Hot Sauce Expert Guesses Cheap vs Expensive Hot Sauce | Price Points

I'm Noah Chaimberg and I'm a hot sauce expert.

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Ooh, yeah.

(coughs)

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(bottles sliding)

Let's take a look at what we got here.

Ruddy brown color, very consistent.

Some hot sauces, you'll have more chunks,

you'll have more body to 'em.

This looks like it's been blended thoroughly.

Little seeds here and there, but pretty sparse.

Seeds would be coming from the chili peppers themselves.

This guy here, little bit of flecks that could be

some spice or maybe some black pepper.

But looks very consistent and uniform.

Let's see what they smell like.

(smells sauce)

Oh. Lots of aroma here.

Definitely cumin and little hints of chili pepper.

On this guy,

not as much going on.

Smells a little bit like a michelada.

It seems like the type of thing you'd mix

with a beer to make a michelada.

Let's give these a taste.

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Nice speckling throughout.

Guessing a bigger variety of ingredients here.

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Lot's of flavor right off the bat.

Definitely tasting that cumin, getting onion.

Nice heat right away at the front of the mouth.

Pretty mild, but slowly building in heat so I'm guessing

more than one type of chili pepper in there.

Different types of pepper is what

different heat profiles.

So some might get you right at the tip of your tongue

and fade quickly.

Some, like a habanero, will get you at the back

of the throat.

And some, like a ghost pepper, take a little bit

of time to build.

So I'm guessing there's probably some ghost pepper in here.

Let's give this guy a try.

Looks perfectly uniform; it's all one color.

Seeing very little variation in there.

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That's very simple and straightforward,

arrives in one way and it leaves the same way.

It doesn't stick around for too long.

When you're buying hot sauce, you're paying for

two things: the flavor and the heat.

The capsaicin that's in chili peppers triggers

this reaction in your brain that actually makes

your body think that your mouth is on fire.

So your brain releases all these great chemicals

and compounds and adrenaline to help you deal

with the situation it perceives

as being really dangerous.

And all that stuff makes you feel great.

So if I had to guess which one was more expensive

I would definitely go with the one that has a lot more

complexity, a lot more depth of flavor, different

ingredients, and the more expensive chili peppers.

These ghost peppers tend to be pricier, which is what

I'm guessing is in there.

My guess is definitely that A is some more expensive.

Let's take a look.

(thrilling music)

Yep.

Without a doubt.

So when you're shopping for a Mexican style sauce,

definitely check the labels.

For one, is water an ingredient?

And water can be okay, but is it right at the top

of the ingredients list?

Also, be on the lookout for salt.

Sometimes with Mexican sauces, they'll use a lot

of salt to replace some of the other flavors that you

could otherwise get, and that sodium can add up

really quickly.

So just be sure to check the label.

In terms of color, nice bright color can be really

attractive, but is it filled with stabilizers

and artificial preservatives that are

keeping the color that way?

For me, I'd prefer something that looks a little

more natural 'cause it's probably gonna taste

a little more natural.

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(bottles sliding)

All right.

Lets see what we have here.

I'm seeing some nice separation here.

Got a little bit of oils floated to the surface.

So lots of seeds settled at the bottom.

Little flecks here and there of something.

No settling or separation.

Let's see what they smell like.

So, gonna shake it up.

(shakes bottle)

Especially with these vinegar based sauces where

you're gonna get some settling, so when you see it

at the grocery store it might be a little

clear on the top.

Totally natural.

Just know to shake it.

So aroma wise, it's a vinegar based sauce so you

definitely pick that up right away.

But you don't get the burn in the nostrils that you'll get

with the standard distilled vinegar.

This has a little more of warmth to it.

A little more pungency.

Some types of natural vinegars where it's a little closer

to the fermentation, you'll get a little bit of that

funkiness to it, which I think makes it really interesting.

Let's take a look at this guy here.

Give it a shake too.

I'm not sure as necessary here.

(smells bottle)

Ummm.

Sweet aroma. Definitely.

Getting, yeah, lots of chili pepper smell.

Smells almost faintly like strawberries.

I'm curious about the type of pepper in there.

Let's give these a try.

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Ummm.

I love that.

So taste wise, these vinegar sauces, picking it up

in the cheeks right away.

Heat wise, not super hot, not picking up a ton of heat.

Sweet on the back of the tongue though,

so that's interesting.

It's hard to put the finger on exactly what type

of pepper is in there.

But nice vinegar tones.

You can tell it's a quality vinegar in there.

Let's give this other guy a try.

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Definitely a lot more saltiness right off the bat.

You get salt on the tip of the tongue.

Nice chili peppers though.

I'm thinking cayenne or anaheim pepper.

Overall though, the salt kind of dominates the flavor.

So guessing which of these is more expensive, I'd have

to go with A on this one.

Just based on the look of it, I'm guessing it's a smaller

batch process that went into making this product.

I can see the ingredients, I see the seeds from the peppers

that are in there.

Definitely more nuance tasting the vinegar.

It's not standard distilled white vinegar.

It's something with a little more interest to it

in fermentation that's a little more active.

The sauce over here, while still really tasty,

had a lot of salt to it and that always makes me

a little bit questioning, when I taste a lot of salt

in a product.

What's that salt covering up?

Also, the consistency that we see here, perfectly

uniform throughout.

Tells me there's a very commercialized process

of the types of machinery that they used to make

a sauce with that type of consistency on the shelf,

is not something that's really gonna have

a lot of involvement by hand.

My guess is that A is more expensive.

Let's take a look.

Yep.

That makes sense.

So when you're shopping for a vinegar based sauce

at the grocery store, look at the type of vinegar

that they're using.

The most common that we see is distilled white vinegar

and that's been used for a long time and people use it for

cleaning around the house and for cooking and preserving.

Apple cinder vinegar, which I suspect is what's in here,

has become really popular in the last few years.

People like it for its supposed health benefits, but I

really like it for its flavor.

It has a little more pungency to it.

A little more funk.

But vinegar can be fermented from

all kinds of different things.

So as you travel around the world, in China they have

a black vinegar fermented from rice, and in

South Korea they have persimmon vinegar.

So all kinds of fun stuff going on.

So there's a big variety and we're seeing more and more

hot sauce makers leveraging that variety.

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(sauce sliding)

All right.

Let's take a look at what we have here.

Rich red color.

Not a lot of movement at all.

I can tun it totally upside down

and it's really taking its time.

Very uniform consistency throughout.

Not seeing much of

anything

colored here.

Little flecks of pepper flesh here and there.

Whereas over here, definitely faster movement.

And sometimes that can be related to the content

of the sauce and sometimes also, a lot of hot sauces that

are out there, you're gonna see artificial thickeners

or things like xanthan gum, designed to make them

not more around as much.

So usually if something is moving pretty easy that

could be a good sign that it's natural.

To me, it looks almost creamy.

And normally when we see that in a hot sauce it's usually

because there's oil in there and when the oil is whipped

or blended as part of the sauce making process it'll

emulsify a little bit and give it this almost creamy

look to it, that almost always is not dairy.

Let's see how they smell.

Definitely getting healthy notes of garlic in there.

(smells bottle)

And a little bit of funk.

Maybe something like a fish sauce,

or some type of fermentation.

Almost a little bit of a pickle-y smell.

Appealing though.

Whoa. That's different.

Smells (smells bottle) definitely like peppercorns.

So not chili peppers themselves, but peppercorns like

black pepper that we think of that'll have a much

more floral aroma.

(smells bottle)

But really appealing and nice too.

Let's give them a try.

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Okay.

That's sriracha.

Would know it anywhere.

(laughs)

Really tasty.

So anybody's free to call their sauces sriracha

and some people will do it as an homage

to some original sauce.

Some people do it referencing a place in Thailand.

And some people do it because that term has become

so synonymous with hot sauce where they are that they

thought that that's just what you call hot sauce.

The classic elements that I picked up in here told me

right away what this is.

There's a little bit of pickled flavor paired with the

overt sweetness and that medium heat, really indicates

to me that this is sriracha.

So let's give this other one a try.

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Ummm.

Right away, super bright upfront.

The front...

Whoa.

(coughs)

The front of the mouth getting flavors of lemon and ginger.

Super floral, this is loaded with those peppercorns.

And then

just a hint

of sweetness towards the back

and now a heat that is slowly building and building.

This is actually a pretty hot sauce.

Really tasty though.

This is for people who are well-versed in hot sauce

and who like it at the spicier end of things.

I might actually have some more of this

one just to cool off.

(laughs)

Hot sauce to cool down.

I'm thinking Asian for these sauces because of the

sriracha flavors, the garlic that's in there,

the pickled flavors, it's a strong indicator.

And in this sauce, the ginger

and the very floral

peppercorns that are in there really give a strong

Asian vibe to it.

So definitely considering the amount of heat that

was in this one.

The mouth feel, the different types

of ingredients and aroma.

Definitely gonna guess that his is the more expensive sauce.

This one tastes really high quality,

but a lot of sugar in there.

It's a little more day-to-day and pedestrian.

You could use a lot of it so I don't imagine it would be

too pricey.

But let's take a look.

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Yeah.

Definitely more expensive over here.

Important to keep in mind when evaluating the price

differences with different things,

that they each have their place.

If you wanna go nuts and use a ton of sauce, something

like this might be a better bet.

That being said, I imagine that this bottle for $18

is gonna last you a lot longer than this one over here.

Because with this sauce you're really only gonna be using

a small amount at a time.

When we talk about Asian sauces, we're talking about

a big geographic area, a lot of different cuisines.

A lot of different cultures.

So when you read that ingredients list, there might

be some things on there that you've never heard of before,

but it's a really fun area to experiment with.

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(bottles sliding)

All right.

Let's see what we got here.

This rich brown color and strong consistency tells me

that we're looking at barbecue hot sauces.

So taking a look at this one, we see it really is

sticking in its place.

Nice and thick.

Not a bad trait when it comes to

a barbecue-type sauce like this.

Pretty even, rich chocolatey brown color throughout.

Little bits of chili pepper seeds here and there.

Taking a look at B, some flecks and some

different coloration.

Got some different things going on

so that'll be interesting.

Body wise, let's see, similar.

Color wise, it's got kind of a more caramel-y color

than the other one.

Getting smoke right away.

Which is a good sign, that's what you want

in barbecue.

Getting almost a bit of a citrus note.

So maybe something like lime in here, which would

be nice for a barbecue sauce.

Nice amount of complexity.

It smells like there's interesting things going on.

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That doesn't smell great.

This one has an interesting smell.

Can't pick out anything too particular.

Something faintly

chemical about it.

Almost like a room that was painted a couple of weeks ago

and you walked in there.

(smells bottle)

Not the most appetizing smell, but we won't hold that

against it just yet.

We'll see what it tastes like.

But first let's do this A.

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Wow.

Lot of flavor going on there.

Definitely some type of citrus.

I'm thinking lime.

Healthy sweetness, almost tamarind type of flavors.

And then in the back you get the smoke.

Not a lot of heat.

Little bit of heat.

So I'm guessing something like maybe chipotle

or an ancho chili, something like that.

Definitely smoked pepper.

But that citrusy sweet, fruit flavor is a really nice

balance, a really nice tasting sauce.

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Let's move on to B here.

So B,

you can see,

kept the shape

of a droplet.

Maybe even a bit more stiffness than we want.

And yeah, it's not going anywhere.

So that suggests to me, possibly there's

some additives in here.

Not due to the process of cooking it down over a long

period of time like if you made barbecue sauce at home,

but just more of a chemical way of achieving that effect.

Let's give it a try.

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It's like a sweet bomb right away in the mouth.

It's not feeling quite like natural sugar.

It feels to me like some type of processed sugar.

Like the corn syrup or something like that, you can feel

it a little more towards the back of your throat

as it's going down.

Not a ton of flavor overall though, passed pretty quickly.

In terms of which one I think would be more expensive,

I'm gonna have to go with the one

that tasted a lot better.

I can tell from the taste of it that this one took more

time, that his one had higher quality ingredients,

and that a little more care was put into

the production of it.

But let's find out.

(thrilling music)

Yeah.

So,

makes sense to me.

And if you're going to the trouble of doing something

like barbecue, let's say you're gonna be smoking some

ribs or something like that.

To me it's worthwhile to spend a little bit extra

to complement that with some amazing flavors

that your guests are definitely gonna appreciate.

First with something like this, which feels a lot more

fast food, almost store bought, whereas this tastes

like the quality of homemade.

This sauce seems really reminiscent of

a Texas style barbecue and they share a lot of the same

chili's that we'll see from Mexico.

So,

jalapenos,

serranos,

poblanos,

a natural wood smoke is always gonna be the best.

Some less expensive products, you'll see with the

artificial smoke.

I suspect that's what's happening here.

And that's where a smoke distillate, just like from

a jar, little liquid smoke is added to give it

the flavor, but it never comes across the same way

as when the chili's themselves are smoked using

real hardwood.

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(sliding bottles)

Let's see here.

Dark color, seeing a couple of seeds.

Otherwise, pretty uniform throughout.

Let's take a look at this guy.

So, this one is what we'd call pepper dense.

You can really see that there's a lot of pepper in here.

I'd expect that pepper would be the number one ingredient.

This looks like somebody just mashed up some peppers

and put them in a bottle.

Let's see how they smell.

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Getting some nice nostril burn.

(smells bottle)

Mild sweetness almost.

Definitely smells very hot.

When you're smelling a super hot sauce, which I'm expecting

this is, you'll get that

feeling in the nostrils right away.

The nose tells you that the pepper wants to warn you

that it's hot.

(smells bottle)

Peppers develop capsaicin as a defense mechanism

so that animals wouldn't eat them.

Specifically mammals, because mammals have teeth and molars

and will chew up the seed.

So peppers don't wanna be eaten up by mammals because

then their seeds are destroyed.

Interestingly birds aren't affected by the heat in

chili peppers at all because peppers actually wanna

be eaten by birds because birds don't have teeth

so they'll ingest the seeds.

And then they'll fly away, crap them out somewhere

into a nice little pile of fertilizer and the pepper

then spread its domain that way and its offspring.

So the capsaicin in the chili peppers

is a natural defense mechanism.

So let's take a look at B.

(smells bottle)

Ooh yeah.

So that has just chili pepper scent up-and-down.

This smells like somebody just cut open a super hot pepper.

It's a really distinct, nostril burning,

kind of acerbic type of smell.

(smells bottle)

Almost a citrus undertone to it.

Interesting.

A bit scared to try these two, but glad we saved

them for last.

I'm only gonna take a little bit so don't judge me.

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(coughs)

That's...

That does not taste good.

Tastes like a car just did a burn out and you took

a bite of the tire.

The heat's spreading on the tongue.

This is a really, very hot sauce.

(breathes)

Can I yell cut or...

(laughs)

That water made it worse.

I should have known.

Yeah.

Flavor wise, leaves a lot to be desired.

This is kind of what I would call a prank sauce.

It's what you'd use to pull a trick on a buddy when

you're in college.

Not really food.

Nobody would (breathes) buy this for (breathes)

nutrition or sustenance or flavor.

Got a little tear going.

So that's fun.

So a level of heat in there, flavor, is telling me

that's not a lot of chilies.

It's telling me there's extracts in there.

Extracts are a chemical distillation of the capsaicin

compound so it's normally a clear substance that you can

use to add to a sauce to add a lot of heat without

adding any flavor.

I'm not a big fan.

If you couldn't tell.

Let's check out the other sauce.

(suspenseful music)

Whoa.

That is

very sweet,

not sugary at all, but sweet on the tip of the tongue.

Like a fruit almost.

Keeping in mind that peppers are fruits, so confirming

what I thought,

that this is a really pepper dense sauce.

This particular sweetness and the level of heat

that I'm getting from it have heat that starts

in the center of the tongue is spreading outwards,

spreading outwards, down the shoulders.

The sweetness and the heat profile make me suspect

pretty strongly that this is a Carolina Reaper base sauce.

Carolina Reaper was bade the hottest pepper in the world

in the Guinness Book of Records in 2013.

Developed by a pepper breeder named Smokin' Ed Currie

down in South Carolina.

He named it the Carolina Reaper and often times

it will have this very sweet, fruity profile to it.

Nice flavor, but lingering burning heat.

I'm still feeling it quite hot on the tongue.

Not in a way that feels like I regret my decisions.

If I had to guess which one of these was more expensive,

I would definitely say it's the sauce that's full of

natural peppers.

Peppers cost money, and this sauce is full of them.

So, knowing what I know about peppers and the way

that sauces are made, this sauce is primarily peppers

with a density that it looks like, I'd say there's at least

20 whole peppers

in here.

Over here is definitely extract, and with that stuff,

a little goes a long way.

They used a little more than a little, so I don't think

this stuff is going free either.

Let's find out.

(suspenseful music)

Yeah.

That makes sense.

High quality, delicious chili peppers with tons of heat.

They're gonna have a certain cost.

Whatever this was is gonna have a different cost.

In my opinion, hot sauce should always

be thought of as food.

We like to say food that goes on food.

And food has to have good flavor so I'm never gonna

approach a sauce that doesn't have good flavor as

the first check mark on my list because otherwise

I'm not gonna wanna put it on my food.

So when you're at the grocery store looking for a

super hot sauce, though to be honest you're not

going to find anything like either of these two

at a normal grocery store.

When you're at a specialty hot sauce shop looking for

a super hot sauce, read the ingredients lists.

Your super hot pepper should absolutely be

the number one thing on that ingredients list.

So some super hot peppers to look for would be

things like Carolina Reaper that I think is in here.

The ghost pepper is a popular one,

the moruga scorpion pepper, Pepper X.

There's a good variety of them.

Things you wanna avoid in my opinion are gonna be

extracts, so on labels you'll see them listed as something

like oleoresin extract, capsaicin extract, things like that.

Something that suggests that it's not whole nice

peppers that are going into that bottle.

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When you thinking about hot sauce and thinking about

spending a little more, $10 or $12 dollar on a bottle

of hot sauce, think about how much value you're going

to get out of that and if it's going to sit in your

fridge for two or three months and you might get

20 or 30 or 40 meals out of it.

So it's worth investing in some better ingredients,

some fresher, higher quality product.

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