From a few years ago:
#1 Tabasco Hot Sauce
Hands down, the best pepper sauce made. I eat this sauce mostly on expensive cuts of steak. One day I will take a pilgrimage to Avery Island and see the the blessed fields of pepper plants, the vats of fermenting hot sauce, and say a prayer to God for allowing such fine people to produce the nectar of the south. This visit is on my bucket list.
#2 Crystal Hot Sauce
Down in Louisiana a majority of people who enjoy pepper sauce like one of two brands. If you are a Tabasco man, you don’t touch Crystal. If you are a Crystal man you don’t partake in Tabasco. Went into a local restaurant in Hammond La. a while ago and they had a bottle of Crystal on every table. I asked my favorite question when I visit a one and only eatery in that fine state (not) and the answer was no, they didn’t have any of that nasty Tabasco. The place was a Crystal joint. For me, I like both, depending upon what I am eating. I don’t use Crystals on steak, but I have been known to use it on almost everything else. I can go through a bottle of Crystal in a week. It’s hard to find the hot sauce in Oklahoma after Katrina, but when I do I will pick up a a six pack of the sauce. Crystal has the right blend of pepper and vinegar. It’s not to hot and doesn’t overpower the food you put it on.
#3 Valentina Hot Sauce
Hot or regular, this sauce is made for extremely hot Mexican dishes, such as a large tamale dinner from Cocina de Mino or Chelino’s Mexican Restaurants. It is a very cheap sauce that is much tastier than the higher price ones. The sauce is used on fruits as well as heated Mexican dinners. Buy the big bottle and both the hot and the regular are top notch sauces.
#4 Huy Fong – Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce
When I eat Chinese food my favorite hot sauce is this brand. Hot but with a great taste, not a runny Louisiana sauce or a spicy Mexican variety. This sauce goes well with veggies, white and brown rice, and egg foo young. In Dec. 2009, Bon Appetit magazine named its Sriracha sauce Ingredient of the Year for 2010.
#5 Louisiana Hot Sauce
My #5 choice of hot sauces is Louisiana Hot Sauce. It is not too hot, not to runny, and is best used fried chicken. It was the sauce I grew up with, and will always be welcomed at my table. It has one of the nicer red colors and it’s bottle/package is traditional.
Louisiana “The Original” Hot Sauce has been mass produced by Bruce Foods Corporation for over 80 years.[1][2] As a
cayenne pepper based hot sauce, it is similar toother mass produced brands such as Crystal Hot Sauce, Texas Pete and Frank’s Red Hot. It is usually packaged in 6 oz. shaker bottles, and sports a yellow, blue and red label. Bruce has marketed the
sauce as ‘Not too hot, not too mild.’ (Wikipedia)
