Ryan wrote:Tobasco is just vinegary bullshit. No flavor to speak of
Well yes and no. Yes, because it does have vinegar in it. Most hot sauces do to preserve it, and I suppose it also might enhance the flavor sometimes. But tabasco peppers themselves really don't have much of a flavor, they're mostly just heat from the oil of the seeds and the core. I used to grow a few tabasco plants in the pepper section of my garden every year, and I can tell you the homegrown ones are much hotter, especially when grown in the typical red high-acid soil found throughout Georgia. You can split them open and take out the seeds to where nothing is left but the outer flesh and that will remove a lot of the heat, but at that point they taste basically like weak storebought bell pepper... just with heat.
(Oh yeah, and if you're cutting up fresh tabasco peppers, WEAR LATEX GLOVES! That oil will get underneath your fingernails and will burn like hell for weeks. And then if you so happen to scratch your balls with those nails, youch.
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It's not as bad as others out there. I think I've tried that Franks Red Hot sauce before, and THAT shit was mostly vinegar. Wasn't very hot at all. I'd recommend something like Franks Red Hot if you were maybe preparing some hot wings for a group that didn't want their wings to be all that hot. It's pretty mild and tasteless in my opinion.
For a major brand, Tabasco is pretty good. It had plenty of heat for most people. If you want something a little hotter, they have the Habanero sauce. Sometimes I'll sprinkle a little of that over some fried okra from the garden. My favorite is the Tabasco Garlic sauce. It's a little harder to find sometimes. It a good bit milder than the regular Tabasco and has pretty distinct garlic flavor to it. Goes AWESOME on a good pizza.
. But I like most of the Louisiana style sauces, they aren't really hot but they make stuff tasty. I like Tapatio as well, and when I want my tongue to melt off I go for El Yucateco, a habanero sauce. I am a fan of making food tongue blisteringly hot. I put jalapenos on EVERYTHING I eat, hot dogs, burgers, pizza, etc.
