I usually get a very small cup with some pure, crushed Habanero pepper sauce (crushed peppers with just a few drops of vinegar) to eat with my Pollo Asado (roasted chicken breast with onions) at a local restaurant. It’s incredibly hot (think Tabasco x 100) and the “hot” sensation is overwhelming. It adds some nice taste, but the main entertainment value is the sheer spicy hotness of the habanero sauce.
My understanding is that there are pepper sauces that would make this stuff look tame, but I have to ask myself what the point would be. I’m pretty tolerant of hot foods, but I just don’t see something much hotter adding much taste.
As you get into the upper level “super” pepper sauces what are you really getting taste-wise besides pain and bragging rights?
That’s all you get. Pain, and the ability to say,
“I ate the sauce that is rated at 10,000,000 scoville units!” (By comparison, a habenero rates in the 3-5 million range.)
My favorite all around hot sauce is Frank’s Red Hot, because, as they commercials say, it adds flavor and heat. I do use other ones if I want more heat, but they still ahve good flavor. I remember my parents once bought a bottle of stuff called “Fire Water” for me and my brother when we were in high school. Good God that crap was hot. Too hot.
My theory is, if it has a name like fire water, fire in the hole, fire on the tongue, hell fire, liquid fire, fire bomb, da bomb, mouth bomb, death bomb, death sauce, fire death, death by fire, or death water…walk away.
I’m with bouv on this. Those super-hot sauces are best for macho posturing, not for flavour.
I mostly use a brand called Yucatan Sunshine, or Sriracha for Asian stuff. Some recipes I make want chili paste, but I’ll chop some fresh chilis for that.
The ultra-hot ones are useless. I like some heat, but taste too. I recently started using one called Conch Turbo Sauce (it doesn’t have conch in it, that’s just the name), and it’s quite tasty. Nothing really unique about it, just a good hot sauce.
Depends on what you define as super-potent hot sauce, I guess. I’m quite fond of Blair’s Mega Death, which some would regard as super-potent (it will blow Dave’s Insanity Sauce off the map) while others will regard it as sissy ketchup stuff.
I think it’s a good dividing point: Blair’s themselves make a hotter sauce (Jersey Death) as well as several of those distilled capsaicin thingies in the fancy sealed wax bottles, but mostly I’d say Mega Death has a nice roasted taste as well as plenty of warmth, while from Jersey Death onwards it’s really stretching a point to say you’re tasting anything. And to the extent that you do, it’s not necessarily very nice.
I don’t mind some heat so long as there’s good flavor included. Some friends of mine like to order the “Atomic” wings at the wing joints and I don’t really understand why. Not only do they tear up and sweat like crazy but they have to eat them last because the wings burn them so severely they can’t taste anything else afterwards.
I worked at a fancy restaurant in New Orleans that was frequented by the owner (?) of Crystal or someone very important and wealthy from the family that owns Crystal.
Whenever he was in the restaurant the entire staff was on high alert to make sure no Tabasco was carried out to any table. Tabasco had to be hidden so that it would seem that we only used Crystal.
I have a bottle of Dave’s Insanity sauce that *Bippy the Beardless sent me ages ago (it’s probably past the expiration date, but I don’t think this stuff knows how to go bad). I got through the other four Dave’s varieties in a matter of a couple of weeks (and they were all great), but the insanity sauce is quite potent; a drop or so is enough for a sandwich - a few drops is plenty for a hot chilli. It does add flavour in addition to heat, but obviously not as much as you’d get from a milder sauce - it’s possible to compensate for this by adding a bit of paprika and/or some red peppers.
But by and large, yes, super-hot sauces are most widely used for silly dick-measuring competitions. If you like hot food, that’s great; if you have a large penis, that’s also great, but proudly parading either of these in front of everyone is just rude.
For everyday use, I like Tabasco. Cholula (sp.?–the one with the round wooden cap) is really good for chicken wraps and such. I also have a bottle of Frank’s extra hot (had a coupon so gave it a try). I’ll also pick up one of the habenero sauces from the Mexican section of the grocery store. Goes good on an omelette.
But as far as the realy hot novelties go, the only one I have bought is Dave’s Insanity. I like it, and I’m not trying to impress anybody. Who would I impress, anyway? It’s not like I have an audience when I put a few drops in my bowl of soup or chili. Unless you count my wife. But she’s hard to impress that way. She’s Korean and makes up dishes that can peel the paint off the walls. It’s great to have a wife who matches up with the taste for spicy food. We can share an order the “suicide wings” (or whatever) at the restarant.
I disagree. I use Mad Dog and a new one I found called Da’ Bomb (I know, idiotic name) which is 234,000 scoville units. I use it breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If I go out of town, I take it with me (I don’t take it to restaurants, I’m not that far gone). It definitely adds to the food. I don’t know that it specifically enhances the “flavor” but it enhances the experience. It makes the existing flavors more “intense”. It’s tough to explain. Non-hot sauced food tastes bland to me.
I don’t recall ever bragging about my hot food tolerance to anyone. Well, maybe to my brother when we were kids .
I agree, and also if it has a name that has to do with anal or gastrointestinal distress or pain, walk away. So no Gut-Scorcher, no Bleedin’ Bum, no Lava Lube, no Flaming Meathole.
The ones I like to keep around are Tabasco Chipotle, Cholula, Crystal, Sriracha, and a couple different barbecue sauces… Quizno’s Batch 81 Three-Pepper Sauce is a favorite of mine because it’s sweet, tangy, and thick.
Tabasco is great, but it’s absolutely the wrong flavor for stuff like Mexican or Asian food. A taco with Tabasco just tastes wrong. Gotta have at least four hot sauces from various corners of the world lying around the house.
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