Ask Lemmy

Dirty Dick's. Besides the obvious, being able to say "Hey, lemme put some dirty dicks on your taco," and the like, the stuff is phenomenal. It is not for everything, like, say, a Tapatio would be, but I use it most of the time.

Dirty Dick's is a sweet heat, and they kill it in both departments. Nowhere on the bottle do they advertise how many Scoville units, because it's silly. They created a sweet yet spicy sauce that is perfect for pulled pork, or beef/chicken tacos, pretty much anything in the tex-mex spectrum (the texmextrum, if I may).

I have yet to try it with Asian or Indian fare, and I won't even begin to speculate, because I am far from some culinary genius, I just follow recipes well.

So yes, allow me to shill for putting dirty dicks on your food.

I used to use Franks or Franks Buffalo sauce in everything. It’s not very hot but has excellent flavor.

Now you made me go count: I have 7 different ones on the counter plus 5 in the fridge, more if you count horseradishes and spicy mustards (probably the empty bottle in recycling doesn’t count). I love the home made one, the chili crisp, and the dragon sauce, but my best answer to the question has to be Mellissa’s because I have so many of their flavors. They’re all a little different: maybe sriracha is good with one food but too sweet for another. Maybe I want to taste that Louisiana flair on my shrimp but that chili can stand up to reaper sauce

i love yuzu kosho, most brands are fine. i'll put it on anything remotely asian. panda express gets the yuzu kosho. instant ramen gets the yuzu kosho. homemade gyuudon gets the yuzu kosho. plain white rice gets the yuzu kosho. its so good

Best I can find locally is Enconas Carolina Reaper sauce but I will say it's nowhere near hot enough to justify that name imo. Always a bottle of Sirracha handy as well.

Scandinavian Gold from PepperPalace. A lot of Pepper Palace stuff is good.

I love spicy olive oils infused with chilis

It really depends on the dish and what you want out of the hot sauce.

My general, everyday preference is Cholula or Crystal. Both those have a distinctly hispanic/tex-mex flavor profile. For east and southeast Asian cuisine, I prefer Sriracha. If I really want the hot sauce to be the focus of the dish, I tend to prefer Marie Sharp's, especially the carrot or grapefruit varieties.

El Yucateco Black Label Chile Habanero

Grace Hot Pepper Sauce. It has this tangy, buttery flavour and a nice amount of heat that accentuates food without melting your face.

I think they use a few different peppers in the mash as while it has a little of the apricot fire Scotch Bonnet taste to it, as you'd expect from a Caribbean brand with a bunch of Scotch Bonnets on the label, it's not the predominant chilli flavour here. I think the mash gets slightly fermented too due to that buttery taste the sauce has.

Before the pandemic it was 50p for an 85ml bottle, I miss that. £1.50 for the same size bottle still feels like a rip off.

Edit: just looked Grace Hot Pepper Sauce up as I've been thinking about it all day now since making this comment, and their website says the peppers used are a blend of Habanero and Cayenne in the mash. So my tasting apricot fire is likely a placebo from the image on the label, lmao.

Just want to soapbox here about the hot sauces that are sold to: 1) be as hot as possible; 2) have no flavor aside from pepper.

No one is enjoying XXX: Blow our ur Sphincter 3000 and as far as I am concerned these things are novelty items like pranks from joke shops. If the "schoville" number is factoring into your hot sauce buying decisions then I have personal beef with you and hope you step in a deep puddle next time it's raining.

Sirracha because it's easy to get everywhere. I also make my own Vietnamese chilli oil.

Frank's Red Hot
Cholula

And a great that's hard to get: Yellow Dragon Lantern Pepper Mash (黄灯笼) from Hainan. Amazing fruity flavour and hotter than hell.

Yellowbird Habenero

Two come to mind:

• https://hotsaucefever.com/hotsauce/el-yucateco-black-label-chile-habanero/
• https://www.californiahotsaucesolutions.com/collections/paulman-acre/products/fermented-garlic-hot-sauce

Marie Sharp's, a hot sauce company out of Belize. Sooooo good.

Vicious Viper has a really nice taste and has my preferred hotness level.

Those Wings brand little packets that are white on the front and clear on the back

Tapatío

Secret Aardvark habanero sauce is so, so good. I'll put it on just about anything. It's by no means the hottest sauce out there, but I'll put its flavor up against any other sauce. I buy this stuff by the case at this point.

Valentina!

Good ol' Sriracha because of its versatility. It goes well with so many foods.

Tapatio, Valentina's, or Cholula.