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Let's talk hot sauce
Right off the bat we have our mainstream sauces: tabasco and frank's. Hotsauce hipsters turn their noses at these fairly vinegar-heavy sauces as they are boring, if not fairly versatile. It's interesting to note that standard tabasco is 5-10 times hotter than frank's, so whenever I hear anyone say Frank's is their favorite, I immediately assume they can't handle their heat. Even tabasco green, which isn't a bad tasting sauce, is hotter than frank's. I don't hate frank's, it's just to get the heat I want, I end up using so much that the salt & vinegar starts to dominate too much.
Novelty sauces. These are the burn your face off hot sauces that generally don't have the greatest flavor in the world. Currently I'm going through a bottle of "mother of all hot sauces", which is rated at around 300k scoville units, or around 600x the heat of frank's. I use 4-5 drops for a bowl of food and it's pretty f'n hot. This is my 3rd or 4th bottle of novelty sauce, and I've never been super impressed with any of them for anything other than making my eyes water ... which is sometimes what I'm looking for.
Asian sauces. These are the Fbomb. I'm talkin' about sriracha or sambal oelek, or the like. They have a great flavor, aren't too weak or too strong, don't over-color the flavor of what you're putting it on. Just fantastic.
Other noteworthy sauces with mid-range heat but great flavor and versatility:
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