My favorite hot sauce

I love hot sauce. From Cajun Chef to Sriracha to GWiv's unbelievably good, nay, orgasmic Chili Oil, I like most all of them. My problem is that I like a sweet hit to my sauce and while there are plenty of sweet hot sauces out there they are generally insipid.

Denise brought me a bottle of Minorcan Datil Pepper Extra Hot Sauce the last time she was in Jacksonville. I am currently wishing I had a prehensile tongue so I could get the last few drops out of the bottle.

Yes, yes, I know we all wish we had prehensile tongues, just one more thing the giraffes have over us...back to the sauce. This stuff hits the perfect balance for me . Sweet and complex with a nice fiery kick (just like I like my women ) that is not burnt tasting like some hot sauces. This stuff even makes KFC Chicken Strips taste good!


The websites' heat scale pop up says datil peppers are right behind habaneros and "red Savinas" which I've never heard of. I can't wait to go down to J'ville after the 4th, I'm going to see if they come in quart or maybe gallon jugs

So, what are your favorite hot sauces?

there's a lot of hot sauce recommendations here

Octarine wrote:"red Savinas"

Red savina is just a particular strain of habanero that's been bred to be ridiculously hot.

I have to confess that I'm pretty simple when it comes to hot sauces. I keep the Huy Fong brand sambal oelek and sriracha on hand as well as tabasco and a jar of Dillard's mustard and vinegar based "hot" sauce, that a friend recently brought back from North Carolina for me. Oh, there's also a small bottle of "Ass in Armageddon" pepper sauce that was brought back from San Jose - but that tends to fall into the category of sauces that are generally based on a dare. I'll throw two drops in a bowl of soup and I'm set.

I guess I just don't feel a need for too many options, I'm more prone to adding peppers while cooking than sauce afterwards.

I often find myself using the adobo from a can of chipotles in lieu of hot sauce on Tacos. I'm really a big fan of the malaguetas in vinegar that I bought at Brasil Real a while back.

Brasil Real? Tell us more, please.

I'm assuming Will meant Legal. The peppers are usually in a mix that is heavy on alcohol, which seems to permit the heat to disperse through the dish more so than vinegar or water based sauces. Or so it seems to me.

Thought that might be the case, but had hopes of a new Brasilian purveyor.

Yes, I like the malaguetas for their vinegar, also usually have sambal oelek and sriracha on hand as well as chipotle. But house wouldn't be home if I didn't have a bottle of Trappey's Red Devil, it's the workhorse.

That said, I tend to use a lot more ground red pepper cooked in food than hot sauce sprinkled on. My current favorite is turkish ground red pepper, you can use a lot of it before it becomes too blistering, so you really get the pepper flavor as well as heat.

I use a variety of hot sauces for different purposes, but my favorite all-purpose sauce is this one:

It's a silly name, and it contains all kinds of weird stuff -- papaya, mustard, ginger, honey, turmeric and allspice besides the habaneros -- but they combine for a subtly fruity flavor that goes well with all sorts of foods. Octarine, it may be what you're looking for: a little sweet, but with definite punch.

Jump Up and Kiss Me is one of a line of sauces, but I haven't liked their other flavors as well as the original.

Otherwise, I tend to be most drawn to chipotle-based sauces.

Sorry, Annie. Legal it is. I must have money on the mind.

Brasil Real? Tell us more, please.

I'm assuming Will meant Legal.

Legal Real? Brasil Legal? A store? A malagueta is a pepper? The first track on the excellent Basra by Pete LaRoca that Blue Note just saw fit to reissue is called Malaguena. I don't know why I mentioned that.

I really like the Dave's Insanity line. High quality sauces with quite a range of heat with his different sauces depending on your tolerance. Insanity is the highest I go and have had the bottle for a few years and only about a 1/4 of the way through - its very good though-just insane.

Octarine wrote: Denise brought me a bottle of Minorcan Datil Pepper Extra Hot Sauce the last time she was in Jacksonville. I am currently wishing I had a prehensile tongue so I could get the last few drops out of the bottle...

I picked up some datil peanuts at the St. Augustine Farmer's Market a couple of years ago. I had no idea that datil= very hot pepper until I tried them--wow--a VERY spicy and amazing combo of datil pepper spice on roasted peanuts--I haven't been able to find them since and my heart beats a little faster and my brow breaks into a sweat just thinking about them. (His garlic peanuts were no slouch either.)

This sparked my interest in datil items and I now am a regular user of Datil Dew 6 Mile Gold Mustard (http://www.freespiritemporium.com/datil.html) which I found in the little shop at the terrific Manatee Cafe (http://www.manateecafe.com) in St Augustine. It's hot and sweet but not too much of either for my taste.

Though the Manatee also sells a red hot sauce by Datil Dew, the hot sauce they serve on the table is excellent and is also available to buy, so that's what I bring back north each year. It's marked with a hand written label which (I think) reads: "Wing Lady Hot Sauce." I baby my bottle as long as I can then return to my standard Tabasco, Cholula and Sriracha for the rest of the year. I've bought so many disappointing concoctions that I've just about given up experimenting--thanks for this thread which has given me a few new ones to try when my stash runs out.

An article on where Huy Fong sriracha sauce really comes from in today's New York Times.

Katie wrote:An article on where Huy Fong sriracha sauce really comes from in today's New York Times.

I get the NYT headlines in an email every morning and I still missed the article! Thanks for sharing. This was a pretty heartwarming success story.

Also, now I know that I have the Chili Garlic sauce and not the Sriracha. Well, the Chili Garlic sauce is darn good, too.

My favorite hot sauce is Fiery Alyce, a smoked habanero sauce that can be used (by those with some heat tolerance) as a dipping sauce. Nice heat but also really nice balance of sweet. I get it from the friend that makes it, but if I am not mistaken it is also on the tables at Sweet Baby Ray's. It makes an amazing bloody mary too!

Cholula is my go-to, it has the right amount of vinegar and zing I'm usually looking for. Tamarula is also a good choice, similar to Cholula but earthier tasting.

Sriracha I'll use with Asian and Mediterranean meals. It's especially good mixed with Greek style yogurt as a sauce for eggplant or for a spicy tzatziki.

For the low end, it's Texas Pete. Tabasco is too astringent for my tastes.

Went to Deleece today and we all had eggs....fritatta, or egg benedict. We love hot sauce or chili sauce on our eggs. I put the usual tabasco but then tried Cholula. Well Cholula is much better I think. Seems to me that Tabasco is too vinegary. What hot sauce do you like, and do you have a favorite? Has anyone tried the garlic flavored hot sauces?

the three most commonly used in our house:

* co-op hot sauce (original variety)
* valentina
* frank's RedHot (used almost exclusively for wing sauce)

I also enjoy the "kutbil-ik" el yucateco variety, but I think we're out.

I probably use valentina the most, partly because I love it and partly because it's about 1/10th the price of the co-op hot sauce.

texas petes for an all around 'mild' hot sauce
Melindas (or marie sharps) for a hab sauce
Siracha(rooster) hot sauce for eggs etc

I keep quite a few hot sauces in the house, but most often use the El Yucateco Habanero, Siracha, and the Cholula. I carry a bottle of the El Yucateco and the Cholula in my car as well, for "emergencies."

Tabasco for the aged oak flavor

Hmmm I did not taste any aged oak flavor in Tabasco. Only hot and vinegar.

toria wrote:Hmmm I did not taste any aged oak flavor in Tabasco. Only hot and vinegar.

Try bottling a few cayennes in vinegar, then taste tabasco. Steak n Shake has a vinegar pepper condiment but I believe those are serranos.

Sriracha

You can close this topic now - no further discussion is required.

In my casa we rely on a variety of hot sauces and for me there is a baseline four that are indispensable: Louisiana for its tang and best label design ever; Tapatio, which I believe is superior to Cholula as a go-to Mexican hot sauce, hotter and 1/3 the price; Sriracha instead of ketchup please; and El Yucateco' Kutbil Ik for heavy duty jobs and its so-wonderfully-developed, fruity, roasty habanero bouquet.

our West Coast Favorite is Pico Pica.

Comes in both mild and hot. Not vinegary.

Frank's is the only one i need. period.

My favorites and always in the fridge:

- Shark brand sriracha
- Texas Pete
- Melinda's XXX habanero

I like Tabasco Chipotle and Habanero..
My favorite is Pit Bull though..one of the few ive had that actually has flavor instead of just a really hot vinegar

I grew up on Crystal. ("The Official Hot Sauce of the Saints.") No, not from the South, but my Dad and I were the only hot sauce users in the house, and being thrifty New Englanders, Crystal was the cheapest in the grocery store. I developed a taste for it, and for many years, never saw a reason to go more expensive.

Which is probably why I like Tapatio for everyday uses -- it's cheap, has a Cholula-like flavor profile, which is to say that it's not too overpowering, like Tabasco. (Tabasco is the party guest that always announces him or herself when they walk in the door: "I'm here!")

I also like Co-op's green sauce a lot, but you have to pair it wisely with your food because it's intense. It's more of an ingredient than a condiment.

For an ketchup intensifier, there's no beating sriracha.