Reasonably priced hot sauce?

[Rich Engelhardt]

I was buying Dave's Gourmet Scorpion Pepper hot sauce locally for $3.89 per 5 ounce jar for the last 18 months.
The store said they weren't going to carry it anymore and nobody could tell me why not.

I've looked for it, but, everywhere I find it, the price is about double of what I was paying.

I'm not locked into Dave's - so - any really, really, really hot sauce will be fine.

Anything Habanero, Scorpion or Carolina Reaper is fine - although Habanero is kind of on the mild side, it still got a wonderful flavor.

I'm not at all interested in Ghost. It's got wonderful heat, but, it has a terrible taste.

I use a lot of this stuff. Every morning I use it on my eggs and other stuff - sometimes I just dribble it on potato chips and go through a 5 ounce jar in about two/two and a half weeks.

Any idea where I can hook up with some heat for a decent price? I'm ok with buying a case if I can get it for the right price.

[Edwin Santos]

Give Marie Sharp's a try. There's a regular Habanero and an extra hot version as well as other varieties, more than I can count. I remember a pretty hot one called Beware Comatose. Maybe that's the one for you.

I get it at Kroger but I think you can get it at Walmart too. Around $4 IIRC.

[Jim Koepke]

I must be a wimp, chugging Tabasco is good enough for me.

jtk

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I have always thought that the official recipe for Buffalo Wings has a lot of charm. Chicken Wings, Lots Of Butter, and the Cheapest Hot Sauce Available at your local store. Franks, Texas Pete, or Trappey's Are what our familys culinary expert goes for.

[Mike Henderson]

I must be a wimp. My mouth is burning just from reading this.:)

Mike

[Patrick McCarthy]

I'm with Mike. OTOH, the LOML has an asbestos lined mouth.

[Stan Calow]

There're too many regional brands to know what is available where. We like Tapatio, but thats probably too mild for you firebreathers.

[Frank Pratt]

Frank's is my go to. It's fairly mild but has great flavor that enhances whatever it's put on without overpowering it. We also keep a few other hotter varieties in the fridge as well.

[Doug Garson]

The only hot sauce I like is Wasabi mustard, blows your head off and 30 seconds later its gone. Great for clearing your sinuses with no lingering pain.

[Alan Lightstone]

Are we talking post-covid loss of taste here? OMG!!! :eek: I ran for milk just reading this.

[Ralph Okonieski]

My wife got me a make your own kit last year. Pretty easy to make it and to the heat level preferred.

https://www.diygiftkits.com/products/hot-sauce-kit-r

No affiliation, Just a happy customer.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Are we talking post-covid loss of taste here? OMG!!! :eek: I ran for milk just reading this.LOL! No - it's really not all that bad once you get accustomed to the capsaicin and build up a tolerance for it.
You do have to work up to it though & if you lay off the stuff for even a short time, you lose that and have to start again.

I'm really surprised that more people don't consume more hot peppers and hot sauce. Both are extremely good for you.

One Habanero pepper has more vitamin C than you get in as many as four oranges! That's only about 20 calories vs close to 200 for the oranges. Plus all the other good stuff the pepper has going for it.
The hotter the pepper - the better they are for you.

The ultra hot ones (Ghost/Reaper/Scorpion) can reduce blood sugar, memory loss, cataracts, weight gain - they are high in fiber - they are powerful antioxidants. I could ramble on about the benefits of hot peppers/hot sauce for quite a while

As I mentioned, I try to eat at least one Habanero a day, sliced up in my scrambled eggs. For a while a few years ago, I was drinking 3 or 4 ounces of Frank's Red Hot sauce, mixed with vinegar and V8 juice - but - all the sodium from that was too much so I backed off of that.
One of these days, I really think a lot of people will come to see the huge health benefits hot peppers offer & they will catch on.

You have to work up to the really hot stuff though and it can take a while. Once you get away from them, you lose that, but, it comes back real quick.

@ Ralph - Hmmm - I might just try my hand at making my own. Thanks for that idea!

[Jeff Bartley]

Rich,

I would encourage you to grow a Carolina reaper plant next year. I just had a bumper crop. Hot sauce is easy to make and it’s fun to tweak the recipe. I make a hot sauce with carrots that’s really easy. Just don’t forget to glove up when you process the peppers!

[Steve H Graham]

For what it's worth, I compared Frank's to Crystal side by side, and Crystal is better. I bought a quart for $4.

Won't help you much if you like the really hot stuff.

My favorite hotter sauces are made by El Yucateco.

[Kev Williams]

I put Tabasco on just about everything that isn't sweet, and I love the flavor of Habanero peppers. I LIKE the heat, but the heat isn't my priority with hot sauces :) About the only Habanero sauces I can tolerate is Tabasco's version, because the heat is tamed down a bit, and I love Black Bear Diner's Habanero sauce, but only in small doses, I only add like 2 drops of it to my 'basic hot sauce mix', which is something around a tablespoon of La Victoria basic taco sauce and a teaspoon of Tabasco. Just 2 drops of Black Bear doubles the heat and adds just the right amount of Habanero flavor :)

Some years ago at Golden Coral I fixed myself a plate of taco's, and picked up one of the roasted Jalapeno's they had at the time. By most standards Jalapeno's aren't as hot as basic Tabasco sauce, but OMG I've NEVER tried to eat ANYTHING, then or since, as hot as that Jalapeno! A 4th of July sparkler in my mouth couldn't have been any hotter! I couldn't eat anything else for a half hour, which was spent trying to put the fire out! Because of that one Jalapeno, I have NO desire to try these "new" hotter peppers. I know my limits! ;)

[Steve H Graham]

I think I have more input that could be helpful.

People who don't live in Florida may not be familiar with Jamaican food. Jamaicans make some really nice hot sauces under the Matouk's label. Flavor, not just heat. Also, a Jamaican company called Ocho Rios makes wonderful spicy ketchup.

Spicy ketchup may not sound good, but it's wonderful. It's not just hot ketchup. It makes the sweetness and flavors come out. I can't get Ocho Rios ketchup where I live now, so I take Hunt's and mix Crystal into it.

Why Hunt's? Because it's actually better than Heinz. Heinz has great marketing, but it comes in second in taste tests.

[Edwin Santos]

I think I have more input that could be helpful.

People who don't live in Florida may not be familiar with Jamaican food. Jamaicans make some really nice hot sauces under the Matouk's label. Flavor, not just heat. Also, a Jamaican company called Ocho Rios makes wonderful spicy ketchup.



You bring up a great point about Jamaican food.
The pepper used in Jamaican hot sauce is the scotch bonnet. It looks a lot like a habanero but larger, and they can be red, orange or green. Turns out the two peppers are cousins, but there are differences. They have a somewhat different flavor, and the scotch bonnet is considerably hotter. Yes, Jamaican hot pepper sauce is pretty hot.

The scale for measuring the heat in peppers is called Scoville Units. A Habanero rates about 260,000 on the Scoville scale, and a Scotch Bonnet is about 450,000, so quite a bit hotter. By comparison a Jalapeno can range anywhere between 1000-4000. A Carolina Reaper can be as high as 2,000,000. That's dangerous living.

[Rich Engelhardt]

For real Heinz - you have to buy the Simply Heinz - it's made with no high fructose corn syrup. They use sugar instead.
It changes to whole way it tastes and eliminates the nasty aftertaste.

I was a loyal fan of Heinz my whole life until I read about Simply Heinz here.

IIRC, Heinz also makes it different for the Canadian market.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I tried canning tomatoes and peppers for the first time this summer. I had to get guidance from Mom. She also sent me a link to this video. I enjoyed it even though it made my efforts look and feel very clumsy.


https://youtu.be/uGpsE9isUXA

[Jim Koepke]

Here is something for Tabasco fans who would like a bit more heat.

When recycling empty Tabasco bottles a shop made tool is used to remove the plastic flow restrictor:

488371

Underneath the plastic piece was a collection of fiber from the Tabasco sauce. About a teaspoon of water was added so as to not waste this little bit of greatness. It was a more concentrated version of Tabasco. Twice as tasty to boot. This was from a large bottle, a smaller bottle might take less water.

jtk

[Dave Lehnert]

You need to take a trip to Cincinnati to Jungle Jim's. They have HUGE hot sauce department.
https://junglejims.com/market/hot-sauce/


https://www.reddit.com/r/hotsauce/comments/hx3xdk/jungle_jims/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3