when combined with such fare.  That's my personal experience, though.

It's just a really excellent sauce and needs to be in your kitchen.

And did you know they've started putting it in little to-go packets like ketchup?  Why didn't this happen sooner?


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Still on the entitlement train for my birthday early in February, I got myself a bottle of High River Sauces' Rogue Moruga Blood Orange Scorpion Pepper Sauce.


I was enticed by the promise of high heat from the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion and Ghost Peppers, each of which have been declared the hottest pepper on earth in recent history before being eclipsed by another.  I was also drawn to the delicious-sounding combo of fruits, which includes blood oranges and pears.


The color on this sauce is really beautiful, but I have to warn you that it's very thin and watery.  It's very, very easy to dump an eighth of the bottle onto your food when you're trying to just add a dash.


My wife commented that the flavor is very vinegary, but I find the combo of the use of apple cider vinegar along with the sweet tang of the fruit ingredients makes the sharp flavor vibrant and keeps it out of the dreaded Tabasco zone.

The heat level is nice, but not overwhelming.  On the many occasions that I've accidentally dumped way more of the thin sauce than I meant to on my food, I've still enjoyed the flavor and heat and not found it too spicy for my tastes.  The sauce's sweetness and the fact that the hot peppers are relatively low on the ingredients list probably contributes to that.

The good:  Sharp, fruity flavor.  Decent heat.

The bad:  Very runny consistency.  Could be hotter.


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I chose Elijah's Xtreme Reaper Sauce because it won a first place Scovie for 2017 in the XXX Hot Sauce category.  On top of that, it just sounded really interesting from the ingredients list, which includes black cherries, cranberry sauce, Kentucky bourbon whiskey and vanilla.

I also grabbed it because the Carolina Reaper secured a Guinness World Record certification as the  hottest chili pepper in the world in 2013. 

Yes, I finished a third of the bottle before remembering to photograph it...
 You can immediately smell the cherries and vanilla as soon as you open the bottle.  The ad copy for the sauce proclaimed "tastes great on just about everything… even ice cream!"  So I immediately put it on ice some vanilla ice cream.  The flavor and aroma are so desserty that I'm actually having a hard time imagining putting it on anything else.  Maybe it would be good on some pork or chicken where the sweet, fruity taste might make a good complement.  But I definitely wouldn't add this to soup or a burrito.
Look at that beautiful texture.  You can see little chunks of cherry and cranberry.
It tastes pretty much exactly like it smells.  I don't detect as much tartness from the cranberries as I might have liked, but the cherry flavor tinged with vanilla is really prominent and quite good.

Iced cream, anyone?  With a little leftover birthday cake bonus.
And the Carolina Reaper heat delivers.  I thought it wasn't all that hot when I took my first taste, but it really built up on me.  I think the sweetness of the sauce masks the heat a bit at first, and that effect was probably enhanced by the sugar and milk of the ice cream I was eating it with.  I think I'd also hyped it up in my mind as the sauce that would definitely kill me due to the Carolina Reaper's world record heat.  But whatever my preconceptions, the sauce definitely packs a high, lingering spicy heat.  The end result is really exciting and delicious.

I recommend this sauce if you perk up at the idea of a very spicy, sweet sauce drizzled over ice cream.  But to my taste, this sauce's uses are somewhat limited by the desserty flavor profile, which makes this a little bit of a gimmick sauce in my book.

Very tasty, but I can't see using it every day.

Side note:  My wife had a bit of an allergic reaction to this sauce, which sucks because she found it really delicious, despite not being into super-spicy foods.  She has a really severe allergy to bell peppers, but she's always had good luck with jalapeños, habañeros, serranos, etc.  So generally the mildest of peppers makes her throat close, but hot peppers are fine.  This was her first time tasting anything containing Carolina Reaper peppers, so it's possible she's actually allergic to those.  None of the other listed ingredients are foods she reacts to, so it's either the Reapers or maybe there's a little bit of unlisted bell pepper in this sauce.


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In researching hot sauces, I've found a great number of them that gleefully wish to capitalize on the fact that a certain percentage of the population experiences intestinal distress and bowel issues after having eaten spicy foods.  In other words, there are an inordinate number of sauces named after asses and fire-shits.

I mean, ha ha, I get it.  Butts are funny.  Poop is funny.  Someone's butthole burning while they shit spicy diarrhea is funny.  Sure, we all agree.  But is it particularly appetizing?  I guess that's subjective.

Here follows a randomly collected list of hot sauces with ass- or shit-related names.  Most links are Amazon affiliate links, so I get a tiny speck of money if you click on them and then shop Amazon as you normally would.


Queen of Farts


Kneel!  Kneel in the presence of royalty!  Seated upon a throne of her own wind, she rules over all with a howling rectum.  Okay, you can groan and shake your head all you want, but that was arguably better than the 'clever' copy they came up with:  "Cut the cheese and kick it up with this famous state of the fart hot sauce.  God shave the Queen."  See what I mean?


Ring Of Fire Original Habañero Hot Sauce



If you thought the name of this sauce perhaps referred to the earthquake- and volcano-prone zone of the Pacific Ocean's basin, let me direct your attention to this bit of ad copy:  "So hot it'll burn ya' twice."  So what they're saying is, when you first ingest the sauce, it will cause a burning sensation in your mouth.  Later, when you go to expel digested food from your body, the ring of your anal sphincter will experience a burning as though in the presence of fire, thus accounting for the second time you'll be burned.  I don't know why I have to explain this one to you.


Butt Twister Hot Sauce 


Speaking of unyielding forces of nature, this sauce promises that a swirl of tornado-force wind will form a perfect funnel that will make landfall in your butthole.  This will be visually impressive as hell, but the property damage will be brutal, plus those storm chasers can be a nuisance.  When you see a cow fly by, you'll know it's working.


Ass in Space Hot Sauce


Now we're talking real fire.  Do you know how great a jet of flame you'd have to expel from your ass to propel you skyward with enough force to achieve escape velocity and break the bonds of earth's gravity?  Neither do I.  Luckily we don't have to because NASA and the makers of this hot sauce have done those calculations for you.  Now if you could just remember where you put your space helmet...


Bunster's Shit the Bed Hot Sauce


This Australian sauce eschews threats of rectally generated flames in favor of a less painful but not necessarily more pleasant promise:  That you'll lose control of your bowels in your sleep.  I haven't been able to find an official connection between Bunster's and the adult diaper industry, but whoever proves the link exists will either save us all or never be heard from again.


Ass Kickin Hot sauce - Flavor: Ghost Pepper


Who doesn't enjoy a good old-fashioned ass kickin'?  But does this sauce put on a boot and lodge its foot in your posterior with force?  No!  The image on the label tells us the sauce is an ass with a propensity for kicking.  But it also proclaims that it's "Kick Yo' Ass Hot".  So it is an ass and it kicks your ass.  Ass.


Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally Habañero Hot Sauce


As far as violence towards asses goes, this instance is at least consensual.  "But it looks like the sign was put on his back as a prank!  That's clearly not consensual," I pretend to hear you object.  Don't be fooled by Carl's shit.  The sympathy thing is part of it for him.  He put the sign on his own back and then walked around with his pants around his knees for forty-five minutes before finding someone at the party interested in indulging him.  Carl is selfish and not very situationally aware, and he's not invited to my nephew's birthday parties anymore.


Rectum Ripper XXX 1/2 Hot Sauce

 
The mere kicking and smacking you so bemoaned;
You'd now freely exchange for all you owned;
The consumption of this sauce was a fearful blunder;
For now your poor tender rectum lies torn asunder!  
Woe!  WOE! 


Ass Reaper Hot Sauce


The recent trend of anti-ass violence appears to have escalated to its ghastliest possible conclusion.  This one went all out and decorated the bottle to look like a skeletal robed figure that...harvests your ass?  "Is it my time?" you ask the ghoulish specter before you.  It silently shakes its head and points one bony digit toward your rump.


Ass Blaster Sauce with Outhouse


Oh, it comes in a cute little outhouse-shaped box so you can imagine having burning diarrhea before indoor plumbing was popular!  Adorable!  I want to put it in my mouth!  "We call it Ass Blaster hot sauce for a reason."  Was that reason your advanced level of maturity and keen marketing acumen?


Professor Phardtpounders Colon Cleaner Hot Sauce


I feel like this one's trying too hard with the fake Germanic name. They should have gone whole hog and called it "Herr Kommandant FeuerScheiss's Final Ass Solution".  Also, what is he a professor of?  What does his syllabus look like?  I fear for the future of the education system.


Professor Payne Indeass's Sphincter Shrinker XXX Hot Sauce


Another professor?  Did they attend the same scatological university or are they bitter rivals in the war for your ass?  "Phardtpounder, you cad, you will not best me this time!  I will shrink these sphincters, making them almost impossible for you to clean!"


Dr. Assburn's Fire Roasted Habanero Pepper Sauce


Speaking of higher education, what this bottle doesn't tell you is that Dr. Assburn is not actually a medical doctor.  His doctorate is in music appreciation.  Don't take medical or ass-related advice from Dr. Assburn.


Hemorrhoid Helper Habañero Hot Sauce


It seems like I shouldn't even have to say this, but with all of these phony ass doctors advertising their services, someone has to speak up.  If this hot sauce affects your hemorrhoids in any way, positively or negatively, then I assure you unequivocally that you're using it wrong.

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I can't keep this sauce on my shelf.  I go through it so fast.  The savory, lightly smoky flavor and really excellent heat-per-dollar ratio make it a no-brainer favorite.  I put a little bit too much of it on pretty much everything.  And I can get it for under two bucks at just about any grocery store near me.

It's distinctly hotter than the other El Yucateco offerings, but not so hot that I ever hesitate to reach for it.  And the flavor is just miles above the brand's other variations.
A closeup to show off the beautiful texture - the ingredients don't list any food coloring.

I tried it for the first time just a few months ago and I've gone through several bottles.  I wish it came in a big-ass bottle like Sriracha does.  I'd sleep with it next to me.

Cheap.  Delicious.  Hot.  Favorite.

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I picked up a bottle of Melinda's Naga Jolokia Hot Sauce at World Market.  The Naga Jolokia pepper is also known as the "ghost pepper" and was considered the hottest pepper in the world back in 2007, but has been superseded several times since then by peppers with increasingly scary names.  I think the current king of the peppery mouth-burning hill is the Dakota Strangler and it's wanted in seven states.

Aside from eating some not-very-spicy fast food burger once that claimed to have "ghost pepper mayo" on it, this was my first exposure to a product made of this pepper.


I almost don't like this sauce, but then it redeems itself with really good, strong heat.  The flavor itself is very sharp and vinegary, leaning a little too close to the dreaded Tabasco Zone for my tastes.  But the high level of heat this sauce brings makes up for it by allowing you to add just a little bit.

My bottle is almost empty and I honestly got through it that fast by using a liberal dash of another tasty sauce I like, and then topping it off with a small dash of this sauce for extra heat.

The bad:  The flavor's a little too sharp for my tastes.

The good:  High heat means you don't have too add too much of that flavor to make something good and spicy.

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Here's a sauce with more emphasis on flavor than heat.

For my wife and I, El Pato Jalapeño Hot Sauce (or simply "Pato Sauce" as we call it around the house) sits alongside Huy Fong Sriracha as our favorite day-to-day hot sauce.  We can usually get it at Stater Bros. (a Southern California grocery chain) for $1 flat, so we can always afford to have it on hand.

It has a zesty, bright, fresh flavor that really honors the jalapeños, combined with a mild, pleasant heat.  I think of it as a "taco sauce-style" sauce, so of course we slather it liberally on those whenever we make them.  But it's also really great on eggs.  And, as always, I'm a savage, so it'll go in soups or on pasta or mac and cheese, etc.

My wife is not as much of a hot, spicy junkie as I am, but she has no hesitation reaching for this sauce.

Recommended.

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Lest you think I only ever give hot sauces good reviews, here's one I do not particularly enjoy.

El Yucateco Black Label Reserve (or Black Label Reverse, as their website currently says) is what I think of as a gimmick sauce.  The company describes it as a "dark, smoky habañero sauce" which is absolutely accurate.  Upon opening it, you get blasted in the face with the burnt, smoky smell.  And the flavor follows right along.
Industrial byproduct or hot sauce?
After our usual finger-swish test, my wife declared, "This tastes and smells like a tire fire."

It's really too much.  There are just not many foods I not only want to make spicy, but also want to add "I accidentally burned this" flavoring to.  The sole context I've found in which is doesn't immediately make my food seem inedible is dribbling a little bit onto some steak.  The excessively smoky flavor at least evoked meat cooked over a fire.  But even then, I felt like I was unfairly fucking with the flavor of some really nice tri-tip.  The heat was perfectly respectable and the smokiness was almost convincing when paired with the beef, but I still couldn't bring myself to use more than a few drops on one little corner of my food before resuming enjoying the rest with some Kutbil-Ik instead.

So unless you really, really want to impress your friends with a weird jet-black sauce that smells like the company just figured out a sexy-sounding way to get rid of their burnt habañeros, I say give this one a pass.

The good:  Same low price as other El Yucateco sauces locally, habañero heat is as promised.

The bad:  Horrible flavor that comes after all other flavors with a blowtorch and burns off their heads in front of their families.
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Due to the taxing rigors of modern life, I often find myself flat broke.  But despite my empty wallet, I still crave delicious, delicious heat.  Some of the best, most delicious hot sauces have price tags that are not always justifiable when it comes to making a choice between doing laundry that week or feeling my mouth burn after I eat some mac and cheese.  So I'm always on the lookout for hot sauces that combine good flavor and decent heat for not much money.

I picked up a bottle of Mexico Lindo Salsa Habañero Roja at a local El Super* for just over a dollar.  It comes in a little plastic squeeze bottle and claims high heat.

 And it turns out it has a very good heat-to-cost ratio.  For a dollar, it really delivers on the heat. 

Its flavor is definitely heavy on the vinegar tang, but not in a musty barrel-aged Tabasco way.  It basically tastes like the standard green hot sauce flavor that you'd squirt on a taco, but with a really respectable habañero heat level.  Sort of like a much hotter version of El Pato's Jalapeño hot sauce, but maybe not quite as tasty.  Similar, though.

And use it on tacos I have.  I've also used it happily in soups, on eggs, on pizza, on pastas and in burritos.  Basically anywhere you like a green taco sauce-style sauce, but want some to turn up the excellent spicy heat.

My bottle of this sauce is almost completely empty.  Will buy again.  A definite no-brainer for the price.

*El Super is a chain of grocery stores in the Southwestern U.S. for those in other parts of the country.
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Tabasco Pepper Sauce is among the most popular hot sauces in the United States.  It's even ranked pretty highly among sales of condiments in general.  And I've really never liked it.

I'd even go so far as to say I hate Tabasco sauce.

It turns up everywhere in this country.  And mainly because of this ubiquity, I confess I've even used it recently when I felt I really needed to add some kick to something and there was nothing else available.  I'm not saying it's fucking poison.  I recognize that it's technically food.  But I don't like it.

It's fucking everywhere...


In fact, in trying several similar sauces, I've figured out that I don't really like Louisiana style hot sauce in general.  Another popular brand in the same style is Crystal Hot Sauce, which I enjoy maybe just a little bit more than Tabasco, but not enough to move it to the actual "like" column.  And while I've really enjoyed every other product I've tried from Pain is Good, their Batch #218 Louisiana Style Hot Sauce is the only product of theirs that I never finished and ended up discarding after it sat in a cupboard for several years.

There's just something about the fermented, vinegary flavor that I find way too overbearing.  I don't feel like it's enhancing the flavor of anything I'm adding it to, but overpowering and souring it instead.  I think it's the oak-barrel-aged thing.  Most hot sauces have some vinegar.  Some that I really like even have a lot.  But Tabasco and its Louisiana style brethren just taste too "vinegary" to me.  Too acrid.  Gross.

Tabasco tastes like someone kept some budget hot sauce in a plastic bag wrapped around their foot inside a big, warm boot and then walked around on it all year before squeezing that bag's contents out into a little glass bottle, slipping it onto the table next to me and then trying to suppress their giggling while watching face I make while eating it.

And the sauce's relatively mild heat level doesn't help the situation at all.  In order to add enough of it to bring my food up to the heat level I'm typically seeking, I have to pretty much drench it in Tabasco.  At that point, I'm tasting almost nothing but funky old sour peppers.  Veto, Darwin!

Similarly, I'm not a huge fan of Frank's Red Hot or buffalo sauce in general for the same reasons.  I'll eat some hot wings if you put them in front of me, but if there are other sauce options on the menu (e.g.: spicy teriyaki or mango habañero), I'm far more likely to push for ordering those.

Another vague exception for me is a good spicy bloody Mary, which are often made with a few dashes of Tabasco.  To me the blend of flavors in the mix and the presence of copious amounts of alcohol help to mask the spicy old crotch aroma of the Tabasco, making it tolerable again.

I would even credit Tabasco and Crystal hot sauces with setting me back quite a bit on my youthful journey toward spicy Nirvana.  Back when I knew I wanted to try spicy things, but didn't really know where to turn, I bought Tabasco sauce because it was the big popular sauce everyone seemed to like.  And, yeah, it was a bit spicy, but it just fucked the hell out of the flavor of anything I put it on.  I was definitely disappointed.  So I tried Crystal hot sauce next because it was the next popular hot sauce over on the grocery store shelf, but with much the same result.  I decided then that I must not like hot sauces in general.  I ended up playing with sprinkling red pepper flakes and straight ground cayenne pepper on my food for the next few years because I knew I wanted the heat, but not the shitty vinegar-ass flavor that I was led to assume all hot sauces had.

Knowing all the really fabulous hot sauces that are out there now, I'm honestly retroactively angry at Tabasco sauce for convincing teenage me that he didn't like hot sauce.

Fuck you, Tabasco.

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