On Hot Sauce Styles
Yesterday, I watched a video from Brian Ambs titled “Hot Sauces From Beginner To Expert” or something along those lines. I’m not going to link it in these pages, but I urge you to check it and his channel out. Mikey V also has a very lengthy page on his website about this, which goes into far greater depth, which I am going to link. He bases his on geographical regions, which I also do to an extent, as you will see below, but here is the page of Mikey’s: https://www.mikeyvsfoods.com/post/the-ultimate-guide-to-types-of-hot-sauces?srsltid=AfmBOooqCId5fvbQ5PNFDhh3pxfp3qXQTvMriv9zDUWWEl-mnfe9eNQO. I can't say I'm in full agreement on this matter with either of these fine gentlemen, who are also not directly in agreement with each other's positions, but believe both are worthy of consideration to see where you fall on this topic.
Since Brian's video was the one which prompted this post, I will address it a bit further. I found the video a touch inconsistent in its approach, given that one of his criteria seemed based on availability, which is so wildly erratic that for me, for the most part, it’s essentially a non-consideration. I make no claims to know about what things are like in Ohio, where Brian is, but for me, my first impulse is to get something off of a brick and mortar shelf. I am very spoiled, in that I have Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue busily scouring the globe for new stuff to bring in and stock in his 3 separate locations, but there are also 3 additional other outlets, not counting grocery stores, that I can think of off the top of my head that warrant at least a casual glance for sauces and if I include grocery stores, it’s probably closer to a dozen. I would be remiss not to mention that grocery store chains will often not stock things identically from store to store, so there is a good amount of variety.
I think before I get much further into this, which I again thank Brian for inspiring and which I should have done long ago (I mentally did some of this when I developed my ranking criteria all those years ago and admittedly made the mistake of assuming everyone was on a similar wavelength), we need to take a step back and take a look at this, as is frequently the case with me, scientifically. We do this by first reviewing where hot sauces fit in, with regard to the general framework of the food world, so we can better understand the context. To do this, we need to discard both words “hot,” which is a colloquialism at best, and “sauce,” which is so generic as to be meaningless, and instead look at category. That larger category would be condiments (or if we want to do this in a taxonomy phrasing, it would be Order or possibly Class), those semi-solid food additives which are meant to be paired with something. So, things like mayonnaise/aioli (if you want to be fancy), ranch dressing, mustard, barbeque sauce, etc. would all conceivably be part of this. The reason I call back to the taxonomy stuff is because words matter, or they should matter.
I spend a lot of time in these pages bemoaning that makers are inclined to call everything they put in a bottle “hot sauce” because that is one of the hottest (*ahem*) sectors of the market and the thinking is that they are more likely to sell product by labeling this way. For the entirety of this blog, I’ve resisted adding ambiguous products, unless the manufacturer specifically insists and in those cases, I will note that something is more properly a mustard, for example, and not really a hot sauce and me scaling it as if it were a hot sauce will be to its distinct disadvantage, sort of like if one rated dogs based on how well they operate a bicycle through an obstacle course.
Anyway, given that hot sauce is a condiment, we can move to specificity and for me, it comes in a singular way, just as with all other condiments, and that is to application, specifically when, where, and how you use it, or if you prefer, to the actual food pairings. So, when I think of styles or types, words which I use interchangeably to refer to this facet because we do not yet have an actual taxonomy-like system, it is in direct reference to those questions. You can have literally any heat scale you want within the various sauce types, so we also take that out of consideration, the same as availability earlier.
With all that in mind, here is how I categorize the different hot sauce styles, which is listed alphabetically, though I will point out that, just as with music genres, the categories are not necessarily exclusive to each other and this list is meant to be more a broad overview, as in most sauces will fit into these style (or sub-styles), rather than encompassing:
Asian-Style: This is one where filtering them regionally, as Mikey V does, would be
useful, but I don't encounter them enough to parse in that way and this
sort of broad stroke I do in the name of expedience, while recognizing that
the flavors of China, South Korea, Thailand, and Japan, to name just a few, are
distinct to themselves. The sauces here, accordingly, run a somewhat diverse gamut from sweeter sauces, to ones with greater emphasis on certain flavors, like soy sauce or teriyaki, to the near-ubiquitous sriracha style and even within this style, the sauces are very dependent on food pairings. This is perhaps the least flexible of all of the styles, where the sauces are fairly food-locked into the respective dishes they’re meant to be paired with.
Boutique - These are sauces that are meant to highlight a specific component or characteristic in the creation of the sauce moreso than pairing. In the case of Brian, where his crossover sauce with High Desert contains a very expensive spice called saffron, that would be an example. Another would be the vast majority of the Torchbearer line, where they have a very distinct approach to making sauce and they are set apart from the rest of the market as a result.
Caribbean - Like the Asian style, this type typically references an entire region and various produce grown there, so things like Scotch Bonnets and Trinidad Scorpions and mustards and tropical fruits, made into a lively and vibrant sauce that echoes that very distinctive cuisine style. These sauces are often very complex (like jerk flavoring or blackened chicken both can be) and I often find this moves away from what I’m looking for in a sauce, as I don’t typically eat that kind of food, but it does serve as a very nice change of pace and a good introduction to approach that rich island flavor.
Everyday (Table): This is a style of sauce that is meant to have a general and delicious enough flavor to be paired suitably with all comers, whatever food you may care to throw in front of it. Actual practice doesn’t quite reach the lofty aspirations of that concept, however, as it’s hard for any sauce to do that, particularly at a high level. This is a relatively new type and for many years, you’d see either various Mexican-style sauces or Louisiana-Style sauces (those two being considered the most room temperature stable and universal in flavor) employed in this fashion before makers started looking harder at this as its own distinctive style. This is one of the more flexible sauce types overall in terms of reach.
Kitchen Sink: This style tends to list many, many, many ingredients, to the point where the result can easily and readily experience flavor cancellation when attempting to pair it and is almost a destination unto itself. This is another type that tends to be quite narrow in terms of where it works with food and is one I will normally look past because of that facet.
Louisiana-Style - This style of sauce is usually one of simplicity, which is: (highly strained) chile (usually Cayenne), vinegar, salt. Often water and/or xanthan gum will be additionally added, but the idea is to have a thin, watery, very chile-forward sauce with a hard vinegar hit. For this style, texture plays a fairly prominent and specific role and these are the most likely to come (appropriately) with a restrictor cap. Sauces in this style are useful for cutting through rich foods and is probably the most common type, at least in the United States, especially when noting that many, many wing sauces (this is its own category and not strictly a hot sauce, per se) are based on it. This is the one type of sauce I will not be without. If additional elements, such as garlic, etc. are added to it, I refer to it as a sub-style, that of Cajun, and sauces there also tend to run a bit thicker.
Mexican-style - This is another more distinctive style, meant to pair with the various foods of that country. This one also probably has the least variation within entries into this type. While some of these sauces, such as Cholula, can be used equally well outside of those various dishes, most of them will find diminishing returns under that circumstance. Like the Asian-style sauces, these are generally locked into food pairings of those typical regional flavors.
Novelty - This style and one of its spinoff sub-types, the Challenge/Stunt sauce variant, are not really meant to be used with food, and in the case of Novelty, possibly not used at all or even opened. This also includes the vast majority of holiday samplers, a number of which I’ve reviewed in these pages. For many of them, you are purchasing a label referencing a state or vitriol for a specific political candidate or party or an over-exuberant fondness for firearms or some graphically described or suggested destruction of various parts of the intestinal tract, just to name a few I’ve seen. It doesn’t matter what’s in the bottle, at all, because you are essentially buying a display piece.
Pepper - In a lot of ways, this is similar to the Louisiana-Style, in that it is very chile-forward and may only have 2 or 3 other ingredients, but sauces of this type are generally a lot thicker and usually without the hard vinegar hit. One could also think of it as the difference between being a sauce rather than a straight across puree. The last two Hot Ones Last Dabs would fit into this category, to give you an idea.
Sweet-Hot - This is one of my favorite styles and one I usually keep on hand and generally use the fastest. It is as you would expect, a hot sauce with an emphasis on a sweet element. I will usually divide it further by source of the sweetness, such as Fruit-based Sweet-Hot, for instance, in the reviews, but the fundamental idea is still the same. There may be an emphasis towards a specific fruit, for instance, but generally, the underlying chile sauce is not usually particularly complex and meant to serve as a base, with the sweet element being much more to the fore. The uses here will depend greatly on the sweetness source, with the less pointed the ingredient, the broader the use.
