Hot Stuff

I like hot, spicy flavors. But you can have too much of a good thing. Years ago, I saw a clip on TV of David Letterman trying some XXX spicy mustard from the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin. He was warned that it was very hot, but took a heaping spoonful, and ended up on the floor, gasping and spewing language that couldn’t be broadcast. He was so mad that he cut the segment from his show. (If you are a little crazy, the mustard in question is Hit & Run Excruciatingly Painful Horseradish Mustard.)

I don’t recommend any super hot mustards, but I do like some hot sauces that add some great flavors to many dishes. Most of them are based on some kind of pepper, with all kinds of other ingredients — vinegar, tomato sauce, or fruits.

Heat

Before trying a hot sauce, I always want to know, “how hot is hot?” (I’ve been burned before.) All the heat from peppers comes from a chemical called capsaicin. It turns out that there is a scale called the Scoville scale to measure a pepper’s heat level. Wilbur Scoville had people taste peppers at various levels of dilution with sugar water to determine how hot the pepper was. Today we no longer test with people, but we measure the exact concentration of capsaicin in a pepper with chromatography. Each heat level is assigned a number (SHU – Scoville Heat Units) with 0 for no heat at all, and 16,000,000 meaning pure capsaicin.

Name	SHU	Category
Pure Capsaicin	16,000,000	Highest heat value
Carolina Reaper	2,200,000	Hottest known pepper
Trinidad Moruga Scorpion	2,009,231	Super hot
Naga Viper	1,382,118	Very hot
Habanero	350,000	Very hot
Tabasco	50,000	Hot
Jalapeno	10,000	Moderate
Chipotle	8,000	Moderate
Poblano	2,000	Mild
Bell	0	No heat

My Favorite Hot Sauces

I have a few favorite hot sauces. I’m not one of those guys who tries to blow their head off with heat, so if you are looking for a really, really hot sauce, these won’t be for you. These fall into the mild to moderate heat category. My favorites will add a great flavor to chili or eggs, or will make a bland sandwich pop.

Cholula – This is a mild hot sauce, with flavors of pepper and vinegar. While named Cholula, it is actually made in Chapala, and just uses the name of an ancient city near Puebla, Mexico that is still inhabited today. Mild. (1000 Scoville scale).

Tobasco – This is a true classic. Made in Louisiana, it has a vinegar and red pepper flavor. Mild/Moderate (3600 Scoville scale).

Valentina – This is found all over Mexico, and has a sweet chili pepper flavor. Mild. (900 Scoville scale).

How To Use It

You can put hot sauce on just about anything. The obvious choices are chicken wings, pizza, and eggs. But to mix things up a little more, there are some less obvious ways to try hot sauces. Some folks will put it directly on vanilla ice cream as a topping, while others love it on fruit salads, or directly on watermelon. There is something about the sweetness of these foods that is enhanced by the heat of the hot sauce. If you are a true hot sauce aficionado, try it on some buttery popcorn.