Favorite Hot Sauces

Ozzie_Isaac

I really like these three and the heat is nothing to snort at.  Overall really impressed with Torchbearer sauces - flavor & heat.

The Last Dab builds super slow, had good flavor, peaks and drops fast.  This builds so slow I thought our bottle was bad, so I ate a half table spoon.  That was a mistake 🤣

The Reaper Sauce (Torchbearer) is my favorite, great flavor, great heat, builds pretty quickly and holds on for a bit.

Queen’s Majesty punches you right away and holds for a long time.  That one to me is the one that tests you.





These three Traeger Sauces sound hot, but as soon as you cook with them they are basically salad dressing

 The Smokey Chipotle and Ghost pepper has decent flavor, but cook with it and the heat is gone. Even just used as a sauce it isn’t very hot.

Apricot & Habanero is really good if you want to add some sweet, but no heat .  I use this when I want to cool off my mouth.

The Carolina Reaper & Garlic has really good flavor, love the garlic forward flavor.  Probably my favorite Traeger sauce.  It also has some heat and even when cooked with there is respectable heat.

What are your go-to hot sauces?

unoriginalusername

Ozzie_Isaac said:

I really like these three and the heat is nothing to snort at.  Overall really impressed with Torchbearer sauces - flavor & heat.

The Last Dab builds super slow, had good flavor, peaks and drops fast.  This builds so slow I thought our bottle was bad, so I ate a half table spoon.  That was a mistake 🤣

The Reaper Sauce (Torchbearer) is my favorite, great flavor, great heat, builds pretty quickly and holds on for a bit.

Queen’s Majesty punches you right away and holds for a long time.  That one to me is the one that tests you.





These three Traeger Sauces sound hot, but as soon as you cook with them they are basically salad dressing

 The Smokey Chipotle and Ghost pepper has decent flavor, but cook with it and the heat is gone. Even just used as a sauce it isn’t very hot.

Apricot & Habanero is really good if you want to add some sweet, but no heat .  I use this when I want to cool off my mouth.

The Carolina Reaper & Garlic has really good flavor, love the garlic forward flavor.  Probably my favorite Traeger sauce.  It also has some heat and even when cooked with there is respectable heat.

What are your go-to hot sauces?

I found these guys locally and they make some great stuff https://furyhotsauce.com/

not as hot as some others in the collection, but the best pepper flavours in everything from mild to decent heat. 

We keep the Al pastor, chipotle, mother in law stocked. Outside of them fear this by hellfire reaper sauce 

JohnInCarolina

I love the names of these.  It’s like this big game of one upsmanship to come up with a name that sounds like it would definitely burn the daylights out of your tongue in the hopes that… lots of people will buy it.  Curious.

In other news, I plan on developing a new cocktail called “The Stomach Pumper”

lousubcap

The hot sauce market has evolved at quite a pace.  Every company wants to secure a niche piece.  I have wrestled with many (now slowing down) over the years.  
Way back when (40+ years) - Tabasco was the " go to" as I failed the quiz.  Shortly after getting married SWMBO prepared some banquet that may have missed the mark.  I responded that with enough Tabasco I could standardize the taste.  Clearly missed the mark.
Then informed that it was only allowed on leftovers.  Kept my mouth shut and evolved to many great sauce experiences since.  

caliking

@lousubcap , I can't remember if it was a wise friend, or Ralphie May, who told me that a married man can either be right... or, happy. Can't be both.

lousubcap

caliking said:

@lousubcap , I can't remember if it was a wise friend, or Ralphie May, who told me that a married man can either be right... or, happy. Can't be both.

I have not yet subscribed to that reasoning-and frequently paying the price.  However, there are flashes of brilliance with the above combo rolls in.  
Happy Friday eve.  

Botch

When I was stationed up at Grand Forks, the “Cop Shop” down the hall always sold Breakfast Burritos on Thursday mornings, and everyone in my shop always grabbed one or two.  We had no sauce for them, and having just arrived from Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, this German-Norwegian gringo had developed a taste for hot sauce, so I brought a few bottles in and set them on an empty shelf in the office. My NCOIC was from Texas and one of my Lieutenants worked in restaurants in ‘nawlins while getting his degree at Tulane, they both brought in a couple bottles, and soon we had a collection of 30~35 bottles, Everyone in the shop enjoyed trying something new every Thursday.  I brought in a bottle of the newly-released “Insanity Sauce”, and we bought out all the milk from the Cop Shop that morning before our dispatch; a bit too much for any of us.    

These days my needs are much simpler; my go-to’s are:
- my old standby is still Tabasco, after all these years,
- I bought a bottle of Tabasco’s green sauce, I don’t use it on anything except bean-centric dishes; perfect for that!
- El Yucateco’s “Chile Habanero” sauce, when I want a bit more kick (a small bottle lasts for a year or so)
- Frank’s, for Buffalo Wings or sammiches,
- and a bottle of Valentino’s sits on my dining table at all times; I wouldn’t call it “hot” sauce, but I love the flavor on my breakfast eggs.  
- oh, also have a bottle of “Rooster” sauce on the dining table, but I don’t use it much anymore.  

Legume

el yucateco makes some great sauces - not the exotic ones with fire breathing donkeys on the label, just good hot sauces.

Legume

We always have a few of the yellow birds too - big bottle of the habanero and small bottle of the ghost.

xfire_ATX

Coworker gave me this to try.  Its a good one

Ozzie_Isaac

xfire_ATX said:

Coworker gave me this to try.  Its a good one

sounds right up my alley - I might get a bigger bottle though, that one looks like it won’t last long

Ozzie_Isaac

Legume said:

We always have a few of the yellow birds too - big bottle of the habanero and small bottle of the ghost.

I’ve been impressed with Yellow Bird, they seemed to come out of nowhere and have a range of good sauces.Botch said:

When I was stationed up at Grand Forks, the “Cop Shop” down the hall always sold Breakfast Burritos on Thursday mornings, and everyone in my shop always grabbed one or two.  We had no sauce for them, and having just arrived from Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, this German-Norwegian gringo had developed a taste for hot sauce, so I brought a few bottles in and set them on an empty shelf in the office. My NCOIC was from Texas and one of my Lieutenants worked in restaurants in ‘nawlins while getting his degree at Tulane, they both brought in a couple bottles, and soon we had a collection of 30~35 bottles, Everyone in the shop enjoyed trying something new every Thursday.  I brought in a bottle of the newly-released “Insanity Sauce”, and we bought out all the milk from the Cop Shop that morning before our dispatch; a bit too much for any of us.    

These days my needs are much simpler; my go-to’s are:
- my old standby is still Tabasco, after all these years,
- I bought a bottle of Tabasco’s green sauce, I don’t use it on anything except bean-centric dishes; perfect for that!
- El Yucateco’s “Chile Habanero” sauce, when I want a bit more kick (a small bottle lasts for a year or so)
- Frank’s, for Buffalo Wings or sammiches,
- and a bottle of Valentino’s sits on my dining table at all times; I wouldn’t call it “hot” sauce, but I love the flavor on my breakfast eggs.  
- oh, also have a bottle of “Rooster” sauce on the dining table, but I don’t use it much anymore.  

You have a streamlined lineup, but all w cement choices and cover most the bases too!  El Yucateco makes some just great sauces, nothing fancy just good.

Melinda’s is one that went a different route, there plain hot sauces are so good - and their “exotic” or “fancy” ones I’ve tried have been terrible.

buzd504

Valentina's black label is my day to day hot sauce.  I find Tabasco regular's flavor kind of overpowering, but their green sauce is nice and I use their Scorpion sauce when I want to add a kick of heat to something.  Sriracha (rooster sauce) is a standby for Asian stuff, and I'm also a fan of the Yellowbird habenero (yellow) sauce.

I also keep asian chili oil around and usually a couple of others that rotate.

lkapigian

Lacto Fermented 

Botch

Ozzie_Isaac said:
Melinda’s is one that went a different route, there plain hot sauces are so good - and their “exotic” or “fancy” ones I’ve tried have been terrible.

I'd forgotten Melinda's, and I dug into the back of the cupboard, found some older ones: Melinda's, Texas Pete's and Brother Bru-Bru's (both dried in the bottle and now in the trash), and a bottle of PickaPeppah sauce that is still unopened.  Will have to open that with my breakfast tacquitoes tomorrow morning.  I also have a jar of homemade chili crisp on the counter.  
 

 
Just noticed this was an African sauce, weren't you just dabbling in that?  (I admit I bought this because of the label, it cracks me up!)  
 

Ozzie_Isaac

Botch said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:
Melinda’s is one that went a different route, there plain hot sauces are so good - and their “exotic” or “fancy” ones I’ve tried have been terrible.

I'd forgotten Melinda's, and I dug into the back of the cupboard, found some older ones: Melinda's, Texas Pete's and Brother Bru-Bru's (both dried in the bottle and now in the trash), and a bottle of PickaPeppah sauce that is still unopened.  Will have to open that with my breakfast tacquitoes tomorrow morning.  I also have a jar of homemade chili crisp on the counter.  
 

 
Just noticed this was an African sauce, weren't you just dabbling in that?  (I admit I bought this because of the label, it cracks me up!)  
 

Yes, currently on an African kick - posted that in the wrong thread though 🤣

PoppasGrill

Am a big fan of regular Tabasco for breakfast eggs and breakfast burritos .
My all around sauce is Matouk’s

I use it on fish and chicken as it isn’t too hot with scotch bonnet peppers and has a sweetness to it.

GrateEggspectations

Legume said:

el yucateco makes some great sauces - not the exotic ones with fire breathing donkeys on the label, just good hot sauces.

Gotta echo this. Just solid sauces at super reasonable price points. No pomp, no pretension. 

Good thread, @Ozzie_Isaac. I love hot sauces so need to follow this one closely.

For anyone who is following this thread and hasn’t seen the Hot Ones episode featuring Gordon Ramsay, do yourself a favour and watch it. 😂

Botch

GrateEggspectations said:
For anyone who is following this thread and hasn’t seen the Hot Ones episode featuring Gordon Ramsay, do yourself a favour and watch it. 😂

Having recently watched the Conan O'Brian episode, not sure I'm prepared for this one...

Ozzie_Isaac

PoppasGrill said:

Am a big fan of regular Tabasco for breakfast eggs and breakfast burritos .
My all around sauce is Matouk’s

I use it on fish and chicken as it isn’t too hot with scotch bonnet peppers and has a sweetness to it.

Never seen that one before, will check it out!

Ozzie_Isaac

GrateEggspectations said:

Legume said:

el yucateco makes some great sauces - not the exotic ones with fire breathing donkeys on the label, just good hot sauces.

Gotta echo this. Just solid sauces at super reasonable price points. No pomp, no pretension. 

Good thread, @Ozzie_Isaac. I love hot sauces so need to follow this one closely.

For anyone who is following this thread and hasn’t seen the Hot Ones episode featuring Gordon Ramsay, do yourself a favour and watch it. 😂

Love Hot One’s!!  Such a great concept, well executed.

GrateEggspectations

Ozzie_Isaac said:

GrateEggspectations said:

Legume said:

el yucateco makes some great sauces - not the exotic ones with fire breathing donkeys on the label, just good hot sauces.

Gotta echo this. Just solid sauces at super reasonable price points. No pomp, no pretension. 

Good thread, @Ozzie_Isaac. I love hot sauces so need to follow this one closely.

For anyone who is following this thread and hasn’t seen the Hot Ones episode featuring Gordon Ramsay, do yourself a favour and watch it. 😂

Love Hot One’s!!  Such a great concept, well executed.

It really is. And Sean Evans is a thoughtful interviewer. I find his presenting style a little awkward/amateurish, but in an endearing way. 

Just looked him up and saw that he’s dating a porn star. Who knew?

JohnInCarolina

GrateEggspectations said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

GrateEggspectations said:

Legume said:

el yucateco makes some great sauces - not the exotic ones with fire breathing donkeys on the label, just good hot sauces.

Gotta echo this. Just solid sauces at super reasonable price points. No pomp, no pretension. 

Good thread, @Ozzie_Isaac. I love hot sauces so need to follow this one closely.

For anyone who is following this thread and hasn’t seen the Hot Ones episode featuring Gordon Ramsay, do yourself a favour and watch it. 😂

Love Hot One’s!!  Such a great concept, well executed.

It really is. And Sean Evans is a thoughtful interviewer. I find his presenting style a little awkward/amateurish, but in an endearing way. 

Just looked him up and saw that he’s dating a porn star. Who knew?

DoubleEgger

Heidi Klum is the Hot Ones episode you need to watch. 

Ozzie_Isaac

Picked up some more Hot Sauces.  Haven’t tried them yet, but Torchbearer has been good so far.

Dyal_SC

Hands down, my favorite store bought hot sauce is Nandos. It’s more than just hot sauce—it has tons of flavor.  Used to only find it at world market, but now it’s everywhere. 

Elijah

Purchased based on the feedback here. It's very good. It has a nice kick, but doesn't really build after. 

stlcharcoal

Gringo bandito!!!  Loved them so much I became a dealer and sell them in my shop.

Botch

Botch said:
…I dug into the back of the cupboard, found some older ones: Melinda's, Texas Pete's and Brother Bru-Bru's (both dried in the bottle and now in the trash), and a bottle of PickaPeppah sauce that is still unopened.  Will have to open that with my breakfast tacquitoes tomorrow morning. 

I finally cracked the PickaPeppa sauce open yesterday, and it wouldn’t pour out of the bottle; checked the “Best if used by…” date, 1990.  I should prolly do a deep-cleaning of all my kitchen cupboards.  

Gulfcoastguy

Have you tried Tiger gallery 

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buzd504

Dyal_SC said:

Hands down, my favorite store bought hot sauce is Nandos. It’s more than just hot sauce—it has tons of flavor.  Used to only find it at world market, but now it’s everywhere. 

Nando's extra spicy is very nice.