A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - What's The Best Hot Sauce?

Episode Date: June 23, 2021

Today, we're getting lost in the sauce. Hot sauce, that is. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. I believe it was the great philosopher Gucci Mane who once said, if a man does not have the sauce, then he's lost. But the same man can be lost in the sauce. Well today, dear listeners, we get lost in the sauce. Hot sauce, that is. This is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie.

Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Ayer.

And I'm your host, Nicole Hendizadeh. And today, Nicole, we're discussing the greatest hot sauce of all time. Oh, Tapatio. Well, no, you can't just end the podcast in eight seconds but yeah like okay it's tapatio right see you next week everybody hey what a great podcast signing off um yeah i think i think it's uh there is no such thing as the best hot sauce no there are hot sauces for different uses and they all are beautiful in their own special snowflake way absolutely and i don't think we can we're gonna find the answer to that today i think we're gonna

find the answer for you and i and i think that's really important but i don't think we're going to find the answer to that today. I think we're going to find the answer for you and I, and I think that's really important, but I don't think we're going to find the end-all, be-all sauce boss number one ever. I don't think that's possible. But we know two people who did try and do that, Nicole. Yes, they are our bosses! They're called Roger and Letty? Letty.

Letty's from... Roger and Letty? Where did that come from? No, so Red and Link, they did the hot sauce tournament to try and find the greatest hot sauce. Yes. And they specifically did one on the, like, mainstream hot sauce, right? They did. Not these new artisanal hot sauces that are all, I mean, not all fantastic, but a lot of them are very delicious. But on the mainstream hot sauces.

And I wanted to kind of go through their rankings, how they did in the tournament, and sort of give our own professional take. Because they're amateurs, right? I think we can say that. They're not in the room. I don't give our own professional take. Because they're amateurs, right? I think we can say that. They're not in the room. I actually think they're kind of experts. They've been tasting things on the internet for a long time. Yeah, right when I said that, I was like, if they're amateurs, then no one is professional.

Exactly. Because this is literally their bag. They're like pro eaters. But I think that we have a more attuned, trained palate. I think we can dissect the cultural implications of their hot sauce choices in a way they can't. Okay. So I think we should go through it. So ultimately, what won was implications of their hot sauce choices, you know, in a way they can't. Okay.

So I think we should go through it. So ultimately, what won was Cholula hot sauce? And you mentioned Tapatio being the greatest. Tapatio went head to head against Cholula in the second round and lost. And that, although I prefer Tapatio, if there is one hot sauce to have for the rest of my life between Tapatio and Cholula, I don't know that I could choose Tapatio. Why? Is it the bitterness? Because it has a really strong bitterness that people don't always

recognize it does it's got this like dusky chili heat you're getting more chili flavor in there whereas chalula okay so what i think is really interesting about a lot of these mainstream hot sauces is they're primarily like you know uh mexican versus american south typically if you think about it right yeah especially with this ranking there a few, there's a few randos in there, but no, I agree with you. So a lot of these are, when I say American South, typically from Louisiana. I mean, even Tabasco is made in Louisiana. It was named after the Mexican state, but has absolutely nothing to do with Mexico. I have a question. Go ahead. Was it made on an island? Yeah. What's it called though? I don't know. Maybe Tabasco.

The island of Tabasco. I actually don't know, but I do think the peppers are made on an island or something. Yeah. Avery Island. It is a whole Tabasco processing facility. Yeah. Really, really cool. Yeah.

And so we have the American South hot sauces, like the Cajun South hot sauces that are mainly cayenne pepper, vinegar, and salt. Those are the only ingredients in Tabasco. Then you get know frank's red hot you got texas peat all these are very very similar and then you have them against the mexican hot sauces which typically are much more chili forward totally yeah but cholula for me it almost walks that line between a tap of tea and a frank's red hot it has that creaminess it has that creamy processed flavor. That xanthan gum, baby. It really does have that like thickened, almost like you put your finger like this is viscous. This is creamy.

It has a very distinct texture. It's a mouthfeel. Tapatio is just watery chili goodness. Which is what I love before. I love Tapatio on a breakfast burrito is to me absolutely unrivaled. I don't know what it is about that but i think the thing that it misses a little bit is that pure formula of the american southern hot sauces that is just like this is salt this is acid this is spice there's not a ton of character to it but that's what we're adding to your dish and that is those are things that i typically want added to

all my dishes right yes of course and that's what i'm doing it for so i think chalula is really interesting in that it walks that line between you got the nice chili flavor and so i think they did maybe get this one right i mean let's look at the other hot sauces that it beat out frank's red hot it took on frank's red hot in the finals yes i like frank's but i like buffalo frank's more than anything else they're buffalo for for all the bodybuilding fiends out there. I knew you were going to say that. Frank's Buffalo Sauce. Nicole, you're talking about creaminess in a hot sauce. Yeah. So, buffalo sauce is traditionally just butter and hot sauce

essentially. Those are the bones of it. It is. It should be clarified butter so it doesn't really separate. Anyways, Frank's Red Hot Buffalo version is just chemical thickener plus Frank's Red Hot. But it's so good because it has zero calories. It's delicious, yeah. It's really good. It's fantastic. That said, of these Louisiana-style hot sauces, the Frank's Red Hot. But it's so good because it has zero calories. It's delicious, yeah. It's really good. It's fantastic. That said,

of these like Louisiana style hot sauces, the Frank's Red Hot, you know, the Texas Pete, the Crystal. Crystal got beat out round one by Kalula. I love Crystal hot sauce.

One of my top three. But are any of them actually different? Blind taste test. Do you think, I'm not about to pull out hot sauces to blind taste test like the Pepsi episode.

Yeah, warmed in my grundle. Do you think you can tell the difference? Maybe. I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think I can maybe get Frank's Red Hot, and I think I could definitely get Red Rooster.

Red Rooster was not included. I was just about to say, where's Red Rooster? Red Rooster reminds me of my brother so much. He used to literally have a ball of Red Rooster with every single meal. It was crazy. Red Rooster is one of those American hot sauces that has more chili heat and pulp and flavor to it. Yeah, it's pulp. It has chili pulp in it, which is really interesting.

It's like you get the orange juice with pulp. Red Rooster is like the Louisiana hot sauce with pulp, which is kind of why I like it. That said, when you buy a Louisiana-style hot sauce, just a normal table sauce, which one are you getting? Crystal. I get Crystal, too. Yeah, it's just there. But I kind of think Frank's Red Hot tastes better. I don't know.

I don't know how to explain it. There's something about Frank's, and I know the adage is put that blank on everything but i don't want to put it on everything i don't want my hot sauces to be this thick processed goodness like i like the idea of there being a little bit of separation i like being able to look at the sauce and have a clear distinction between the chili and the vinegar you want a little bit more natural and It's a naturalissimo. Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things, my hot sauce preferences. But I like the idea of having a sauce that has a little bit less creaminess.

Because if I'm putting, typically whenever I'm eating food, I'm trying to think about the foods that I eat. Like if I'm eating a burrito. A Fig Newton. You were eating a Fig Newton right before this. I'm hungry. I'm not going to put hot sauce on my Fig Newton. Cow like coward example like i'm eating a poke bowl okay yeah yeah i'm eating a poke bowl everyone puts sriracha on it but no if i don't have sriracha if i have to choose between crystal and frank's i'm probably gonna put crystal on it because chances are my poke bowl has

creamy wasabi on it already so i'm thinking about the creaminess aspect like for you the hot sauce seems to be filling in the gaps that aren't there in flavor yeah and texture and i mean i don't know does does watery hot sauce have a texture don't say yes no we talk about this all the time how like an ingredient that people don't think about is water you add a couple drops of water to a salad sometimes it like opens it up you add some water to say a pasta that has gotten a little bit congealed. It like opens everything up. Getting wet into your food sometimes is the goal. I like wetting my food with hot sauce.

I'm not ashamed. I think maybe that's it too. I think maybe it breaks up the monotony of like creaminess or breaks up the monotony of like soupiness. Yeah. Maybe that's what hot sauce does for me. Well, that's where you get into stuff like sriracha here. Like sriracha, it took out Texas Pete in the first round and then lost to Frank's Red Hot.

The thing about sriracha is like, it doesn't one, give you that acid, but two, it doesn't give you the wet because it's more of a paste, right? It's thick. Yeah. And sriracha, so many people, we will get to this later,

but we're doing a hot sauce themed opinion casserole at the end of this. But one of the most common ones is people just saying sriracha is so overrated i don't think it's overrated have you had sriracha and mac and cheese there's no better hot sauce for mac and cheese and sriracha none it's perfect it's it's the garlic it's the garlic and the chili and the fermenti in it so good and it's great but it satisfies such a different world than all these other hot sauces but it's become one of the ubiquitous like what i call like a table sauce or utility sauce yeah a hot sauce you put on absolutely everything i can put sriracha on every single cuisine i believe and it's really delicious yes i don't know sriracha

on mexican food it tastes funny to me i like it it's the sugar in it it's the sugar in the sriracha that doesn't mesh well for me and the fact that i love wet with mexican food i mean think about i i the other day i made some like al pastor tacos at home and I had a really nice salsa on it, but all I was craving was that thin watery chile de arbol salsa. From the cart?

From the cart, man, from the truck. And that, you know, you bite into the fatty meat and then you get this just rush of pure chili heat, brightness, bitterness, and you go,

you suck that out and it's beautiful. And that's why I think Tapatio beats out Cholula in my grand, what is this called? A bracket? Is this a sports? Your internal, yeah, a bracket.

Sports bracket. Yeah, they even call the study of this bracketology. Bracketology. I thought that was about your bronchitis or something. No, that's brachiology. Oh, close. And I played that in Scrabble last night. Brachiology?

Actually, no, I didn't, but I did. Julia thought she got me because she played hand on Triple Word, which is fine. H is worth four, so it gets a lot. But then on the other Triple Word going down, I hit Handmade and just dropped like a 60 burger on it, dude. I was just about to say, this is very Handmade's tale of you guys.

I've been watching a lot of Handmade's tale. I've been playing a lot of Scrabble. Life's really exciting for me right now. But anyways, Cholula winning Rhett and Link's hot sauce tournament. Do you take any onwards? Do you think they got anything wrong here? For them, no.

Yeah. For me, yes. You think Tapatio should claim the rightful spot? You think that they should have won the head-to-head matchup against Cholula? See, that's the thing. I don't know. I think Tapatio and Sriracha

should have been head-to-head. Oh, you're cutting out the entire American delegation. Yeah. You know, American hot sauces have their space and they have their deliciousness. They have their goodness. But I think Sriracha serves a really, really great purpose, a grand purpose. And Tapatio does the same. And this was to find the best hot sauce of all time.

A goat hot sauce. I love Crystal. It's probably number three in my list list but i don't think it's the goat i think tapatio's go and i think strach is go and then i think crystal is go to pick from this list one hot sauce to use for the rest of your life everything else goes away which one are you picking right now right now i don't want to um i'm gonna say tapatio i am too i don't know why no i am too and now that i'm thinking about it like if a chalula for me is a perfectly like neutral it's a very good hot sauce yeah it's got salt it's got acid it's got spice

it's a little boring it's a little boring for me i want to i want to wake up with the when diaz seen chile es un diaz seen sol nicole a day without chile is a dilly is a dilly what i don't know a day without chile is a dayilly. Is a dilly? What? I don't know. A day without chile is a day without sun. Yeah. Is that what you're saying? Yes. God dang right.

And I think Tapatio gives you that chile character. And that said, I'm not mad about Cholula. I thought they were going to pick something really dumb. Sometimes it happens. I trust Rhett and Link's opinions. Like what? Sometimes it happens. You like Valentina?

I don't know. They'll be like, well, I had Tabasco on a barbecue growing up. So Tabasco wins. Tabasco is a perfectly fine hot sauce. There's no, well, I had Tabasco on, you know, a barbecue growing up. So Tabasco wins. Tabasco is a perfectly fine hot sauce. There's no bad hot sauces here. Tabasco is good on one thing. I'm going to tell you. Hash browns.

Eggs. Breakfast. Just breakfast. I don't know. Like Valentina, I feel like, got shafted at the last. Yeah. Valentina is a great all-purpose Mexican-style hot sauce that no one talks about. I agree with that.

Valentina on Marisco. So you go to like the ceviche trucks. Yes. Up in the valley. You get the big bottle of Valentina there. Really good on Pollo and Carne Asada, so good. But that brings up the fact that like these hot sauces are all perfect for the things that you put them on, right? Which I think the story of Sriracha to me is really, really funny because, you know, we talked about it being an asian hot sauce i mean it was founded by a vietnamese refugee in america in um irwindale irwindale california out in like you know the east valley i went there i went to a racetrack there did you see the facility where yeah i did and also they caused like a crazy fumes to come out of that and the city like tried to sue them oh my it's a whole

thing but uh sriracha it's like you know it's now traveled its way back to you know uh east and southeast asia way yeah but it's like not necessarily like the island of sriracha in thailand they are known for making hot sauce but it's not necessarily like the hoi fong foods hot sauce which is vietnamese so it's just like kind of really beautiful you know like american uh immigrant success story. And now it's just totally ubiquitous. And I can't imagine eating, say, Panda Express even without sriracha. Or I think about the Kogi trucks, the Korean Mexican fusion, how much sriracha just goes so beautifully on that. So there's like a time and place for all these hot sauces.

Like you said with Tabasco, diners, baby, IHOP, you want hot sauce? Here's Tabasco. That's all we got. David puts sriracha on his gormasabzi really yeah every this man literally might as well just have a ring that pops out and squirts out sriracha because he's so obsessed with he eats it with everything kebab he eats it with burrito bowls he eats it with gormasabzi he eats it with eggs. Yeah! Hurricane Nicole Dean over here. Well, like, is there a hot sauce

in Persian food? No, Persians don't eat anything spicy. That's wild. Just pepper. Just pepper? Just pepper. But, I mean, there's so much, like, acid and sourness and bitterness in Persian food, so it's like, it has that balance to it. But, like, we, I mean, growing up in LA, it's like, you go to a taco truck,

I love spicy food. I want to put that on my grilled meats so i agree with that do you know my actual favorite hot sauce is i'm going to tell you right now it's you ever have a pepperoncini yes oh the best hot sauce in the world is when you bite into a pepperoncini and then that liquid spills out and then you just let the liquid fall out of your mouth on the mouth i'm not a heathen well you like juice it you bite the top of the pepperoncini and then it has let the liquid fall out of your mouth onto the soup. No, not the mouth. I'm not a heathen. Well, you like juice it. You bite the top of the pepperoncini and then it has a liquid inside of it from the pickling and then you flip over the pepperoncini and then you rub it

and then the seeds and the water from the pepperoncini comes out and then that's your hot sauce. Do you know in Hawaii, one of their like biggest hot sauce is basically that. They call it chili pepper water. Oh, I've heard of it. Yeah, and it's, I mean, it's literally, it's very, very thin. It's just kind of like lightly inflected. It's almost infused with the chilies. And it chili pepper water. Oh, I've heard of it. Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's literally, it's, it's a very, very thin, it's just kind of like lightly inflected.

It's almost infused with the chilies. And it's basically that you would just be drinking that. You'd be so happy in Hawaii. That's my favorite hot sauce. With the chili pepper. Pepperoncini water. From In-N-Out. Wait, those aren't pepperoncinis.

Those are the little peppers. What? That no one knows what they're called. What are they called? I don't know, but you don't know. But you try to know what they're called. Pepperoncinis. Pepperoncini in Italian literally means crushed red pepper oh right so you go to italy and you

go like hey give me some some pepperoncini sorry italian followers it's crushed red pepper but then like you go to i don't know like any italian deli and get a sandwich and you get the pepperoncini and those are those little pickled thin peppers your papa sorry i've bashed your microphone you order papa john to give you a single hot pepperoncino on top of it, which that's a great hot sauce, the hot steamed Papa John's pepperoncino. Oh, yeah. And you get it all on the pizza. But no, I don't know what the peppers at In-N-Out are called because they're smaller and they're

thicker. I just like to call it all-purpose pepperoncino, man. I feel that. All-purpose pepperoncino. Yeah, I think that's, screw Tapatio. I am team pepperoncino water, but actually, that. All-purpose pepperoncino. Yeah, I think that's... Screw Tapatio. I am team pepperoncino water. But actually, bottled hot sauce, I love Tapatio. And there's really no...

That's your number one. This is my love letter to Tapatio, man. This is all this podcast is about. I have my answer. What is it? It's been my answer for a long time. And it took me a lot of soul searching to get there. Is it on this list?

It is not on this list. It is not on this list. What is it? Arizona Gunslinger Red Jalapeno Hot Sauce. Oh, yeah. Shout out to college roommate and great friend Marcus Bagley for being the one to first introduce me to this. He and I, we at some point had like 45 different bottles of hot sauce in our college apartment. If you can imagine the amount of light beer and hot sauce and frozen taquitos in that house, the acid reflux was through the roof, baby.

Acid reflux was through the roof baby acid reflux higher than the gpa but arizona gunslinger has the perfect combination of like salt acid and spice but not only that the actual chili pulp because it's thicker like you see the seeds you see the pepper flesh actually really good it's so good in their whole line they have a green one that's really fantastic they do a chipotle habanero one that's really good there There's a straight habanero one that I thought, I don't know if you remember, like a week and a half ago. Yeah. Yeah.

I was making like a quesadilla for snackies and I thought I was putting the Arizona Gunslinger jalapeno on there. It turns out it was the habanero one. Yep, yep, yep. And then I had to start eating the ice cream straight out of the pint. Yeah, I remember. I was there. Yeah, I was drooling into the trash can.

Yeah, I remember. I was literally there. Yeah. I bought all those hot sauces for the office because we know how much we love it. It's great. Yeah, it's great. But you're still taking Tapatio over Arizona Gunslinger. It's more readily available and accessible.

It's cheaper. I think it's maybe 49 cents at the 99 cent store. It's cheap. It's delicious. It serves its purpose. I'm a little bit biased because maybe I worked for them for a little bit. That's right. Yeah, I worked for Tapatio for a little bit,

but that's beside the point. I just think it's delicious and it's good and it serves its purpose well and it makes food yummier. How hot should hot sauce be? Do you think there's a limit? Not too hot. Enough to make your tongue tingle a little bit.

Like if you start sweating from eating a hot sauce or if you need like a supplemental like thing to put in your mouth, it's too spicy. I don't know, but sometimes I want to ride the lightning i don't i mean i'm not talking about hot sauces like da bomb you look at the later rounds of hot ones i tried the bomb one time and it was like poison yes really bad it gives your body an immediate reaction where it's like vacate immediately thing bad i tried it and i literally i was like running i was like running

looking for a banana looking for a piece of bread I was like running. I was like running, looking for a banana, looking for a piece of bread. I was like panicking. I was like, that was me saying I need to help. I need help. Do you want to know the story of the first time I had to bomb? I would love to. I can't tell if this actually happened or if it's a weird transplanted memory, but I was like eight years old at my local Chinese restaurant called Ho Toys. And I was there and it was, you know, $2.99 for like a teriyaki.

Or yeah, they did a teriyaki chicken bowl, but it was fried like orange chicken, but covered in teriyaki sauce there and it was you know $2.99 for like a yeah they did a teriyaki chicken bowl but it was fried like orange chicken but covered in teriyaki sauce and it was pretty tasty but they would give you

the chili garlic paste which I think is marketed as sambal olek I love sambal olek but it's like it may or may not be actual sambal olek does it have the chicken

on it? the rooster yeah I mean that's Hoi Fong that's the sriracha brand but anyways they would give me that and I remember asking one day I had just

discovered my love for spice as a little baby boy. And I was like, do you have anything spicier than this? And there was like a teen mopping in the back. And he perks up and goes like, I got something spicy you can try. And again, I'm like a little child. And here is what I imagined was a teen worker. And then I was just like, okay.

And he comes out with a bottle of Da Bomb. What? This dude just had it on him. I don't know what his deal was. If you remember this, if you remember a small baby boy that you served Da Bomb hot sauce to, creating just an absolute insurance nightmare because that stuff can kill you. Oh, my gosh. The thing is, and he was like, yo, just dip a little toothpick in it, put the chicken on the toothpick and eat it.

And I did. And I just remember my mouth being on fire. little toothpick in it put the chicken on the toothpick and eat it and i did and i just remember my mouth being on fire but at that point i thought like that made you a man because i was a little eight-year-old boy and i didn't have a healthy model of masculinity to look up to you know i mean and so i thought that like this was a taste of manhood and so i thought i enjoyed the bomb until i was about 12 years old and then i watched eddie's million dollar cook-off and reframed the way that i think about gender and food uh and then anyways that's my ted talk that was really good i'm sorry that that happened to you

that sounds really bad no it was like a great experience it was he he wanted to share his love of spice and there are chili heads out there that like it yeah i don't know if anyone likes the flavor of da bomb because one of the other opinion castles that we got when we put our call out there uh so many people were just like hot sauce for the sake of heat is just sadistic and stupid and da bomb specifically is the worst example of that. And I think I agree with that. It is demonic. It's demonic sauce.

Even some other hot sauces that are incredibly hot, like Hot One's The Last Dab. It's got an incredible. I've never tried it before. Dude, it's like mustard based. It's just flavorful and delicious. It's too hot to consistently eat on anything. But I'm wondering like what that line is because I love the flavor of habanero. Yeah, me too.

There's a ton of habanero hot sauces out there that I love and I would have them closer to my favorites if I could eat more of them. Like El Yucateco Red. I could eat

El Yucateco Red easily. But like I can't dump it as much as I dump Gunslinger. You know what I mean? It's me that takes off the table

because I want to dump on every bite. But El Yucateco Red, there's another one. You want to get that one clean? What takes off the table because i want to dump on every bite but ellie could take a red there's another one you want to get that one clean what yeah i want to take a dump on every bite maggie get that clean i want to take a dump one more time one more time yeah i want to dump i want a spicy dump on every bite thank you i really wanted you to get that clean and clear you ever have melinda's xx extra hot it's not a pornography themed hot sauce no but i had melinda's ghost pepper wing sauce that the guys tried on the show it's so good it's so good melinda's does an incredible job oh my god it

was so good but it was so spicy i had to eat a piece of wonder bread after my meal it was really good though but there are a couple trusted hot sauce brands out there we talked about this like new wave of small batch artisanal hot sauces out there uh and there are there are a lot of duds you know that they're taking there are a lot of duds it's just they're using buzzwords like uh like i don't know like uh blood orange and uh chiltepin pepper like you don't need to put those things in there like i don't need all that stuff just give me some good stuff to put on my burgers that said what um the brand mexico lindo mexico lindo salsa well they have the salsa negra they have like the salsa hab Well, they have the salsa negra. They have like the salsa habanero. We have the salsa negra. They have the salsa chile tapin as well.

And chile chile tapin is like one of the most delicious chilies out there. It's like a fruitier arbol. Oh, it's so good. I'm talking about those weird hipster brands that have like a weird, like an anthropomorphic snake on it. Yeah, they all have a weird little mascot. Yeah, I don't really care about that. Just give me, I don't need those buzzwords.

I don't need passion fruit in there unless it's really good sometimes no sometimes we found some we did a whole fruit based hot sauce bracket and there were some

really good ones in there there were some amazing ones there were some real duds there were some oh my god I was just like why does this exist why has this been produced

but uh what do you want strawberries fat cat strawberry serrano hot sauce one it wasn't my favorite it was not my favorite what was your favorite

out of the tropical ones my favorite I really liked dirty dicks dirty dicks is my favorite i really liked it i put that in a braise the other day wow i was making like braised short ribs and i wanted that like sweet heat and i dropped some of the dirty dicks tropical twist hot sauce in there really good but my favorite out of all of these when i tried it was the happy hippie dippy green hot sauce by angry goat pepper company i also stole the leftover bottle of that and i've been But my favorite out of all of these when I tried it was the Hippie Dippy Green Hot Sauce by Angry Goat Pepper Company. I also stole the leftover bottle of that and I've been using it at home as well. Those are my top two from this list that the guys tried. The Tabasco Raspberry Chipotle tasted like, literally tasted like syrup.

It was like a syrup, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like syrup. And then some of these, like the Angry Goat Pepper Co., the Purple Hippo was just like way too spicy, right? Anything that puts a super hot in there is typically too spicy. The Burns and McCoy with the Trinidad Scorpion, disgusting. Yeah, I did not know how spicy that was and I just dipped a fry in it and ate it. And within my body,

the way that if you drank a lot of cheap vodka in college and had bad experiences, your body smells cheap vodka now and will have an immediate gag reflex. I have that with super hot peppers. So anything past a habanero, like I taste Carolina Reaper and my body knows and it sends off an alarm bell and i gag which is wild um i had a great the human body the human body such a beautiful wonder that said uh

this angry goat pepper co the hippie dippy green sauce it's a freaking kiwi based hot sauce so gorgeous it's good but it's like it's a gimmick right well if you saw that you would say that's a gimmick this is someone asked the gimmick i think well you taste we tasted yeah that's what i'm saying it's good as hell yeah i guess i guess i gotta just get over my like uh what is it called harbingers harbinger no harangue hard james hard hard hardcore hard hard ball with chris matthews no you gotta get past, hard ball with Chris Matthews. You gotta get past your hard ball with Chris Matthews. Is that just a little?

I don't know. It's like a mental block. I just have to get over that mental block. Maybe if there's a cute little puppy on the hot sauce bottle with his tongue wagging out with X's on his eyes like Mr. Pickles. Maybe it's a good hot sauce. Maybe I just gotta tell myself that. Have you ever been to the hot sauce store in the Grove? No.

Oh my god. There's a hut. Oh my god. Hot myself that. Have you ever been to the hot sauce store in the Grove? No. Oh, my God. There's a Hut. Oh, my God. Hot sauce Hut. Have you ever found any great hot sauce in there? I got David's. I actually got David's Valentine's Day present in there. I got him three hot sauces.

One of them was Bad Babe. One of them was Ass Blaster. And I think the other one was. See, those are the ones that I have a mental block about. The ones that reference the booty hole ever. I don't need any of my food to reference the booty hole like i don't want to walk into i don't know a nice like salad chain and they're like this is a booty blaster 3000 salad it's got some nice toasted pepitas and romaine lettuce like i don't

want any food to reference the booty you never done a colon cleanse no i eat a lot of prunes i eat a lot of prunes you're just on a constant so there's a lot of people talking about sriracha being overrated don't talk about my colon. I'm moving on from that. Everyone's trying to find the quote unquote next sriracha, which like you can talk about how problematic it is that we try and just find any ingredient from another part of the world and say it's the next whatever ingredient from another part of the world.

However, however, there's another sauce. Well, it's not a sauce, which we'll get into. Paste? Gochujang. Oh, I love gochujang. I love gochujang too. Is gochujang a hot sauce? No.

No. It's a paste. I mean, it's a paste made from fermented soybean glutinous rice, actually, is what gives it the texture. Yeah. But I think it's really funny when people like try and pit sriracha, which is, I mean, essentially an American-made hot sauce meant to be a condiment. That's in the style of Southeast Asian hot sauces versus gochujang, which is like an ingredient, you know, that's meant to be used when you cut it with vinegar. And I believe a little bit of sugar. It turns into cho gochujang, which is typically eaten with Korean sushi.

Huey dup bap. Gimbap? No, Huey. I don't know what Huey is. It's like Korean raw fish. It's like typically served. It's this like thinned out vinegared version of gochujang. Oh, yum.

Okay. And it's this like thinned out vinegared version of gochujang oh yeah i'm okay uh and it's absolutely delicious um but i think it's weird when people are taking just like straight gochujang paste and like spreading it on stuff and i don't this is or like even mixing with mayonnaise it is not good gochujang and mayonnaise is a bad combination it's okay i think you need to have at least uh 80% mayonnaise to 20% gochujang yeah that makes sense but i think a lot of the world, they don't use harissa. Harissa is another example of this, right? It's not a hot sauce.

No, it's not. It's not a hot sauce. You could make a harissa hot sauce. You can. You can make a gochujang hot sauce. But I think a lot of people are just like reaching at any, what is perceived from an American lens as foreign spicy thing

and being like, this is the next sriracha. Someone like tweeted at me saying, harissa is the next sriracha. I'm like, harissa been around for thousands of years, man. It don't need to be the next sriracha. Yeah, I think saying harissa's the next sriracha i'm like harissa been around for thousands of years man don't need to be the next sriracha yeah i think sriracha is gonna last forever like uh like stonehenge sriracha is the stonehenge of hot sauces but what what other hot sauces from like around the world different cultures are

things that you really enjoy that's a great question i can't really think about that off the top of my head unfortunately what about you let me think i mean think about like the indonesian sambals what is it um sambal oh my god with the lemon no there's this uh it's a sambal terasi sambal terasi before it is a fermented shrimp paste sambal uh and it is absolutely dang but again it's not really i mean it's not like a hot sauce as we think about it uh it's you know a a paste that you you add to things and a condiment. I think that is absolutely fantastic. Love me just some good old-fashioned Thai sweet chili sauce. Yeah.

Actually, I'm not the biggest fan of that. It's too corn syrupy. Not the bottled stuff. But if you get the stuff that's, like, made fresh with a lot of that toasted fried chili that's ground in there, and then you put that on the fried chicken, like, that's an absolutely fantastic combination. But like the world of hot sauces is so vast and wide. There are all the Peruvian peppers.

Oh my gosh, yeah. Ahi Amarillo. Love Ahi Amarillo. There's actually this one restaurant that's in the South Bay. It's called De Sol. And I don't know exactly what kind of cuisine it is. I think it might be Dominican food. I think it might be Cuban food.

They have this amazing hot sauce that's like very watery. And it's very orange. And it has pure seeds of I don't know what kind of chili on there. But every time I go to the South Bay, I go to that restaurant. Is it not Brazilian? It's not Brazilian. This is not Brazilian. It's not Brazilian, but it's this beautiful, bright, orange, like separated hot sauce that's at every single table.

And you have to shake the bottle. If you are from San Francisco and you know what I'm talking about, you let me know, please. Did I say South Bay? That's down. Yeah, South Bay's down. North Bay, up. North, up, South, down.

Sorry, guys. I meant to say North Bay, San Francisco. I'm not very good at things right now, but that's the best hot sauce. I mean, any Caribbean scotch bonnet-based hot sauce. I mean, scotch bonnet, a lot of people think it's the same as a habanero. It's a slightly different lineage from it.

You know what I really like? Calypso sauce. Calypso sauce. Yes, Matuk's Calypso sauce. I love Calypso sauce. That's my new answer. Screw it. Honestly, no, but I mean, we use hot sauces for different things.

Like, Arizona Gunslinger is a pure red chili flavor. It tastes like red. In the same way that Jolly Rancher Red tastes like red, this tastes like chili red. But Matuk's tastes like yellow. It tastes like red in the same way that Jolly Rancher red tastes like red. This tastes like chili red, but Matuk's tastes like yellow. It tastes like really good yellow. Matuk's Calypso sauce, it's this beautiful, bright Caribbean hot sauce.

So good. Chock full of scotch bonnets. Absolutely delicious. Shout out to Datil Peppers out there too from St. Petersburg, Florida. Shout out to the Fatali pepper. Shout out to the Ricotto pepper

of Peru. God, I need some hot sauce right now. Alright, Nicole, I've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the Twitterverse. It's time for a segment we call Opinions are like casseroles! Hot sauce edition! Triple extreme! Ass blaster

3000. Oh, God, I don't like it. It makes me so uncomfortable. All right, yeah, so like we said, we reached out to people, and I got Ass Blaster on the brain. Of course. And we asked people for their hot sauce hot takes. I think a lot of people have them. Hot sauce hot takes.

Hot sauce ass takes. So we're going to start off off with friend of the show mika burton shout out to mika oh yes mika burton hello mika if you're listening i would i would like to hang out with you okay continue heat for the sake of heat is missing the point of hot sauce if you're trying to prove how high of a spice you can stand rather than enjoying slash enhancing a dish then just eat the sauce don't waste the food i maybe I, maybe, I don't know. I have, I have mixed feelings about this. I do too. I'm sorry. I have mixed feelings about this. Um, I think the pain of the hot sauce can actually change your experience with the food and everything

else you're enjoying. And I'm mostly talking about when I'm not sober. Oh, okay. That one of my favorite things to do is, uh, to be, you know, a little bit tipsy, responsibly, of course. Responsibly tipsy, uh-huh. And then I go to, what is that Korean dive bar that I love? Oh, I know. What's it called? I don't know, but I know. Densungsah.

Yeah, yeah, the one with the concrete everywhere. Yeah, it's like all wood, all concrete everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go to the Korean dive bar, Densungsah, and they have something called fire chicken, and you eat it, and your mouth is burning for the next several several hours uh my favorite thing to do is eat that fire chicken and i'm a little tipsy i'm drinking beer the beer's cooling it down it makes the beer taste different and i'm just sweating into a bowl of soup and it's that extreme spice that makes the soup and the beer taste different and better and to me that is an experience that i absolutely love

and you get the topoki in there oh interesting so i have a little bit of a different scenario so i remember very spicy foods that i eat like i have a very distinct memory like one time i went and got hot wings after disneyland with my sister and her best friend and her best friend's sister and i just remember very vividly then the the link the the sentence my pores are opening from spiciness and like it's those little things that like those are the memories you associate with doing something than the sentence, my pores are opening from spiciness. And it's those little things that like, those are the memories you associate with doing something really dramatic,

like eating a very spicy hot sauce. Like whenever I took my best friend to Jitlada and she's like not the most adventurous eater. I took it there and I got some of the spicy things on the menu and both of our noses were watering and we're like, oh, this is horrible. I can't believe we're doing this. But it's a memory.

So I think it's adventurous. I think it's being able to be adventurous without skydiving in a weird way. It's fun. No, I agree. You get a physical adrenaline rush from the members. But I also see the point of like railing against the machismo aspect of it. Where it's like, oh, you can't handle spice, you know? And like dogging on people for that, which is really stupid.

But that said, sometimes it's fun to ride the lightning, man. Sometimes it is. Every now and then I understand it. But also I'm a a girl with gi issues so i can't have fun like that anymore i also found myself once taking a group of eight people to love to eat thai oh yum you know i've never been there we we gotta go honestly take me some of the best sites all southern thai and you know very very spicy um but i didn't think it was anything people couldn't handle five out of the eight people straight up took one bite of the crab curry, the Phuket-style crab curry, and said, I can't physically take another bite.

And so then I was looking at the procession of dishes that were to come, and I was like, oh, that's spicy. That papaya salad, that's real spicy. Oh, no. And so it was just me and two other people being like, oh, I'm sorry, stuffing our faces with jade noodles. And it was fantastic. All right.

Sam Schoen at Neafin says, I genuinely do not care what brand hot sauce a diner has in a bottle. Tapatio, Tabasco, Cholula, Red Hot. As long as it has some oomph to my hash browns, I am happy. Okay. I love this. A pure hot sauce neutralist. There's some out there.

And I don't necessarily disagree with it. Would you, if you're at a diner and you just want to put some because even when i'm at a diner i mix the hot sauce with ketchup oh okay so i especially don't really care what brand they have no all i well i don't really care either i just kind of regardless of a restaurant i go to i always say do you have hot sauce yeah then they say we have this this this and this i say bring them all yeah that's how i am when they're like we don't have coke we only i'm like i don't care i need the fizzy brown chemical liquid in my mouth i just i need i need the spice to add them to my hash browns and i really respect and appreciate this i mean i don't eat at a lot of diners i'm not gonna lie i don't i don't actually either i'm not a diner person whenever it's like it's like a twice a year thing for me yeah whenever

i go out to eat chances are that they will have two bottled hot sauces and two homemade hot sauces you know what i mean where restaurants i kind of know what you mean though places that i eat i eat mostly mexican and thai food so i get like like uh there's there's either like a little cart not a car but the little pulley thing you know what i mean the round thing that's like a i don't know i don't know what it's called uh so there's typically hot sauces there but sometimes they have some in the back and you have to ask them and then uh they bring out some hot sauces that they make themselves which i really really enjoy and then they have some bottled stuff too that i'm down to try too love that love the hot sauce neutralist all right this is really interesting we got at mpbx 3003

acid and heat should be separate functions like spicing and salting sorry tony c's that's really interesting and then they said they can't really vibe with vinegar forward hot sauces for that reason because they either want pure pepper or acid it doesn't need to be mixed together interesting see because whenever i associate hot sauce with being spicy first and vinegary second i have the opposite where i'm mostly adding hot sauce i mean i always want my food to be spicy but i'm mostly adding hot sauce for the acid and the vinegar really yeah which is why a lot of oil sauce i don't care But it's called hot sauce. I don't care what it's called.

I care what it does to me. I care how it makes me feel on the inside. And that's why I generally don't vibe super... Like, I love Lao Gan Ma, the chili crisp. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But to me, it misses the acid that I want if that's traditionally what I want in a dish. Yeah, but whenever I'm having Lao Gan Ma, it's typically on top of something that has that acid already.

Or a food that doesn't. Like my putting Lao Gan Ma, I have a very strong sense memory of going to Mian. Mian are my favorite noodles in, what is it, Jia Jiang Mian? Not Jia Jiang Mian. I don't know, but it's the spicy Sichuan noodles and just loading the Lao Gan Ma on top of that and just slurping it. And there's so much just like fat and spice and a little bit of acid in that broth. And then just that like dusky, chilly nuttiness coming through on that Lao Gan Ma just sets it off and it's absolutely beautiful. But that said, typically I'm there for the acid.

Sometimes I dip my bread in Lao Gan Ma. It's really good. That's good as hell. It's really good. But yeah, in some places do. I'm thinking about you go to Filipino spot

in Silver Lake uh Mamster Mamster I don't think it's open anymore actually well man RIP Mamster but I mean

they have just you know seasoned coconut vinegar that you can add to your food oh yum and it's really fantastic and so I get the separate acid and spice thing and I think it's something

we should explore more yeah but you ever go to Thai food places and they have like a big jar full of vinegar and chili peppers on top? Yeah. That's good. That's pretty much it. Yeah. That's good. I like that.

I like that too. I'm a big fan. But I also just like normalizing adding crushed dried chilies to the table like at Thai restaurants. Yeah. That's good. That's good. I'm down. Okay.

Add A underscore JJ says every single meal you should consume throughout the day should have hot sauce slash spice. Sometimes I don't add hot sauce, but I'll grill a serrano or a habanero on the side with a meal. You know, again, as a woman with GI issues, I don't have the ability to live like that. Sometimes I need to eat some plain stuff. Also, I don't know about you, Josh,

but my palate gets blown out sometimes because I'm eating so much fun stuff. I'm doing so many fun things. I just need some clean, normal food that doesn't have any spice to it. Something that my palate can enjoy. And then I can eat spicy stuff later. I put hot sauce on almost everything I eat, though. But sometimes like maybe in the morning and maybe at the nighttime.

But like I need at least one meal that's like a buffer. That happens to me like once a month. I know what you mean. Your palate gets blown out. We have, I mean, a fridge full of like 50 hot sauces in the kitchen. We're eating so much good stuff all the time. Generally very rich, very acidic, very spicy. The other day I was just craving a nice piece of fish with like a very dill heavy warm potato salad.

And I made that. And I was like, why is this the thing I'm craving? Just like plain fish and like a mustardy, you know, a dilly herbaceous potato salad. But it was, and it like reset my palate. And I was like, all right, cool. Let's eat a giant like birria burrito after that. But I get that. I get that like not every single meal should have spice.

That said, for me in practice, it's like 96%. Yeah, I do add a lot of hot sauces to my foods, but my tummy gets mad at me afterwards. You should read the next one. My tummy's like coated with just an epoxy. You should read the next one because it basically touches on what I just said. All right, we got a friend of the show. Such a good friend. Shout out to the vulgar chef, Kyle Marcoux.

If it's good going in, it's going to be better coming out. I hate you. Talk about ass blaster 3000. I hate you. I love you, but sometimes I hate you. Okay, well, no, let's be serious, Nicole. We're amateur scientists here. This is a reality that you have to face.

And there was only one time where it really affected my day-to-day life. And that was after I had a Johnny Ray Zone from Howlin' Ray's original Howlin' recipe. Oh, my gosh. And it turns out he's using pure capsaicin extract at the time. He no longer does that, but this is why he was testing it and decided to use me as a lab rat and that combined with all the oil created a sort of you know fiery oil slick situation

you ever watch a drag racing car take off hold on I'm gonna be sick you ever watch a drag racing car take off and like the tire tracks actually have flames on them because of the friction and the residue that was what it was like for me the next day and I physically could not sit down at work. I was doing my, I was an assistant editor for a publication

and I was a standing desk all day. And it was wild. That sounds disgusting. So yeah, in short, yeah, Kyle, you're right. Horrible. All right. Atomic underscore steel says, just because I can't eat anything spicier than Frank's

Red Hot does not mean I'm a little baby or evolutionary weak. I don't care what my roommate says. You need to get out of that house, baby. I don't care what your roommate says either. They're mean. That is toxic. And you know what? You are no less of a person because of your hot sauce tolerance. You are accepted. You are loved. Don't worry about it.

Just get out of the house because I don't want your roommate to talk to you like that that's true that said like also you know step up your game maybe do a little training I'm just saying I'm just saying listen if you're

physically incapable of doing something don't force yourself to do it life is so beautiful there's so many experiences you can have having hot sauce

is not one of them if anything you're evolutionarily smarter because capsaicin is literally a plant's defense mechanism to be like don't eat this. I'm going to poison you and make you hurt.

And then through some weird reverse evolutionary trick, we like derive pleasure from that pain. And we're like, suck it, peppers. We're going to eat you and just scar our mouths and our buttocks. Weirdos. All right. We got at Maddie J. At CBUS Punk. Hott hottest take is

using a hot sauce with a high sugar content like sriracha to slather meats for searing and roasting due to the caramelization that

occurs with the sugars creates a wonderful sweet with a hint of spice flavor profile highly recommend yeah bruh yeah for sure

I love to glaze my bacon with sriracha and brown sugar it's killer the way that Ko Tu Jong glazes meats uh is absolutely unrivaled and that's because of the sugar and also the glutinous rice creating

that texture like just a straight gochujang or do you thin it out with water i typically add i'll make like a braise or something uh and then i'll make sure there's like a little bit of sugar in that braise and then i'll add that to the pot and let that reduce. And as it reduces, I'll add the gochujang in it to get it to the point where it like completely becomes a dry glaze on that. And do that to like short ribs, you know, any sort of pork, absolutely delicious. Or I'll just, I mean, I use it in a lot of marinades.

Like the other day I just took chicken breast, just kind of using whatever I had in my kitchen, sliced it really thin, added like ginger, onion, garlic, gochujang, a little bit of soy, a little bit of vinegar, a little bit of honey, seared that off super hot. And it was just, oh, the glaze. Yeah, I totally agree with this. This is an amazing opinion.

Way to go. Okay. Taco Bell underscore killer says Tabasco is really good if you want a vinegary hot sauce. People act like it's some garbage, but it's a damn barrel-aged fermented hot sauce. If you told someone how it's made But not the name they would think it's some gourmet product

Yes Preach Squirrel Squirrel Squirrel The moldy jam restaurant Squirrel okay they're really good They're a foundational restaurant of LA

Whatever But I was at Squirrel the other day And it was like do you want to add Lacto fermented hot sauce for one dollar And it was a thimble A thimble of lacto fermented hot We are scientists We lacto fermentfermented hot sauce for $1, and it was a thimble. A thimble of lacto-fermented hot sauce. We are scientists. We lacto-ferment our hot sauce

and let our jam grow mold. But no, lacto-fermented, one, anything that's fermented, pickles, the pickles at McDonald's are lacto-fermented, for crying out loud. And so, yeah, so is Sriracha, so is Tabasco. And I agree with this.

Tabasco has a very unique flavor profile that is good on certain things. I get it. It's an old school. It was your dad's hot sauce. No one wants to listen to your dad's records or your dad's hot sauce.

But put some damn respect on the lacto-fermented Tabasco name. God dang it. Amen. Woo! Preach, brother. All jacked up.

All right. At Sid O'Fray, eating hot and spicy food isn't a personality and spice doesn't need to... Let me hit it. Spice doesn't need to be... Why am I so bad at doing the clapping thing i don't know spice doesn't even white man i don't know white boy eating hot spicy food is not a personality and spice doesn't need

to be in every single dish there we go you're welcome uh well if eating hot and spicy food isn't a personality then honey i ain't got no personality i'm just a blank slate. Yep. No, I agree with this. But, you know, it's like a shared bond that people can have. Yeah, I think people that enjoy spicy food together grow closer. I think so. You know, like you said,

it's kind of a bit of a risk-taking behavior. And I'm justifying that because I embody all the things wrong with hot sauce culture. Hmm. Hmm. We can extrapolate on that later. Oh, all right. But keep going with this now We can extrapolate on that later. Oh, all right,

but keep going with this now. We'll talk about that later. At mustache underscore kids says Valentina slept on the black bottle extra spice is a game changer. I agree. Valentina slept on

literally said that like five minutes ago. Yeah. The black bottle. What is this black bottle? Valentina black bottle? Oh, it's just extra hot.

Extra hot Valentina. Is it good? It's good. Yeah. Cause I mean like Valentina tons of acid, tons of chili flavor. I think it, it is lacking a little bit in heat., like, Valentina, tons of acid, tons of chili flavor. I think it is lacking

a little bit in heat. Sometimes if you want a little bit extra, still tons of flavor in the black bottle, extra hot. It's really good. If you've never had Valentina, get a bottle. It's really good. It's just good stuff. Yeah, try it out. It's got more acid than Tapatio. It's more acidic than Tapatio. But similar dusky chili heat, which is really interesting. Really like it.

We got Ashlyn Spove. Fast food restaurants have the best hot sauce in Del Scorcho from taco, or Del Scorcho from Del Taco. Sorry, it's God tier. Del Scorcho is under seasoned. What a take. But I think hot, fast food hot sauces deserve recognition.

Okay, what's your favorite fast food hot sauce? Taco Bell fire sauce. Taco Bell fire sauce. It's, it's got, because you're never going to get like a good artisanal hot sauce that's shelf stable in the packet. Yeah, no one's expecting that. No, it's got because you're never gonna get like a good artisanal hot sauce that's shelf stable in the packet yeah no one's expecting that no it's right it's got to be syrupy it's got to be you know a little bit processed and to me taco bell fire sauce walks that line of being like salty enough acidic enough it's got the sugar to make it shelf stable and enough actual chili

puree in there del scorcho to me it's it's under seasoned it's it's still good it's a good hot sauce it's better than like a Jack in the Box taco sauce I love Jack in the Box taco sauce I love that stuff oh my god I could just slurp the packet Gustavo Arellano writes a lot about the idea

of taco sauce and when like fast food restaurants started making it in like you know the early like 60s and 70s and how it's something that like you know

does not it doesn't exist in any culinary canon it's a pure innovation of the fast food industry that they were like we're going to take the sweetness of ketchup and then a little bit of spice from salsa and then just put that in a little pouch have you ever had the halal guys hot sauce yes killer what is that it's i don't know it's spicy as heck it's really too spicy

for me it is you get i mean but it's great because you get that with the creamy uh what is i believe watered down mayonnaise and sour cream with a little bit of allspice in it or something. Maybe. I think literally like you take a needle

and you put the needle in the hot sauce packet and then you look in you're done for the day. It's so killer. Oh my god. You know who loves Lao Gan Ma?

John Cena loves Lao Gan Ma. I know. You and Trevor talk about that all the time. And on that note thank you for listening to a hot dog is a sandwich. If you want to hear more

from us here in the Mythical Kitchen we got new episodes for you every Wednesday. If you want to be featured on opinions or like casseroles, you can hit us up on Twitter at Mythical Chef or and Hendy Zada with the hashtag opinion casserole. For more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube where we launch new videos every week. And of course, if you want to share pictures of your dishes and your favorite hot sauces, hit us up on Instagram at Mythical Kitchen. We'll see you next time. We didn't make hot sauce.

I've been saying that for years. you