Hot Sauce and I Have a Love/Hate Relationship

I put sriracha on everything. Well, mostly everything. Like candy, for example, there are some things that it just wouldn't go with, in my opinion. But, I put it on pizza, spaghetti, and even salads to give them a little extra kick they wouldn't otherwise have.

I've enjoyed spicy foods for as long as I can remember. An everyday meal I would make for myself during latchkey days was nachos piled with cheese and some hot salsa. It was easy, filling, and if you just think about all the vegetables in salsa, it was also pretty healthy (or at least that's what I told myself).

Sriracha, and even hot supermarket salsa, are pretty mild when looking at a spectrum of the multitude of hot sauces available these days. When I was younger, the scorching hot sauces were relegated to specialty stores or odd corners of the grocery store. The dank, mystical corners that one could only find with a treasure map or a helpful guide. The corners that held the strange, the fringe, the junk items ordered on a whim by the owner or inventory manager just to see who would bite.

Now, hot sauces are front and centre. I wish I had a picture to share, but at one grocery store I frequent, there is literally a display of regional hot sauce right next to the meat, right beside where they put the flyer sale items, almost at the front door.

According to people far wiser than I, hot sauce doesn't actually burn in the sense that it doesn't chemically burn you. It just tricks your body into thinking you're in pain because of how the capsaicin, the molecule found in peppers and other things that we find spicy, reacts to your tongue.

The pain then releases endorphins, which is the happy brain juice that makes you feel good inside. Apparently, that's why people who like spicy foods keep going back to them time and again and sometimes venturing too far, either with bravado to show off or because they want the burn.

Many years ago, a friend and I decided to take a break from binging a tv show to get something to eat. We went to the local pub, and I decided to get some wings. I asked for their really hot version, which I'm sure the reader is aware is a staple at every pub. The server warned against it, and so I settled on getting the sauce on the side.

It burned.

But I kept trying it, here and there, never that much, and with great pains. I ended up not eating that much of the sauce because it was too much for me.

I'm no longer friends with that gentleman. We lost touch because of many faults of my making. Still, I hope that he holds that as a special memory as well—a memory of his stupid friend who kept trying a hot sauce despite the pain.

Years later, at that very same pub, a couple of friends from Mexico studying at the college I attended did the same stupid thing I did, but they didn't get the sauce on the side. They certainly faired better than I probably would have had I gotten the sauce drenched over the wings as well, but by the end, they were both in tears and barely able to talk. And that was at lunch, so they had to go back to school after that.

A few years after that, some friends and I went to Jungle Jims. It was wing night or half-price app night, I can't recall, and a friend of mine got their Insanity wings. Whether he genuinely wanted the wings or trying to show off was unclear at the time. (His future wife was there, and they had been dating for years, but I say he was showing off for her.) They even had him sign a waiver, but it may have been more for show than any actual liability. He didn't order a second serving of those wings.

More recently, the trends of very spicy foods have had an uptick on social media, and I think it's in no small part thanks to the fantastic series "Hot Ones" on youtube. If you haven't seen it (have you been living under a rock?), the premise is simple: the host and the guest both eat progressively spicier wings as the guest is being interviewed. The series became hugely popular thanks to its straightforward concept and the entertaining and incredible interviewer Sean Evans.

The series started small, with ten sauces chosen randomly based on their heat levels and popularity. Now they evolved into making their own hot sauces that I assume are extremely popular in their own right.

I should know because I bought one.

Well, technically, my wife bought it for me for my birthday, but you get the point. They did a collaboration between Hot Ones and Joji, a shock-Youtuber turned musician who I like. They made a hot sauce called Dragon in the Clouds, which you can see pictured at the top.

It was intense, but it tastes pretty nice as well. The flavour is one thing I like about Hot One's sauces that didn't seem to be a concern in the past. The super spicy hot sauces had no flavour, and it was all about the burn, but now people are a bit more discerning in their palates. This particular hot sauce has a bold citrusy flavour thanks to Yuzu, a citrus fruit native in Japan.

I received another of their hot sauces as a gift from my brother for me and my wife's anniversary, along with some other presents. I had used up most of that hot sauce in a month. It was spicier than sriracha, but it had a nice flavour that went well with all the usual things I put hot sauce on.

In 2016, Paqui did their first "One Chip Challenge" to cash in on the social media craze that hot sauces were becoming. Hot Ones came out in 2015, so you tell me what inspired them.

And, of course, it worked. Many people, influencers and otherwise, took the challenge and posted videos online, which brought Paqui a lot of free advertising. I hope whoever came up with the idea is now higher up in the company because of it.

My wife and I got the chips, and we posted a video online. It surprisingly has over 5k views and a few comments on it. I think I handled it well, but my wife isn't as into spice as I am, and she had a more challenging time of it. Check out the video below.

My brother also included the newer version of the One Chip Challenge with his anniversary gift. It's much hotter than the first version of the challenge, so I don't plan on trying it any time soon.

I would say that with most things, I don't jump on the hype train. But when it comes to hot and spicy, from mild to burn your tongue, I like to try the interesting, the unique, or the trendy. Even if it means I'll regret it for a half-hour or so, or later when I have to use the washroom.

But for now, I'll stick with my sriracha.

Stay spicy, friends.