Winner of the 2004 International Fiery Food Challenge, VooDoo Magic Hot Sauce is the creation of Chef Ahrun.  On the bottle’s label, two skeletons dance around three red chilies on a floor of flames, while behind the text is what appears to be a piece of burlap, representing the “Voo Doo” theme well.

The label for VooDoo Magic also boasts a number of clever catch phrases, including the statement “sweet …with the heat,” and my personal favorite, “shake to wake.”  How clever, I remember thinking as I tossed a burger onto the grill.

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Naga Jolokia, also known as the Ghost Pepper, is the foundation of Dave’s Ghost Pepper Sauce, and trust me, it’s nothing to play with. The label sports the tag line, So Hot It’s Spooky, and I couldn’t think of a more fitting tag line. Not much comes between you and the dangerously intense heat of the Naga Jolokia peppers (twice as hot as the Red Savina Habaneros, often weighing in at over a million Scoville heat units). There’s a little roasted garlic puree and some hot pepper extract (as if that was even needed).

The label informs us that Dave’s Ghost Pepper Sauce makes a great industrial cleaner and grease remover. Continue Reading

Billy is as crazy as it gets… Even after reading the warnings on The Source Hot Sauce he still jumps in with both feet.  At first it appears that Billy can handle The Source without any problems but then, the heat kicks in.

The The Source Hot Sauce is really a pepper extract with a whopping 7.1 Scoville rating.

WARNING – This video may contain swears.

Ingredients:

• 2 ounces dried chilie peppers
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds
• 2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 plum tomato
• Salt to taste
• Water (for soaking peppers) Continue Reading
  

Dave’s Gourmet, the maker of Dave’s Hurtin’ Jalapeno, began at the restaurant Burrito Madness with the invention of super hot Dave’s Insanity Sauce.  Soon Dave’s Gourmet was producing sauces that ranged from mild to “insanely hot,” and have since won numerous awards, including eleven from the prestigious National Association for the Specialty Food Trade.

First, the label for Dave’s Hurtin’ Jalapeno: the little red pepper roasting on a beach blanket in the sun gave me a chuckle, and the color scheme on the label was not at all obnoxious or loud.  Continue Reading

Ingredients:

• 1 bacon strip, halved
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2 tablespoons chopped green onion
• 1 tablespoon chopped jalapeno pepper
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon prepared mustard
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme Continue Reading
  

This is the kind of barbecue sauce that will have even the pickiest barbecue sauce connoisseurs nodding their heads in excited agreement over the quality of what’s inside the bottle. Made by the same folks who make Louisiana Lickers Sauce, Quaker Steak and Lube Buckeye BBQ is a surprising treat straight out of the bottle.

This is another plate-licking delight. Following the same everything-but-the-kitchen-sink style of ingredient combination as it’s Louisiana Lickers Sauce counterpart, Buckeye BBQ includes ketchup, hot sauce, Tabasco Sauce, cayenne pepper sauce, ginger, and corn syrup. The result is a very sweet sauce with an underlying heat that creeps up on you.

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Ingredients:

• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 2 cups ketchup
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 cup corn syrup
• 1 cup molasses
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon garlic pepper blend
• 1 tablespoon liquid smoke flavoring (optional)
• 1 tablespoon prepared mustard
• 1 teaspoon onion salt
• 1 teaspoon celery salt
• Optional hot sauce to taste (depending on the heat level preference you could add in Tabasco, Dave’s Insanity Sauce, or a couple of drops of Blair’s MegaDeath Sauce) Continue Reading
  

The label of Spittin Fire Hot Sauce features, appropriately enough, a fire-breathing dragon, wings raised as he glares at me with his ruby-red eyes. On close inspection of the bottle, the side of the label reads, “Warning! Use extreme caution when handling this sauce. Ignore this warning and you will pay!”

Considering that the first ingredient listed is habanero peppers—and aged cayenne red peppers also make an appearance—I suspect that there may be something to this. I rate the label 4/5. I like the dragon, despite his less-than-friendly appearance.

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Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1/2 cup fresh lime juice
• 2 (.7 ounce) packages dry Italian-style salad dressing mix
• 3 whole boneless, skinless chicken breast, cubed
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, sliced Continue Reading
  

Crazy Mother Pucker’s Fire Roasted Fusion Hot Sauce.  I gravitated towards this sauce because I have found a lot of hot sauces I like in the oddly shaped, flattish bottle (I’m sure it’s all psychological, but I’m sticking to my story!)

The insane looking chicken on the bottle looks as though his state secret is that Chernobyl actually happened in his mouth rather than Ukraine, and the label’s ‘heat scale’ indicates that this is the second-to-hottest level of sauce. But since we all know that bottles and labels rarely give you a great view of what is contained inside, I’ll share a little secret with you: this sauce rocks.

Crazy Mother Pucker’s Fire Roasted Fusion looks chunky and a bit darker red, really showing the fire roasted components with small black specks throughout.  Continue Reading

Ingredients:

• 1 cup prepared yellow mustard
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon liquid smoke (hickory flavoring)

Directions:

1. Mix all except soy, butter and smoke.
2. Simmer 30 minutes.
3. Stir in remaining ingredients and simmer for 10 more minutes.

Let me tell you one thing about Great White Shark Predator Hot Sauce: if there’s a hotter sauce than this on the market, I don’t want to know about it. This sauce flat out caused me pain.

As fearsome as the “Jaws”-inspired illustration of a Great White on the label, this sauce is the first of the “one drop at a time” sauces I’ve seen that actually comes with a plastic do-hicky in the mouth of the bottle that ensures the product comes out only one drop at a time. This is an important safety feature you should not take for granted. Continue Reading

Fire Ant Juice is an award-winning hot sauce that combines a number of different chili peppers with a tropical sweetness that results in a sharp, complex flavor delivering strong heat (and two cute little plastic red ants glued to the neck of the bottle).

With the top three ingredients listed being cayenne, jalapeno, and habanero peppers, heat is uncontested. At the same time, these peppers all have very different flavors, just as their Scoville ratings differ. The blending of the three, therefore, requires a deft hand, just as a blended whisky relies on the expert mixing of various single malts, each with a distinctive characteristic that adds to the whole. Continue Reading

Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 20 fresh jalapeno peppers, sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup minced onion
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup distilled white vinegar

Directions:

1. In a medium glass or enamel lined sauce pan over high heat, combine oil, peppers, garlic, onion and salt; saute for 4 minutes. Add the water and cook for 20 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and allow mixture to cool to room temperature.
2. Transfer the mixture to a food processor and puree until smooth. With the processor running, slowly add the vinegar.
3. Pour into a sterilized jar with a tight lid. This sauce will keep for 6 months when stored … Continue Reading
   

Busha Browne’s Pukka Hot Pepper Sauce starts off with the pride and joy of the pepper world, in my humble opinion, the Jamaican Scotch Bonnet.

The Scotch bonnet pepper is a close relative of the habanero, with a Scoville heat rating between 100,000 and 350,000. Besides packing a powerful heat punch, the Scotch Bonnet has a taste as distinct as that of its habanero cousin.

Busha Browne’s Pukka Hot Pepper Sauce makes full use of the Scotch bonnet’s flavor characteristics. Continue Reading

Pappy’s White Lightnin’ BBQ Sauce proves that no one is regulating how many X’s someone can put on the label of a hot sauce or barbecue sauce. Pappy’s White Lightnin’ BBQ Sauce has three X’s and they shouldn’t. They only have a small heat. Triple X suggests a sauce that will start a bonfire on your esphogus. This one only sparks your tongue.

You can smell tomato, a little vinegar and a little heat when you open Pappy’s. You will taste the tomato, vinegar and heat as well as hickory smoke, sugar, garlic, onion, and a little taste of Kentucky bourbon on the edges (just as it hits the mouth, and also just as the flavor leaves).

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From the Victoria’s Secret collection comes Feel The Heat, a sauce whose label features a man and a woman in skimpy bathing attire standing in front of a setting sun on a beach. He’s very muscular with a Speedo-style bathing suit that hangs suspiciously halfway down his thighs. She is clad in a lilac-colored bikini the top of which barely is able to contain her huge breasts. It is for moments and products such as this that I am thankful to be an avid label reader.

You may start to feel a certain burning sensation when you hold a bottle of Feel The Heat, but it won’t be due to the sauce itself. Continue Reading

The Acid Rain Hot Sauce bottle stands out among other hot sauce bottles because of its shape. It is shorter than most and has a square shape with rounded edges. Its bright yellow label says “Acid Rain” in big black letters. Beneath that, we have sketches of two trees. One is covered in full, lush foliage, while the other is withered and dead without a leaf in sight — presumably because of the big black cloud looming above, pouring acid rain onto the unfortunate tree.

A description of the sauce on the side entices with the claim that, “Unlike some hot sauces, Acid Rain Hot Sauce is loaded with flavor. Continue Reading

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 large jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 teaspoons adobo sauce
• 2 (6 ounce) containers fresh raspberries
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in jalapenos; cook until tender, about 5 minutes.
2. Mix in garlic, and adobo sauce; bring to a simmer.
3. Stir the raspberries into the sauce; cook until soft, about 3 minutes.
4. Stir in the vinegar, salt, brown sugar, and white sugar. Mix well.
5. Simmer until thickened and reduced by half, about 15 minutes.
6. Transfer sauce to a heatproof bowl; allow to cool to room … Continue Reading
   

Crazy Mother Pucker’s Liquid Lava is beautifully packaged, with a colorful cartoon label that has the characteristics of a hologram. The label features a cartoon duck who has presumably had his share of Liquid Lava, with a smoke ring exiting his puckered bill.The sauce itself is a pleasing deep reddish orange, with large pepper seeds and pieces of garlic dispersed throughout. This aesthetically pleasing presentation is the introduction to a designer hot sauce.

I opened the bottle and took a whiff; Crazy Mother Pucker’s Liquid Lava is one of the most aromatic hot sauces I’ve ever had the pleasure of filling my nostrils with. Continue Reading

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds ground beef chuck
• 1 pound bulk Italian sausage
• 3 (15 ounce) cans chili beans, drained
• 1 (15 ounce) can chili beans in spicy sauce
• 2 (28 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 2 green chile peppers, seeded and chopped
• 1 tablespoon bacon bits
• 4 cubes beef bouillon
• 1/2 cup beer
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons … Continue Reading
  

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons pureed chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, mix together the yogurt, mayonnaise, and chipotle peppers until smooth. Chill until serving.

Like most chiliheads I’ve been known to pray for hot threesomes that leave my tongue hanging and sweat pouring down my face. The people of the Mad Dog hot sauce line have heard my prayers and responded with Mad Dog 357 Ghost Pepper Sauce, which contains (in order) the Bhut Jolokia (1,000,000+ Scoville units), the Habenero (350,000 Scoville units), and the African Bird’s Eye chili (100,000+ Scoville units).

Say this with me: “ouch!” This potent tag-team of capsaicin kings is designed specifically to floor you in the first round, but continue beating you senseless long after you’ve conceded defeat. Continue Reading

The ingredients of Orange Krush Hot Sauce begin with Habaneros and include celery seed, mustard, red and black pepper, bay leaf, clove allspice, ginger, mace, cinnamon, and paprika. This combination of ingredients provides a taste treat for the palate. There’s nothing subtle about the way the heat of this sauce spreads through your mouth and down your throat, settling in your stomach pleasantly as you continue to enjoy the lingering traces of flavor left behind by the well-balanced blend of ingredients.

It’s long been known that peppers offer health benefits that include cleaning out the system and even possible prevention of some cancers. Continue Reading