Hot Sauce Collecting FAQ

In 2000, my ugly mug was prominently featured in a local newspaper article about the company I then worked for. The picture they ran showed me communicating in American Sign Language with a Deaf colleague in another state, both of us connecting over the Internet using my employer's video conferencing product. In spite of all of this whiz-bang technology, I got more questions about my hot sauce collection—which could be seen in the background in the newspaper photo—than about my company's products.

Anyone who is not a die-hard pepperhead is bound to have a few questions about this slightly quirky hobby. This list of questions has been compiled from conversations I have had with grocery clerks (puzzled to see someone buy a dozen bottles of hot sauce at a time), co-workers (confused to see several hundred different bottles of pepper sauce in my office), and total strangers (surprised to have me recommend a specific hot sauce to go with a particular meal). If you have a question that isn't addressed in this FAQ, feel free to contact me and I'll try to answer it.

Q: Why collect hot sauce?

Why not? Some people collect bottle caps, or baseball cards, or commemorative spoons. I love spicy food, and I collect hot sauce. Though you can spend a lot of money buying high-priced gourmet stuff, I don't usually pay more than 3 or 4 bucks a bottle. It's an easy hobby to get into, and a fun conversation starter.

I should point out here that I collect hot sauce, and not salsa. Salsa and hot sauce are two very different things. Actually, what most people consider salsa is also two different things. I am a huge fan of salsa, a cooked Mexican sauce that is the primary justification for the invention of corn chips. Think Pace Picante here. I also love pico de gallo, which is the fresh (not cooked) version of salsa. I make a pretty good pico de gallo myself—you can get my recipe here.

Hot sauce is whole 'nother thing. Whereas salsa is kept in the refrigerator, hot sauce is usually kept on the table. (Or, if you have small children, in the cupboard.) Though hot sauce can be thin or thick, it's generally even in consistency. Salsa is usually chunky. At least the good stuff is. Hot sauce comes in bottles, while salsa comes in jars. Do I need to go on?

Q: How did you get started?

I have always been a bit of a pepperhead, but my love for hot sauce dates back to my first year of graduate school, when my wife Melanie and I began to frequent a Wingers restaurant in Provo, Utah. The good folks at Wingers always keep 20 or 30 bottles of sauce handy for use on their wings and ribs, and I enjoyed trying the different flavors and heat levels. Soon we were going there more for the sauces than the food (which is okay, but nothing really special). I was hooked.

Q: How many hot sauces do you have?

It varies from week to week and month to month, depending on which bottles I've just bottles bought and which bottles I've just drained. I never really know how many bottles I have until I count them. For the most current count (and a full inventory), see my hot sauce collection page.

Q: Where did you get them all?

Here and there. I bought my first couple of bottles at specialty shops, but this can get expensive. When I began to travel a lot for Sorenson Vision, I used my free time during trips to scour local grocery stores, searching for local brands and bottles I hadn't seen before. The results depended on the destination. San Antonio, Orlando and New Orleans were veritable gold mines, adding dozens of new additions to my collection. Other places, like New York and Chicago, were not so fruitful, at least not in the neighborhoods I visited.

Though I will often look around in them, I don't buy many sauces from the hot sauce boutiques you find in malls and shopping districts. These places pay primo overhead to sell what is essentially novelty food, and the prices reflect the setup. Instead, I cruise local grocery stores—especially in the seedier areas of town. I keep on the lookout for restaurants that have their own house sauces, such as House of Blues, Joe's Crab Shack, Hooters, and even Schlotzky's. I also sometimes buy sauces online.

For a couple of years now, people have been giving me hot sauces as gifts on birthdays, Christmas, Father's Day, and so on. The problem is, some people are now afraid to buy me sauces. They worry that they'll give me a duplicate. This has happened, but it's not a problem. I just eat the surplus.

I should point out that my entire collection is now online, so nobody should ever worry again about giving me something I already have. Hint hint.

Q: Now that you have so many, is it hard to find sauces you don't already have?

Absolutely not. Hot sauce collecting has gained momentum in the past, and the more I look, the more I see that I'm falling behind. There are thousands of sauces out there, and I've only got a fraction of them.

Q: What is your hottest sauce?

It used to be that the hottest sauce in my collection was the hottest sauce in anyone's collection, a wicked little concoction known as Dave's Gourmet Insanity Sauce. Dave's was one of the first in a new breed of hot sauces that is manufactured for heat, not for flavor. I recently purchased a hotter sauce called Da Bomb. One taste, from the very tip of a toothpick, knocked out my vocal chords for almost 20 minutes. This is a very hot sauce.

But, alas, Da Bomb is not the hottest sauce currently in production. As far as I know, the hottest sauce available is a product called Pure Cap, which is simply refined capsicum extract. Imagine taking the hottest part of a habanero pepper, removing all of the pesky vegetable material (and flavor) and just keeping the hellish essence. This is Pure Cap. It comes in a tiny bottle, which is packaged in a larger prescription-pill-bottle-type container. Many retailers will only sell Pure Cap to someone who has signed a waiver of liability and promise not to use it while intoxicated, not to give it to pets or children, not to slip it into anyone's food without their knowledge. This is very very nasty stuff.

Q: What is your favorite sauce?

The one I haven't tried yet.

Actually, that's too easy an answer. The problem, actually, is with the question. Asking this is like asking a wine connesseur to pick his favorite bottle of wine. It depends on what I'm eating. Like wine, hot sauce needs to be carefully chosen to complement the flavor of the meal.

The problem is, when you have several hundred options to choose from, you always end up coming back to a choice half-dozen or so. If you look in my spice cupboard, there are several bottles you will invariably find:

1. Cholula. Easily identified by its distinctive wooden cap, this is the perfect sauce for enchiladas and other Mexican fare. Lately, I've been substituting a bottled version of El Pato's sauce. The taste is similar, and the El Pato was on sale three bottles for a buck. When it comes to everyday pepper sauce, I'm a cheap date.

2. Texas Pete. Impossible to find some places, but luckily easy to come by. I have my grocery store order it for me by the case. This is a fantastic, all-purpose, everyday sauce. Not terribly hot, but packing a nice moderate kick, it provides a great flavor to everything from meatloaf to macaroni and cheese to tomato soup. Yes, tomato soup.

3. Tabasco Soy Sauce. Almost ten years years ago I picked up a couple of bottles of this wonderful sauce on a trip to Washington D.C. We went through the stuff like it was water, using it liberally on all things Asian—stir fry, chow mein, teriyaki, you name it. Since I can't get it in my area, I order it online from tabasco.com.

4. Tabasco Pepper Sauce. Often imitated but never duplicated, the old standby from Avery Island is great for anything remotely cajun or southern, like red or black beans and rice, jambalaya, gumbo and the like. It's also my sauce of choice for eggs and oysters. Mix a bottle with a couple of shots of Jack Daniels and you've got a great hot wing marinade. Put a splash in your glass of V-8. Don't get caught without a bottle handy.

5. Tabasco Habanero Sauce. Would you put anything else on your pizza? No, you would not.

Besides these sauces, I generally rotate a few others, either extras that I have picked up by accident or my latest fad favorites. I really like Road to Hell, Scorned Woman, Grace's, and the entire line of Melinda's sauces (especially the Amarillo mustard sauce). I should mention one other sauce that is essential for those who love to eat ribs. Grab a bottle of Jim Beam Pepper Sauce. This stuff is ambrosia when slathered over a rack of baby backs.

Q: Is it just a coincidence that three of your five favorite sauces all come from one company?

No.

Q: Do you eat the sauces in your collection, or do you buy two bottles of each so you can keep one and eat the other?

It depends. Often, I try a sauce before I buy it. Hot sauce boutiques and restaurants like Wingers will often have open bottles that you can sample. If I like the sauce, I will often buy two bottles. Even if I don't like the sauce, I may buy a bottle if I like the label.

Often, I don't have to open a bottle to know exactly what it tastes like. Probably 70 percent of the sauces manufactured today have the exact same recipe: peppers, vinegar, salt, and maybe some guar gum or food stabilizer. I generally stick with my favorites unless the ingredients list features something especially interesting, like coffee, cauliflower, or cumin. And a sauce doesn't have to be thermonuclear to make it a good sauce. Though heat is fun, taste is the most important.

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If you don't know me, or don't know me well, you can get a pretty good picture of who I am and what I do from snooping around in this site.

How I pay the bills:
DriveTime
Eclectic Interactive

What I do for fun:
Equinox
Spirit of Phoenix