Hot Sauces

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a tale of two mustard sauces: lottie's & inner beauty

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ingredients labels:
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i don't know much about lottie's lore, but i think it's likely the most well known caribbean mustard sauce? lmk if you know more about it or other caribbean mustards.

i actually tried inner beauty sauce first and only grabbed lottie's when i could no longer get it. inner beauty can be pretty hard to come by because the rights have changed hands a few times, and it's usually not in continuous production. if you're curious about it and ever see it for sale, you should just get it.

the recipe comes from this guy (Chris Schlesinger – James Beard Award winner and owner of the East Coast Grill):



the 'official recipe' is floating around the internet in a few places and videos, but it varies from place to place. you'll see his recipe above doesn't match what's in my bottle. lol

he sold it for a while, and then i think someone bought the rights and sold it as "todd's inner beauty". the bottle i have now was purchased last year from heat:
https://heathotsauce.com/products/inner-beauty-hot-sauce

sold out now, and this bottle's about done, but i have an unopened one still in the pantry.

the lottie's bottle is from the year before i think (inner beauty was sold out). i had never tried them side by side because i actually forgot i had the lottie's. it was buried deep behind other sauces in the fridge.

i was fully expecting to prefer the hard-to-find inner beauty, but trying them side by side on a bean and veggie stew, i actually prefer lottie's. both sauces are very good, though. inner beauty is sweeter and fruiter. lottie's has more direct hab/sb flavor.

there's also a red lottie's without mustard (Habanero, Water, Vinegar, Onion, Salt, Garlic, Xanthan Gum).
never tried. i'm doing a hot sauce order now and will probably grab a bottle.
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Lucky's: Rudolph's Red Hot Sauce with Garlic
https://www.luckyssauces.com/sauces/rudolphs-red-hot-sauce-garlic

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(hot red peppers, vinegar, garlic, salt)

this was an impulse buy at whole foods. it's mild, so the bottle is almost gone after about a month. i've been using it a lot. i love simple sauces like this.

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Queen Majesty: Scotch Bonnet & Ginger Hot Sauce
https://heathotsauce.com/collections/all/products/scotch-bonnet-ginger-hot-sauce
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(White Vinegar, Bell Peppers, Scotch Bonnet Peppers, Habanero Peppers, Sweet Onions, Lemon Juice, Ginger Root, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Salt & Spices)

an exciting sounding sauce with rave reviews, but it sucks tbh. too much onion fuçked it all up. also, the bell peppers are not helping at all.
 
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sansho said:
an exciting sounding sauce with rave reviews, but it sucks tbh. too much onion fuçked it all up. also, the bell peppers are not helping at all.
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That's disappointing. I've been wanting to try that one.
 
In my world Marie Sharp's rules in Hot Sauces. These are Belizean. My absolute favorite is the Green Cactus Habanero Pepper Sauce. They are not vinegary like Tabasco. I have tried all of her Peppers Sauces. The Pineapple Habanero Pepper Sauce absolutely rules on Pizza, and is wonderful on fish tacos. I always purchase from the Marie Sharp's website.

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I have a Carolina reaper plant that has been producing a pretty good crop of peppers the last 2 years. I made a mango reaper hot sauce with the harvest from last year that turned out pretty good.

For store bought sauces, El Yucateco red is my "everyday" hot sauce. I also have about a dozen more that I rotate depending on heat and flavor profiles. Right now I've been really liking Torchbearer Garlic Reaper. A little goes a long way, but I like the flavor and kick.
 
There is the Melinda line of pepper sauces. I will NEVER!!!! use anything they make. If you go South of the border Marie Sharp's hot sauces are known as Melinda's,. Mrs Sharp's daughter. What happened was Mrs. Sharp and her sons started to travel through the United States promoting their original Habanero sauce. A Walmart executive got his hands on some it was so good he went to Belize and arranged for it to be sold at Walmart stores. Marie's recipe was the first habanero pepper sauce to achieve national distribution in the United States, with the Reese Finer Foods distribution network in 1989. Once the market for the product had been established, the importer, Figueroa International Inc., who was marketing the sauce, trademarked the product name, effectively cutting Sharp out of her own business. Stateside Melinda's Habaneros come from Costa Rica.

This is the original absolutely wonderful. The thing with The Marie Sharp pepper sauces is they are not necessarily a fire eating contest. You can have the flavor of the chili without flames coming out of your ears.

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This one, on the other hand, will have you lips drop off your face and run away. I use it to kick up BBQ sauces, Texas Chili, spaghetti sauces, etc.

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i wouldn't be upset with tabasco as a desert island hot sauce.

the more i try other sauces and expand my palate, the deeper my appreciation for tabasco grows.

tabasco was always the main hot sauce i had growing up, and so at first when i was getting into growing peppers and 'artisanal' sauces, i thought my love of it was it was just simple childhood indoctrination.
but now i sincerely believe that tabasco flavor/aroma is wonderfully complex and intoxicating. can't go wrong with oak aged pepper mash.

i think the biggest valid criticism of it is it's too vinegar-forward. idk why, but if i put too much of it on a bite of food, sometimes my taste buds get irritated. like one or two taste buds will physically swell in size for a while, and my tongue will feel weird. anyone ever get that? nothing but tabasco does that to me, lol. must be a unique chemesthetic irritation from the piquance + low pH combo.

about the family reserve...

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a year ago, i paid $48 incl shipping to get 3x 5 fl oz bottles of family reserve from tabasco's web store.

when i first read about it, it was purported to be aged 8 years. now it says:

this unique pepper mash is aged for up to 8 years in white oak barrels, much longer than the normal 3 year aging process of our Original Red Sauce.
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up to 8 years? eh..

anyways, it does taste different. the aged pepper aromatics are a bit deeper, but the other changes make more of a difference – family reserve uses wine vinegar instead of white and has more salt.

it's good but not better than the OG. it's certainly not worth the $16/bottle that i paid. i could only recommend this to a true tabasco fan that just wants to try it for fun.

Transmaster said:
Now for Tabasco Sauce. Their primo Tabasco Sauce is the Family Reserve. Made with white wine vinegar, and the chili mash is aged in white oak barrels for 8 years. It is only available from The Tabasco Store online.
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ok, so what'd you think of it?
 
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Transmaster said:
There is the Melinda line of pepper sauces. I will NEVER!!!! use anything they make. If you go South of the border Marie Sharp's hot sauces are known as Melinda's,. Mrs Sharp's daughter. What happened was Mrs. Sharp and her sons started to travel through the United States promoting their original Habanero sauce. A Walmart executive got his hands on some it was so good he went to Belize and arranged for it to be sold at Walmart stores. Marie's recipe was the first habanero pepper sauce to achieve national distribution in the United States, with the Reese Finer Foods distribution network in 1989. Once the market for the product had been established, the importer, Figueroa International Inc., who was marketing the sauce, trademarked the product name, effectively cutting Sharp out of her own business. Stateside Melinda's Habaneros come from Costa Rica.
Click to expand...

interesting. i'm confused, though. is the real sauce still sold as melinda's south of the border??
 
sansho said:
i wouldn't be upset with tabasco as a desert island hot sauce.

the more i try other sauces and expand my palate, the deeper my appreciation for tabasco grows.

tabasco was always the main hot sauce i had growing up, and so at first when i was getting into growing peppers and 'artisanal' sauces, i thought my love of it was it was just simple childhood indoctrination.
but now i sincerely believe that tabasco flavor/aroma is wonderfully complex and intoxicating. can't go wrong with oak aged pepper mash.

i think the biggest valid criticism of it is it's too vinegar-forward. idk why, but if i put too much of it on a bite of food, sometimes my tastes buds get irritated. like one or two taste buds will physically swell in size for a while, and my tongue will feel weird. anyone ever get that? nothing but tabasco does that to me, lol. must be a unique chemesthetic irritation from the piquance + low pH combo.

about the family reserve...

View attachment 318646
View attachment 318647

a year ago, i paid $48 incl shipping to get 3x 5 fl oz bottles of family reserve from tabasco's web store.

when i first read about it, it was purported to be aged 8 years. now it says:



up to 8 years? eh..

anyways, it does taste different. the aged pepper aromatics are a bit deeper, but the other changes make more of a difference – family reserve uses wine vinegar instead of white and has more salt.

it's good but not better than the OG. it's certainly not worth the $16/bottle that i paid. i could only recommend this to a true tabasco fan that just wants to try it for fun.



ok, so what'd you think of it?
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We didn't really have hot sauces as a regular condiment in my house as a kid. I'd have them here and there but nothing as a staple.

It wasn't until Desert Storm and eating MRE's all the time that I feel completely in love with those tiny bottle of Tabasco! They could freshen up even dehydrated beef patties!

Taken on the whole, I probably still reach for a bottle of Tabasco more than any other I have on hand. I don't experiment nearly as much as many of you but I do try different ones and I still come back this brand a lot. Be it the classic, the chipotle or even the jalapeno, I use them a lot.
 
Transmaster said:
Marie Sharp pepper sauces
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what's your favorite? the one i keep buying is the green one (first ingredient = nopales).

years ago, i tried belizean heat. i remember it being good but a bit too hot and salty maybe.
i just finished a bottle of 'exotic sauce' which is more of a dark, fruity, sweet/sour sauce without much heat. it's a fun sauce to dump on stuff, but idk if i'd get it again.
 
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oolor13 said:
Right now I've been really liking Torchbearer Garlic Reaper. A little goes a long way, but I like the flavor and kick.
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I've got a bottle of that. It is good, I'll add a dab to a bowl of chili or something, but it's just a wee bit too hot to be a daily condiment, for me. When beads of sweat form on my bald-ass head, it's a bit much.
 
have you tried anything else from volcanic?

that's the only one i've had. i like it but probably not enough to re-up. i think it's too onion forward. that's what i don't like about yellowbird and queen majesty. however, unlike those, i actually do like volcanic #5.
 
sansho said:
interesting. i'm confused, though. is the real sauce still sold as melinda's south of the border??
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Yes, Marie Sharp owns the Melinda trade mark South of the Border. and I think the rest of the world, accept the US.

Well in checking up on this I found out an interesting thing. Apparently to avoid any confusion It is known as Marie Sharp's everywhere now. This is a photo from the New B2 grocery store in Belize City.

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sansho said:
what's your favorite? the one i keep buying is the green one (first ingredient = nopales).

years ago, i tried belizean heat. i remember it being good but a bit too hot maybe.
i just finished a bottle of 'exotic sauce' which is more of a dark, fruity, sweet/sour sauce without much heat. it's a fun sauce to dump on stuff, but idk if i'd get it again.
Click to expand...
sansho said:
what's your favorite? the one i keep buying is the green one (first ingredient = nopales). Years ago, I tried belizean heat. I remember it being good but a bit too hot maybe. I just finished a bottle of 'exotic sauce' which is more of a dark, fruity, sweet/sour sauce without much heat. it's a fun sauce to dump on stuff, but idk if i'd get it again.
Click to expand...
Hands down it is the Green Cactus Habanero Pepper Sauce
 
Transmaster said:
Yes, Marie Sharp owns the Melinda trade mark South of the Border. and I think the rest of the world, accept the US.

Well in checking up on this I found out an interesting thing. Apparently to avoid any confusion It is known as Marie Sharp's everywhere now. This is a photo from the New B2 grocery store in Belize City.

View attachment 318712
Click to expand...
Saw Melinda’s on the shelf today. Remembered what you wrote. Left it there.
 
sansho said:
Lucky's: Rudolph's Red Hot Sauce with Garlic
https://www.luckyssauces.com/sauces/rudolphs-red-hot-sauce-garlic

1714452420181.png

(hot red peppers, vinegar, garlic, salt)

this was an impulse buy at whole foods. it's mild, so the bottle is almost gone after about a month. i've been using it a lot. i love simple sauces like this.
Click to expand...

we had pizza for dinner, so the bottle's finished. i like it enough that i'm getting another bottle even though the house is quite cluttered with hot sauce.

az/wf link:
https://www.amazon.com/LUCKYS-POPCORN-DRESSING-Hot-Sauce/dp/B07DLGR25J

give it a try if you want a mild, basic, red annuum sauce.
 
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I'm a hot sauce fiend. Best place in the UK to get it cheap is TK Maxx. I can eat most hot sauce (flavour and heat) so nothing ever gets binned and I have been able to try a lot over the years. Personally I can't spend £8-10 on a bottle of sauce...
 
WPerry said:
I've got a bottle of that. It is good, I'll add a dab to a bowl of chili or something, but it's just a wee bit too hot to be a daily condiment, for me. When beads of sweat form on my bald-ass head, it's a bit much.
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The first time I tried it, it poured out a little faster than I expected. When my scalp starts sweating that's when I know it's hot enough!
 
Here is an app I have had loaded for over 10 years. https://www.specialtyproduce.com/ It lists 151 fresh chili's in its database, and 18 dried chili's. If you see a chili you would like to try and SP has it in stock you can FedEx it. They list Bell peppers separately. If you are into tomatoes you will be in nirvana with over 120 different varieties listed. The data database with the chilis you can purchase seeds for most of them. So not only can you try them, but if you like them you can start growing them yourself.
 
Michi said:
This could mean the same as for tawny ports that are made with a blend of materials at different ages. Likely, only some fraction of the total is that old.
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I was thinking the same thing. Look at the "solera" port and sherry aging technique. Small barrels out open pole barns. Vintinners start at the bottom and move most of the oldest wind to be bottled. then what was taken is replace by a younger wine in the next oldest barrel, and this goes back up the line until new wine is placed to refill the first cask.
 
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