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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsHot sauces from every state in America
A lot here I want to try
http://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends-news/article/american-hot-sauces
NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)I've tried that stuff. Just one point above heinous.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)We use a load of it.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)But I still prefer the other one.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Crystal is the most popular in New Orleans; it used to be made there, right up the street from me in fact, until Katrina. They rebuilt upriver in Reserve.
One of my NOLA contacts suggests that if Sriracha can't strike a deal with Irwindale, CA, they should relocate to NOLA instead of Texas, as has been discussed!
edit: Right down the street (Carrollton Ave.) was Streetcar Sandwiches. They had bottles of at least 40 different kinds of hot sauce from all over the world on the tables! I'm pretty sure that's where I first discovered habanero.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)McIlhenny's Tabasco sauce is the original and will forever be associated with Louisiana. Good, bad or indifferent, the sauce is recognized as a Louisiana product anywhere in the United States.
yuiyoshida
(41,832 posts)I saw Tabasco in Tahiti as well as Scotland which surprised me!
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)Most of those look pretty wimpy or too vinegary.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)Chan790
(20,176 posts)They're a haute cuisine magazine.
They're not looking for the hottest, but for the most gourmet and tastiest. A lot of the ultra-hot sauces like pain and ass-sweat.
The one that made no sense to me was Louisiana for Louisiana. That's slightly more offensive than if they'd made Texas Pete the choice for Texas...because Texas Pete is actually a decent hot sauce. Louisiana is awful. I'd have gone with Crystal or Tabasco or one of the weird brands that people make in their backyard bathtub and only sell through the local shrimp shack.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)I've tasted about a third of those and they're crap.
Arcanetrance
(2,670 posts)Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)kwassa
(23,340 posts)which is out in the middle of nowhere, but still a slick corporate tour for tourists.
The one interesting fact that came out of it was that they would give chili pickers a red-painted stick to judge the right color the pepper ready to be picked.
En francais, red stick is "baton rouge".
The other impression of Louisiana is that there are a million local hot sauces that never make it out of the state.
Personally, I can't stand Tabasco, because I've had too much of it in life. I favor Asian hot sauces, finding sauces in my local ethnic market. Even Sriracha is old hat. I like bottles with no English names on them.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)Short story, I've had the real thing. Hand carried by CIA operatives who worked with my wife on a NOAA/NASA project many, many, moons ago.
They knew I was Mexican. They wanted to surprise me.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)and Kaffir lime leaves.
and my local ethnic market has a rack of about 40 types of dried chilis. I have no idea of what the differences are.
OriginalGeek
(12,132 posts)I grew up in Texas and love jalapeño but never evolved much hotter than that. I remember the first time I tried a Thai red curry.
I do NOT remember it fondly.
(Turns out I LOVE Thai red curry but I have to order it "american mild". Even medium is just too much sweat for me. I'm staying out of the kitchen.)
That said, I do still like to _try_ hotter sauces - I just don't glop them all over my food. We go to lunch every Tuesday to a local chain for Taco Tuesday that has a hot sauce bar and they are always rotating great, fun (and hot) sauces in. One of my faves is Louisiana Swamp Scum. It's billed as a "medium" heat but is still nowhere near what those Thai folks do.
And I don't really care for the flavor of regular Tabasco but I love their chipotle Tabasco.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)The taste of fresh green Thai peppers cannot be described, but it can be imitated:
Take a pair of vise-grips. Tighten the gap to about 1/4" and then clamp them on the side of your tongue. That's the sensation of biting a green Thai pepper; pure 100% pain. Not heat, not cold, just pain.
After I bit the first one I knew I was in trouble but I saw them watching me. So I took a second one and bit into it. Then I smiled at them, waited the longest minute in my life, and slowly made my way to the kitchen to put a small pile of salt on my tongue and waited for the pain to subside.
a la izquierda
(11,795 posts)And McIlhenny was on the table. I couldn't believe it.
sendero
(28,552 posts).... this stuff but nobody likes it's funky fermented taste. It doesn't matter how "authentic" it is or when it was first made, as a huge consumer of hot sauces of various kinds I can say without reservation that it sucks.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)sendero
(28,552 posts).... from LA and it doesn't suck
jmowreader
(50,560 posts)It's made in Winston-Salem.
The problem with these kinds of lists is, the people who make them want to show how cool they are, and "cool" is defined as finding obscure shit. That's how Hudson's Hamburgers n Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, keeps making lists of The Best Hamburgers in America when they don't even have the best hamburgers in Coeur d'Alene.
blueamy66
(6,795 posts)Couldn't get it in AZ 10 years ago.
Arcanetrance
(2,670 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Raffi Ella
(4,465 posts)I haven't had the one from GA, I'll have to look it up. The one from Rhode Island sounds good too.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)I know there must be some local Arkansas brand because I bought some many years ago at a local festival, but I can't remember the name of it.
Demoiselle
(6,787 posts)I was right.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Good and Evil Hot Sauce, produced by the War Eagle Mill near Rogers, Arkansas.
http://war-eagle-mill.mybigcommerce.com/good-and-evil-hot-sauce/
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)RebelOne
(30,947 posts)WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)JCMach1
(27,559 posts)jakeXT
(10,575 posts)The pink plastic brain isnt joking around: This is a seriously hot sauce. Made with mango, mandarin oranges, chipotle and habanero chiles, this sauce, as Crazy Jerry says, is for The kind of folks who get their kicks spittin into the wind and arm rasslin big women.
OK
I just looked it up and was gonna say! Glad I scrolled down before I commented, haha. Not very high falutin but if Bon Apetit says it's good then who am I to judge.
sendero
(28,552 posts).... that hot sauces with sweet components. Yuk! they (hot and sweet) do not go to together! Pfooey!
Nolimit
(142 posts)This stuff is rad on everything!
Trailrider1951
(3,414 posts)Arcanetrance
(2,670 posts)NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)kwassa
(23,340 posts)I first encountered in LA, but it is all over the east coast, too. I always have some in the fridge.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)It's all about the crabs.
Xyzse
(8,217 posts)I still have to try DC Redbone.
I will check it out this Friday! I'm glad it at least hit 3 on the Heat Meter.
I may want to try the one from Kansas for kicks and giggles.
Though Infusion Hypernova which also has 3 on the Heat Meter from MD where I'm at sounds fine. I am not sure how I would be with infused vinegar, as it mentions. I am not in to hot sauce on salad, but I may have to try it.
I've tried the one from New Mexico. I am a little bit surprised that they are showing a red sauce rather than a green chili sauce.
As for Virginia, that looks weak on the heat meter, but I may have to try it to add a little kick on barbecue. Most of my family except for me and my brother can't really handle heat any way.