MMMMmmmmmmm. Hot Sauce!

well, I know I am not nearly as heat tolerant or crazed as some lovers of the hot stuff, but I do love me some hot sauce. Lately I seem to be building a tolerance. Or I have the sauce I am getting is not fresh enough. The stuff I normally like has not been doing much for me. I also find that I can't put enough gochu karu (Korean red pepper powder) on my kimchi that I make.

How do I know when I have a winner? I start hiccuping violently before it even makes it all the way into my mouth. Seems to seriously piss off my GERD. Can't let something silly like that stop me from enjoying.

Anyway, I got some good stuff the other day, Greene's gourmet of Vermont Atomic Habenero. It is not the hottest stuff I have ever had but it gives a nice burn and has good flavor. Had some on my polenta for breakfast this morning. I used to like chili garlic sauce, the stuff you find in Vietnamese resturaunt with a rooster on the jar. It just is not hot enough anymore. Then again it does really depend on the freshness. It definitely mellows with age.

What hot sauces do you folks like or recommend?

My Asian MIL used to make gallons of a homemade version of the White Rooster (Sriracha) that would melt the rooster off of the bottle.

I think it was too hot even for Scoville to register.

GilaMinumBeer said:

My Asian MIL used to make gallons of a homemade version of the White Rooster (Sriracha) that would melt the rooster off of the bottle.

I think it was too hot even for Scoville to register.

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Is that MIL No. 1 or No. 2? And no, you'll never live it down.

I'm old school, so remain partial to Tobasco.

I love me some hot sauce! I like all the variety coming out as well as the super hot ones, but the simplest ones are usually the best. Peppers, vinegar, and salt! My hands-down favorite as far as heat, flavor, and price is definitely Crystal hot sauce. Delicious on everything.

Tabasco is ok, but I like the cayenne pepper flavor better than the tabasco peppers.

I have a friend that makes habenero salsa every year, it's made almost entirely of habeneros, by far one of the hottest things I have ever tasted. I usually put a few drops in a whole jar of mild salsa which usually makes the salsa fairly hot.

Tabasco and other common ones are kind of like ketchup to me now. Not trying to knock them. I enjoy those sauces but they don't provide enough heat anymore. Sriracha you buy in the store is definitely like ketchup. In our family we call it rooster sauce. I like the other stuff by the same company with the rooster which we call rooster paste. It is thicker, chunky and has pepper seeds.

I recently bought a bottle of Dumb Ass. Let's just say it is going to last a while. At this point, I pretty much use it only in soups and sauces, things like that. It is honestly way to hot for me to eat straight on anything. Don't get me wrong, I like hot sauce, and I can handle the heat, but this stuff seriously took it to a whole new level for me.

Zymurgrafi said:

Tabasco and other common ones are kind of like ketchup to me now. Not trying to knock them. I enjoy those sauces but they don't provide enough heat anymore. Sriracha you buy in the store is definitely like ketchup. In our family we call it rooster sauce. I like the other stuff by the same company with the rooster which we call rooster paste. It is thicker, chunky and has pepper seeds.

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Yeah. I know what you mean. IIRC Sriracha is the manufacturer and the paste you cite is just "Garlic Chili Paste". MIL makes that but they call it "Sambal". Once, MIL mistook some Habenaro's for a milder pepper she was used to. Had to toss that batch out, she used something like 1 or 2 pound of Habenaros in a Gallon of the Sambal paste.

Flies dropped out of the air when the lid was opened.

Tabasco, phhhfft, Please. Take that vinegar and go pickle something. That ain't Hot.

GilaMinumBeer said:

Once, MIL mistook some Habenaro's for a milder pepper she was used to...
Flies dropped out of the air when the lid was opened.

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That sounds good. Man, shouldn't have dumped it!

Guess I need to start making my own and playing with different peppers. My friend gave me some Thai peppers he grew. Those were pretty good. I made about a quart of tomatilla salsa and threw 3 (they are tiny) in there and it gave some nice heat. 6 more probably would have been great!

Zymurgrafi said:

Sriracha you buy in the store is definitely like ketchup. .

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Seriously? Sriracha is like ketchup? Dude, if you can't feel the heat from this you should rebuild your taste buds.

A little bit of Rooster Sauce (Sriracha) goes a long way for me, but I do like the flavour. Tobasco's chipotle pepper sauce has a nice smoky flavour. For those of you who love the insanely hot stuff: try Dave's Insanity Sauce, or a little known brand called "Holy $hit Hot Sauce" WARNING: the Holy $hit sauce makes Dave's Insanity Sauce & rooster sauce look like ketchup, I'm NOT kidding. Hot Sauce Super Store - HotSauceWorld.com Regards, GF.

Ya know, hot for the sake of hot is no fun. Got a botlle of some toxic waste a few years ago with a friggin' skull on a chain attached to the top. One drop in a bowl of soup made it inedible! All they're using in pure capcasin with whatever "secret recipe" they can come up with. All heat, no flavor. Personally, I love habanero based sauces which are obviously hot but have good flavor. My fave is this one:



Great all around heat with great flavor.

The best hot sauces I have found are as follows. And I love hot sauces.

Cayenne Pepper - Louisiana When buying a cayenne hot sause, if you can't find Louisiana, the one with the red spot, then find a good substitute like Texas Pete, Trappeys or other Louisiana-style hot sauce.

Habanero Pepper - Melindas The original and by far the best. Any other habanero sauce I have tried just hasn't been able to stand up next to Melindas. A lot are cut with carrot or have a sweetener in them to hold back the spiciness, this stuff is the real deal.

Other Peppers - Cholula A blend of a couple peppers from Mexico, Cholula is just awesome on almost anything. It's not too spicy, but it has some heat and it tastes great.

+1 on Chalula & Melinda's!

Back when I lived in East Boston. I would go to some of the local hispanic grocery stores and get some great imported sauces.

Don't get down that way very often anymore. But can find this sauce at a local Wally World for $1.40 a bottle.

El Yucateco Salsas y Condimentos

The Red Habanero is awesome.

I have several favorites. Winstons is one with good flavor & heat.

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I get the hiccup reaction also.
I love Siracha and Sambal Lek also.

*Note: There are two strengths of Siracha, Mild and Hot.

NHRACER said:

Don't get down that way very often anymore. But can find this sauce at a local Wally World for $1.40 a bottle.

El Yucateco Salsas y Condimentos

The Red Habanero is awesome.

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El Yucateco is good too, I forgot about that one, but I still prefer the Melindas.

My favorite thing was to buy a bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce and use it to marinade some chicken wings in overnight then drop them on the grill over some hickory wood.

You haven't had hot wings until you try that.

Although lately my tolerance has been dropping, I need to get back into shape with the hot foods.

Haba-Naga BBQ sauce from Legends BBQ Sauce Seasonings - brutal, but very tasty.

And for the truly adventurous, Hot sauce, sauces/spices pepper sauces chile peppers. Naga Bhut Jolokia Assam pepper sells ground bhut jolokia pepper that WILL rock your world. 1,000,000 scovilles, worlds hottest pepper.

I loathe any 'hot sauce' with extract. Can't get into that lovely metallic taste on the palate.

Louisiana is pretty good, Peppers, Vinegar and Salt. Sans Xanthan Gum and crap like that. I don't care much for Tabasco because I find it too vinegary. Melinda's is decent. I really don't care for the "El Yucateco" brand because they add some weird crap including food coloring.

So I make my own. Things like Smoked Jalapeno and Onion. Habanero hot sauce. Chili Oil. Jamaican Jerk (albeit not so much of a hot sauce as it is marinade).

For Chili Oil take a bag of dried red Chili, whatever floats your boat. Usually I use Thai Chilies. Grind them up into a powder. Add an equal amount (by volume) of Peanut Oil (not the toasted kind, the neutral one) into a pot, heat on low for about an hour (the idea being to extract the heat and color, don't let the Chilies burn or turn dark) and then funnel it into a bottle. A few drops onto some Tom Yung Goong.

zoebisch01 said:

So I make my own. Things like Smoked Jalapeno and Onion. Habanero hot sauce.

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Do you have any recipes or is it just a wing it kind of thing? If so, any basic procedures?

I tried once but it came out all wrong. Too vinegary and not very hot or flavorful.