These are hot sauces that I have known, loved dearly and will never be without...mostly. Since I'm going through a Renaissance of sorts, it's possible some old favorites may get the heave-ho to make way for some new loves...I will also include past loves in here as well...none of these on this list will be reviewed from this point on (09.12.12), though if a new sauce makes it on the list in a review after this is posted, it won't be deleted. Clear as fucking mud, right?
Circa 09.12.12 (in no particular order):
Trappey's Red Devil
This one has been with me the longest (I fell in love with it the first time I tried it nearly 20 years ago) and though it does not pack much, if any, heat, it is perhaps the greatest of them all. It is a typical vinegar/cayenne based sauce, but the blend is such that it's one of the few sauces I've found that I could drink straight. Aside from Mexican food, which does not tolerate vinegar particularly well, it goes with everything else well and elevates the taste astronomically. Those cheap shitty frozen dinners that you got for a buck at the grocery store to have at work? Throw some of this on there and elevate them to a whole new level. Does it make them great? No. Nothing exists to make shit shine (yet), but for $1.50/bottle, this is the greatest taste to dollar ratio value there is. Unfortunately, several grocers around me have stopped carrying it lately and I have to drive several blocks to get it. I usually clean out the stock of whatever store I find it in when it's shopping time, which could be up to 12 bottles, but it is well worth it. This is one of the few sauces I won't be without and always have on hand. In fact, I typically have stock both at work and at home, perhaps the greatest testament to a sauce I can make.
Thai Kitchen Red Curry
Not a sauce per se, but my wife likes to use this when she makes the jumble of random vegetables and chicken in a sauce pan stirred with coconut milk and a few spoonfuls of this and calls it "curry". I find it useful to spike up the otherwise bland version of Thai peanut chicken deviation I make at the behest of her son from an engagement previous to me. The most I've seen it for is $3.99 for the little-ass jar this comes in, but the shit lasts damn near forever and complements the Asian-based foods I make overall well. As long as I stay married to my current wife, I'd expect it to be a staple. It is minorly hot and mostly non-offensive and doesn't take up too much door refrigerator space.
Huy Fong Chili-Garlic Sauce
This is my preference as far as Asian-oriented sauces go. Most of the time you can throw a couple bucks at it and have one of these small jars. They don't ever seem to last as long as the Thai Kitchen red curry, but somewhat longer than the Red Devil. Like the Red Devil, they have a great range of uses, excepting Mexican, again, but if ever there is a lull in usage, this also degrades somewhat quickly and dries on the sides, a trend wholly unpalatable if ever there was one. Still, no refrigerator is complete without it.
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Since undertaking this new quest, I've moved a number of sauces out of rotation and have opened up the market to the new and exciting possibilities out there. Here is, more or less, my sauce graveyard, though I enjoyed my time with them all greatly.
TryMe Tiger Sauce
Red Devil was the second-longest and this was the first. I was introduced to this in high school, which put it at least 25 years+ by my side. It was the first sauce I loved, though even then I knew it had very limited uses. Specifically, we're talking fish, pork, potatoes and other very light meats. As time wore on, I mixed with Yoshida's and the Huy Fong Chili-Garlic sauce to make my bodybuilder's concoction of tuna and jasmine rice, but the writing was on the wall. I love sweet and hot, but this was never hot enough, unless spiked with jalapenos and then only barely and the taste, though distinctive, is something I crave very rarely now, if ever. I still have some left and it's been there a while. Once I clear that bottle, I'm not sure I will ever get another.
Texas Pete Hot Sauce
This is the original, not the hotter or chipotle versions, which I have yet to try, though probably will get to at some point. I encountered this at Chick-Fil-A and was impressed enough with how it blended with the entree' offerings there to get a bunch of packets at the restaurant. Once I ran out of them, I got a bottle, since I was low-to-out of Red Devil and wanted a backup. As far as backups go, this would be acceptable to cover for a lack of Red Devil, at least temporarily. It is slightly spicier, slightly saltier, but despite my initial impression, far less tastier. While better than Frank's (as is nearly everything), it is not Red Devil and once I run the bottle out, I don't see another one in my future. This is also the fastest run of anything I've considered as a staple, as well.
Cholula/Tapatio
For a while, during a sort of down period, this was the best I could do and I made the most of it. Cholula is great on a salad, but is a sort of dismal chili powder-based concoction. It will do in a pinch or in a restaurant if that's the best they can do, but that's about it. Tapatio was brought to me by some Mexican friends from CA. It was evidently a sort of regional sauce there. It tastes sort of cheap, but worked well to spice up the cups of ramen noodles I found myself frequently eating at the time. I got away from it for about 15 years and tried it again recently. Still as cheap-tasting as ever, but in a pinch, it's better than any taco sauce from Ortega, La Victoria or whatever chain restaurant in that line you can name (looking at you, Taco Bell).
Pico Pica
This is a hard one to walk away from because I've burned through many, many bottles of this. It was a standby for years and had many attributes I liked: nice hearty thickness, good, solid earthy tones, a very distinctive taste and smell and was no more than $2 a bottle. This is the kind of sauce you can pour into a bag of Fritos, shake it up and just eat them like that for a tasty snack. Being chili powder-based, it is sort of a one-trick pony and for the taste being distinctive, it is somewhat strong, nearly to the point of overpowering. It makes it easy to use if you like the taste and very difficult to taste when you develop your palate more to want to catch a wider array of food tones. I still think it is a good sauce, but like most kid's cereals to me, I think I've outgrown the taste.
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