Tips For Building And Enjoying Your Collection Of Specialty Hot Sauces

Specialty hot sauces have become quite common over the past few years. Many people who are interested in these sauces do not just buy a bottle or two — they collect them. If you would similarly like to begin collecting and enjoying specialty hot sauces, here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Don't judge a sauce by the Scoville scale alone.

The Scoville scale is a scale used to measure the hotness of various substances. For example, a pretty mild sauce may rank at 1,000 Scoville units. A really hot sauce might be 20,000 or even 100,000 Scoville units. You can and should use the Scoville scale as a basic guide to determining how hot certain sauces are, but be careful not to get overly hung up on it. There are elements other than pure heat to consider when selecting your hot sauces. Flavor, consistency, and how long the heat lingers are other variables to keep in mind.

2. Find a few peppers you like.

One thing that hot sauce collectors soon learn is that they have a favorite pepper or peppers. Some people really like sauces made with Scorpion peppers, for instance. Others prefer Habanero sauces. Early on in your collecting endeavors, make sure you buy sauces made with a variety of peppers. This will give you the chance to explore and get to know your own palate. Once you realize which peppers you tend to favor, you can then aim to buy more sauces made with that specific pepper.

3. Try the sauces on a favorite food.

While you can try a hot sauce simply by putting a little bit on your tongue, this is not the best sampling strategy. It is far better for you to sample the sauces on a food you like. This allows you to chew the food, which distributes the sauce around your mouth a bit more and allows you to taste its full complexity. In the case of really hot sauces, consuming them on food also tones them down a bit so your taste buds do not get so overwhelmed. Good foods to try your sauces on include chicken wings, fries, and mozzarella sticks.

With the tips above, you can have a good time building your own collection of delicious specialty hot sauces. Once you have a shelf of favorites, you can pull them out at mealtime and create endless plates of deliciousness.

To learn more, contact a hot sauce store.


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