I have traveled land and sea far and wide, have suffered agony worldwide in my attempt to sample and record every possible variety and flavor of hot sauce, so that one day I might come back here and reveal to you all what the very best hot sauce that has ever been invented by man is.
That day is today.
I have been everywhere, and have tasted hot sauces both mild and searing, sweet and biting, obscure and ubiquitous. No pepper has gone ignored, from the serrano to the habanero, jalapeno, fataali, naga jolokia, pequin, to the lowly cayenne. I have ingested capsaicin-based products from every corner of the world.
So, ladies and gentleman, if I say I'm a hot sauce man, you will agree.
And now... the best hot sauce in the world.
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In order to determine the winner, I have judged sauces on a number of different qualities and characteristics. Be sure, the winning sauce scored at or near the top of every single category. I will list these categories for you now, and then describe why the winning sauce powned in said categories.
CATEGORY: FLAVOR
A hot sauce is nothing if it doesn't have a good flavor. As you go down the row of sauces at your local hot sauce shop, you'll find vinegary sauces, fruity sauces, bitter sauces, sauces which in one way or another tip too far to one side of a scale, leaving you wanting more from the other side. Only one sauce, of the thousands I've tasted, offered the highest levels of flavor, with a nearly perfect balance between all of the possible sensations the human tongue can perceive. Its primary ingredients are chiles, giving the heat, vinegar, giving some tang, garlic, offering a depth of flavor, and sugar, balancing the bitterness of the other ingredients. None of these flavors ever overpower any of the others. Though it has sugar, you can't call this a sweet sauce. Though it has garlic, it is not overly "garlicky". Vinegar is in there, but never enough to let you know it. I am amazed at every bite, the perfection of flavor and balance which this sauce so effortlessly achieves.
CATEGORY: HEAT
There are mild sauces. There are hot sauces. There are blistering sauces. Then there are hot sauces which get milder the more you eat them. Then there are hot sauces which get hotter the more you eat them. In only one sauce, however, have I found the experience where a sauce starts mild, and as you eat it more, the heat compounds to an unbelievably pronounced, searing burn. I cannot call it a mild, medium, hot, or extreme sauce, because it manages to be all of these, depending on how its used. It literally can satisfy every level of heat desire. I don't know how it does it, but it does it.
CATEGORY: LOOK
Many sauces are ugly, brownish concoctions filled with random bits of unknown origin. Many sauces achieve a very beautiful look, with rich, ripe colors, flecks of herbs, dotting the sauce like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Deep oranges, bright greens, earthy mahoganies, the whole spectrum of visible light is on offer at the hot sauce shoppe. But among the entirety of the hot sauce universe, only one sauce stands out, regardless of what it stands next to. It is an unearthly, rich, bright red which seems to pulsate with energy... you can almost taste it with your eyes, and the eye taste is as balanced and beautiful as the mouth taste. You can see it far down the grocery store aisle, you can know it's there even if only glanced peripherally, subconsciously. It is so deep and bright that it may even appear to have an "aura", a halo vibrating around each bottle. The sight of many sauces makes one say "whoa". This one leaves one speechless.
CATEGORY: VERSATILITY
There is nothing more to say than, due to the sauce's perfect balance and depth, anything that any hot sauce is good on, this sauce is equally as good, and almost always better on. A hot sauce which excels in any context, in or on any food, is the height of versatility. It genuinely is the only sauce you will ever need, regardless of what you put hot sauce on.
CATEGORY: AVAILABILITY
"A sauce this good, it's either got to cost a lot, or be impossible to find." Go ahead, you can admit that you were thinking that. And here is where the shocker comes in. Shocker One is, it is one of the more widely available sauces in the world. Not as ubiquitous (in America, at least) as Tabasco, but common enough to be found in nearly any major grocery store in the land. That's shocking enough, but if you thought that was shocking, wait till I get to Shocker Two, which is: It is one of the cheapest sauces you can buy. Where you would be paying upwards of $5 for a 5 ounce bottle of some other gourmet sauce, a whopping 28 ounce bottle of this might run you little over $3. Maybe even less, in certain specialty shops. You, the budding hot sauce enthusiast, might be tempted to skip over such a "low-rent" sauce, considering it beneath you. But now that you've read this, you realize you would have been passing over the greatest hot sauce in the world.
Many of you have probably already guessed it, and as the light of recognition dawns on you, you have probably begun nodding knowingly, in a solemn, reverent display of respect for what you now know -- and in some way, have always known -- is the very best hot sauce in the world.
The best hot sauce in the world is:
SRIRACHA
