HOT sauce....is it possible we don't have a hot sauce thread?

acquired 2x generic sauces today at dollar tree for the lols, a knockoff siracha and a random cayenne based one

thus far have not been impressed by their offerings and have not gone back to either texas pete or the other one i tried

i do like the tabasco ketchup, but haven't seen that on shelves for a while and honestly, i'm using hot sauce whenever i use ketchup anyway, so prefer getting regular kethup and pairing with hot sauce of choice for that occasion

will post review later and pray for a nonzero chance of $1.25 hot sauce aids - wish me luck

I’m probably gonna get some hot sauce next grocery trip BECAUSE of this thread!

Spicy Solidarity!!!

so I'm really surprised at how delicious the hot ones los calientes classic garlic fresno sauce is and great sauce heat wise for people trying to get into hot sauce but having a hard time with habanero peppers can't recommend it enough and the flavor just so great.

def gonna be getting the rest of the sauces made by hot ones.

haha awesome let us know what you get and how you like it.

I'm far from a hot sauce snob and you can def get some delicious sauces for super cheap.
crystals
Louisiana brand
Louisiana rooster
valentina

all really great and super cheap and my buddy just said the new cholua chili lime is super delicious.

Yeah, those are all vinegar based, and basically taste like Tabasco to me. OTOH, El Yucateco's offerings are all really inexpensive, and are quite good, imo. I love their chipotle as a wing sauce, and their black label is really good, but maybe a bit much on the smoke and char. I usually mix it with something more standard, like their go to red habenero.

While searching for a pic for that post, I discovered that El Yucateco has a new flavor I must try, habenero and chiltepin. Chiltepin are those tiny round red peppers (as opposed to the tiny pointy red ones also sold the same way) often sold dried in bags in Mexican groceries.

I'm not really familiar with them, but they are supposed to be brutally hot right up front, but the heat fades very quickly. They are also known for their smoky flavor, which is a pepper aspect I love. Going to have to find this.

Inner Beauty is a great mustard based hot sauce with habaneros, scotch bonnets, and a mango fruitiness. Sweet front, hot middle, with a dissipating heat finish. Great on sausages, eggs, steak-n-cheese, etc. Highly recommend.

Used to me made by this guy in Boston, but was discontinued and then it was re-born by another entity and is being mass-produced again. I just make my own now, and give it out to my friends and fam, who all love it. Addictive for sure.

Habanero is very approachable. You will have a tough time moving up the heat ranks if habanero is giving you heart burn. That said, I typically use habanero sauces because of the flavor and heat. Marie Sharp's Green Habanero is one of my favs.

I'm a big fan of cholula.
El Yucatan makes banger sauces. Their base offering is probably the hottest of all the "standards".

Hot Ones really set off a hot sauce revolution. The options have like 100x'd in the last 10 years

Do you mean El Yucateco and autocorrect got you, or is there another line I have to try? Google search took me either to the peninsula in Mexico or to the El Yucateco sauces above.

Yeah I meant Yucateco lmao. I can't even blame autocorrect

I still use Valentina Black as my standard hot sauce.

Impulse bought a bottle of this off Twitter a couple months ago, it's interesting. Good heat, lots of flavor. I like it but only use it when I specifically want it.

I'm a fan of Tapatio. It's cheap and has a good flavor with a decent amount of heat.

I picked up Melinda's Garlic & Habanero sauce recommended by RBK. Tastes good and surprisingly packs a punch. I will be using it on my eggs going forward.

RBK, if you can take a spoonful of this stuff, you're well on your way to conquering all of the hot sauces.

This has got me wanting to start trying new sauces again. Anyone have a sampler box recommendation to get several smaller bottles to try different flavors? Bonus points of it's non-vinegar based.
I was going to order a Melinda box but those look like they all have vinegar, unless I'm reading it wrong?

They do all or mostly have vinegar but its not the first ingredient, the peppers are. For me, a sauce with vinegar as the first ingredient the overwhelming experience will be the chemically tanginess of the vinegar on swallow. Its almost like the vinegar is meant to harm your mouth so the peppers feel more impactful but its just bleh

Probably cheaper to just go to a Mex grocery and buy one of each El Yucateco bottle they have, but sampler packs are available on Amazon, and they are non-vinegar.

ya I've heard great things about el yucateco.

looks great and love mustard so def will check it out thanks!

ya I don't have any issues with habanero I quite like it the melindas garlic habanero is one of my absolute favs (so far my top 3 of the HOT sauces are the garlic habanero the zabs st augustine and the hot ones garlic fresno but really want to try some scotch bonnets I absolutely love the flavor of the adoboloco but it's not really spicy at all) was just saying for ppl that do have a hard time with habaneros as every one handles diff peppers differently and I'm all about just finding some flavors that you like I am far away from a hot sauce snob as you can get would never shame someone if they never make it past tapatio and love it.

oh man that makes me excited cuz the first time I tasted it alone I was like holy **** how is this just a 1 on their heat scale but then I got used to it and absolutely love it dump it on everything and really enjoy the burn.

I don't ever want to experience the crazy stomach cramps that I've heard and read about (there's a great YouTube channel brian ambs and he is super chili head really entertaining and not a snob either really just a cool dude and he obv eats the most insane **** ever) and seen ppl go thru when they eat crazy extracts or super hots before they can handle them.

and while I def want to keep increasing my tolerance as high as possible I can say with almost def certainty I'll never eat extracts only natural peppers and won't be eating those stupid crazy sauces that are made only with the intention of boosting your ego or showing off to friends (like the blairs mega death or da bomb) and taste gross and you would never use on food.

if I can one day handle sauces that are not only very hot made with reapers etc but also super tasty I'll be happy but honestly if I never make it past the 3 flame scale on melindas and marie sharps etc I'll be more than happy.

oh ya really want to try some ghost pepper sauces had the ghost pepper sandwich and fries from wendys and enjoyed the flavor but know that is a super watered down version.

popeyes also has a new ghost pepper sandwich that id like to try.

oh and after trying several more tablespoons of the seed ranch everything but the sushi sauce it's incredibly mild and very sesame forward basically tastes like a sesame/soy/tamari sauce while I find it tasty it's def not what I was expecting or hoping for and I'll see how it tastes on food (could def change my whole opinion on it) but so far not expecting it to be one of my favs or a regular member of my collection.

when it comes to mild heat asian sauce I much prefer the flavor of the cosmic dumpling sauce from the OP altho that also is really extremely mild (tiny heat in my mouth but very mellow) so I def would like to find something with similar flavors but more heat.

like coordi said most sauces will have some vinegar (it helps keep them shelf stable so they don't need to be refrigerated) but as long as they aren't the 1st ingredient (and the further down the list it shows up) you shouldn't have any issues.

the ones with vinegar as the first ingredient like many if not all of the Louisiana style sauces are the ones you're most likely thinking of.... tabasco is basically just vinegar and salt and some ppl really enjoy the vinegar forward flavor in crystals and louisiana brand hot sauce etc but with the melindas I haven't really noticed any vinegar flavor at all.

esp the garlic habanero I get nothing but delicious garlic and pepper flavors and really strong heat.

don't be turned off from trying a sauce that otherwise looks appealing to you just because somewhere down the line there is some vinegar as it's really just there for the Ph balance.

Not really hot sauce but I made some over roasted veggies one time and threw a handful of random stuff from a community garden that was given to us and I think I accidentally ate a 7-pot pepper and it was one of the worst experiences of my life.

I had someone give me a fresh pepper that he'd grown that looked like a small hybrid yellow/orange bell pepper. He said it was a hybrid even. I took a big bite. It was sweet but surprisingly hot for a bell pepper. Still NBD. Then I asked him what it was a hybrid of as I took another bite. The heat started growing. Scorpion and ?Scotch Bonnet? (don't really remember the second one) he replied. By the time he finished answering, I could believe it. The heat kept growing. I passed the pepper on to anyone else who wanted to try it. The heat kept growing. I started sweating from my forehead. My stomach started quivering in my belly. The next half an hour was basically a blur.

I love hot foods, but that was ridiculous. Too bad, too, because the flavor was delicious.

oh man a 7 pot is insane what were your symptoms and how long did it last?

was it just crazy burning in the mouth and throat or did you get bad stomach cramps?
the cramps are really the only thing that terrify me.

just placed an order for some sauces

marie sharps:
garlic habanero
pure pineapple love habanero
grapefruit pulp habanero

cholula chili lime

huy fong chili garlic

haha sounds intense....did you get an endorphin dump?
supposedly if the heat is intense enough it gets you high as it mimics the same neurotransmitters as some narcotics and so you get a rush of dopamine (it's similar to a runners high which I've also never experienced lol).

all of the chili heads I've seen on YouTube all talk about it like it's the holy grail basically what they're all chasing.

I would love to experience it someday but I don't think I'm anywhere near ready for that experience, I'm down to deal with insane burning I'm just absolutely terrified of stomach cramps.

not surprising that a bunch of crazy chili heads are former addicts.

I didn’t realize what I was getting into and had been handling sweet peppers. I licked a finger and was like, wow that’s kinda spicy maybe that was a sweet pepper seed?, I didn’t connect the dots. So I popped the pepper and my whole face exploded. Then I touched my nose and then I touched my eyes. So I was pretty well into deep discomfort at this point and I’m washing out my eyes and rinsing off my face and chugging milk. I probably drank half a gallon of milk. This went on for about an hour with diminishing suffering then the stomach cramps kicked in. I ended up throwing up. All in all it was like a 3 hour experience but then I also had horrible bowl problems the next day.

It was truly an awful experience lmao and I’m sure there was plenty of dopamine rushing because it’s all a horrible blur that I barely remember any details despite being such an intense experience