I’m picking up all your slack on the beer end.
Mr.Wrekker claims (?) Hot sauce counteracts what Jack Daniels does to his liver. So far he’s healthy as a horse. It could be true.
I said cutting sodium was the ONE area that I’ve been diligent about.
Cutting out beer…not so much. 
I’m partial to Frank’s, as is everyone in my house, except for my son, Frank.
I like the Heinz ketchup that had Tabasco in it…do they still make it? around here original Tapatio is known as Mexican ketchup…even fast food places get the packets of it ……
You should visit Avery Island to take the Tabasco factory tour.
We did it twice, well worth it.
My wife used to work for one of their competitors, but not in the hot sauce plant, but that brand got sold a while ago and the factory is closed down.
If Tabasco was bad for your health there would be a lot of sick Cajuns.
You and me, buddy. Keepin’ on the good fight! And probably Mr. Wrecker.
Gringo Bandito…all the flavor of Tapatio or Chilula with more heat.
My go-to hot sauces are Tapatio, Cholula, Sembal-Olek, and Zatarain’s Cajun for the New Orleans takeout.
According to the story, a Louisiana planter named Edmund McIllhenny fled his plantation (located on a salt dome called Avery Island), when the Yankees came to Louisiana. When he returned after the war, all he had left was a crop of chili peppers. Louisiana planters of the time often made up - or more accurately, had their slaves make up - their own hot sauces. Making a virtue of necessity, McIllhenny used what he had left - water, vinegar, salt and peppers - to brew up Tabasco sauce, which he started selling in 1866.
This may just be the corporate mythology, but it explains why Tabasco is still just water, vinegar, salt, and peppers.
But a good number of hot sauces are exactly that. It’s certainly not just Tabasco. I mean, that’s like the obvious ingredients for a good hot sauce! Shit, you don’t even need the vinegar! Just peppers, salt, and maybe a little water.
There’s an old joke where a guy says “we’ve been married so long we’re on our second bottle of tabasco sauce.” Perhaps the humor is lost on some of the capsaicin addicts in this thread.
I, too, like spice… probably too much so. I grow, smoke, and grind habaneros into a powder, and I put that stuff on much of what I eat. I keep a small bottle of it in my car so I’ve always got some with me.
Plus, I figure it’d be more effective than mace if anyone tries to jack my ride.
I’ve never found a hot sauce like that which isn’t too sour as a condiment. They can work fokay mixed into a sauce or soup to add some kick (as long as I don’t overdo it), but not on solid items. But I’ve also haven’t bought many, as I don’t want to waste them.
I just have the image of some schmuck succeeding in stealing your car, finding your stash of pepper powder, assuming it’s cocaine and trying to sample a snort.
Yeah, I know that nobody is that stupid but I can dream can’t I?
The standard Huy Fong sriracha isn’t really sour. I mean, it has vinegar, but it’s balanced with sugar (too much, in my opinion. Not a big fan of this sauce, either this version or other brands and imported versions.) The level of sour is maybe on the scale of ketchup, though I’d say maybe even less.
There’s plenty other sauces that I wouldn’t call sour, but I actually like a sour kick in my hot sauces, because they’re really supposed to be a pickle/accent to the food. If I don’t want sour, then I go for straight crushed chiles, or you can do something like a Sichuan style chili sauce/oil. But I tend to use that as an ingredient, as well. If I just want a “ketchup” type of hot sauce condiment for a sandwich or whatnot, I usually reach for Yellowbird Habanero.
This is really neither here nor there, but in my experience, although like 99.5% of all American restaurants, places in New Orleans will certainly have a bottle or two of Tabasco available for their customers, but the vast majority use a different “house” brand to actually set out on the tables, the three most common (all are of course also made in Louisiana) seemingly being Crystal, Trappey’s and Louisiana, all of them considerably milder in heat than Tabasco.
I find this surprising. I never really thought of Tabasco as being hotter than Crystal. Looking online for Scoville numbers, they’re all over the place, with Crystal being as low as 800 to as high as 4000. Tabasco I see anywhere from 2000-5000. This particular ranking has Crystal as being hotter than Tabasco, but admits not official numbers for Crystal. My experience is they are both about equal in heat. I never thought of one being much milder than the other. Louisiana, though, I will agree is tamer. The main difference for me between Tabasco and Crystal is that Tabasco has a funkier fermented flavor to it, while Crystal is cleaner and fruitier. As I said, I prefer Tabasco for the funk, but heat-wise, they’ve always seemed similar to me.
I meant Cajuns, not many of whom are in New Orleans. Trappey’s is not made by Trappey’s any more - they closed down ages ago. I don’t remember who makes them - in the North I’ve only seen them in one or two specialty stores.
Crystal über alles!!
It’s gotten to the point that we don’t even have a bottle of Tabasco in the house. Too much other good stuff out there. Somebody above mentioned Gringo Bandito - great stuff! But it’s Cholula and Crystal that we buy in the large bottles, knowing they will be used up before they go weak.