Favorite Hot Sauces?

[Mr_Dove]

I've been a pepper-head for years. I've tried some good sauces and some poor ones. I like hot but it also has to taste good. Sauces that are pure fire usually fail for lack of flavor.

I've never been fond of sauces with much vinegar in them. Cholula and Frank's Red Hot are both pretty good though. Regular tabasco is terrible for me.

My in-laws recently brough me a bottle of a sauce called Sriracha from China. I'm loving it. Its not super hot but it tastes great to me. I'm trying it on almost everything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriracha

My Sriracha doesn't have any vinegar in it though.

I have 3 or 4 bottles of Dave's insanity sauce but several of them are lots of hot but little flavor.

What are your favorites?

[Andy M.]

I have a bottle of that in my kitchen as well. Also Frank's, Tabasco and a sauce called Bite Me which has chipotle and roasted garlic in it.

[Alix]

Franks only here.

[Aurora]

I'm not sure if this is nationally distributed, but Crystal Hot Sauce's flavor is outstanding.


http://www.baumerfoods.com/history.p...266f669580d563

[mudbug]

We are fans of most of the products of Avery Island (Tabasco). The basic red stuff, the green stuff, the green stuff with garlic, etc.

Crystal's and Frank's are perfectly OK for our tastes as well.

Haven't bothered to research much further.

[TATTRAT]

Now are we talking just regular ol hot sauces, or HOT SAUCES? I like the Texas Pete Chipoltle one that just came out,but as far as HOT! sauce, it's either daves Insanity, or Volcano...I got a gift of some skull and cross bones single batch, wax sealed and everything, and my buddy had to sign a waiver to get it..needless to say, IT WILL BLISTER THE SKIN ON YOUR LIPS, LITERALLY! But it has awesome flavor, like 2, maybe 3 drops per gallon of product, you know it is in there.

PEPPERHEADS UNITE!

[The Z]

I really like Sriracha and use it on many, many things. Another one I really like for more Latin (as opposed to Asian) inspired food is Tapatio. I bought the smallest bottle they make (5 oz) and whizzed in one clove of garlic and one habenero pepper using my Magic Bullet. Oh my gosh... I carry that with me all the time (I keep a cooler in the car) so if I stop somewhere for a nosh I know I always have a nice hot sauce with me.

I also like Franks.

(it's time to make another batch of the Tapatio blend, so I may add a little chipotle as I like that smokey flavor too)

[jennyema]

I counted the hot sauces in my fridge and I am up to 18 different bottles. And there are at least 6 unopened in the cupboard.

I much prefer Crystal over Franks. I buy it by the quart. And we go through Sriracha like ketchup -- add it to everything. The brand (Huyfong) most people are familiar with is from California. And I have not seen Sriracha sauce without vinegar, but will look closely when at the 88 next time.

Cholula has cornstarch or something added to it that makes it taste cloudy to me. I don't care for it at all.

Melinda's; Hot Buns on the Beach; Jump Up and Kiss Me and Iguana are all very nice.

When East Coast Grill sold their bottled sauces they were OUTSTANDING (esp. the mustard-based one), but they don't do that anymore.

Still, my favorite is my own homemade habernaro sauce.

There is a great dive bar in Tribeca that has about 50 different sauces out for you to try. YUM.

[The Z]

Originally Posted by jennyema

....my favorite is my own homemade habernaro sauce.

A'ight, then jennye... Recipe up!

[jennyema]

Basically, I just throw a bunch of hab peppers (a dozen?), some garlic (2 cloves?), some carrot (1/2 of one?), some onion (i/2 of one?), a bit of cilantro (1T?), some black peppercorns (10?), some allspice berries (5?), a tiny bit of mustard seed (pinch), some salt (1T and more to taste), a pinch of sugar and juice from a lime or two into my food processor. I chop it up, though not really fine.

Then I dump into a sauce pan and add white vinegar and water (2 parts water to one part vinegar) and simmer for maybe 20 minutes.

Pour into a glass jar, cool, then put in fridge for a few weeks.

Then back into the food processor to pulverize. Strain into a sterilized bottle.

I hardly ever do it the same way twice, but I keep tasting and tasting until I really like it.