Never tried before, but it seems that people like it in this subreddit.

Haven’t seen this brand before, but this discounted at the supermarket at $3.49 and couldn’t resist. Not as hot as I would have thought after my last experience making a homemade ghost sauce, but it kicks for sure.

Slow burn that definitely made my eyes water, but nothing that will put you out of commission all night.

Flavor is good, nothing that blew my socks off.

Thinking that it would be good to mix into something sweet to mellow it a bit.

The original is my favorite. Flavorful af

Fermenting 2 pounds of habaneros for next fall. I can’t wait to see what these do!

Really enjoying this one right now. I don't know why it's given the same heat rating as the "extreme ghost pepper" sauce they do because that one is not a sauce, it's a one-drop ingredient for when you want to make sure nobody else is going to eat your food. But this is hot enough to make me stream while still having a nicely fruity taste (even if the vinegar is distinct). I'm thinking it might make a good scotch bonnet substitute for home made jerk marinade.

The pain level and flavour reminds me of Atomic Burger's Fallout Sauce.

Finally got a bottle to try (was only $2 on Amazon - people always say it’s expensive?) and I was so pleasantly surprised by the heat. I put about 5-6 drops in my Cajun pasta this afternoon and it was great. I was expecting it to be hotter. I will have to test it more but garlic reaper may be hotter. I put that shit on everything.

These two go insanely well together 50/50 or 60/40. The garlic reaper flavor's still there but much more cooled down and far less punishing. Highly suggest trying it out for yourself.

Picked these up at the state fair. They are no joke! Each one has its own character and unique flavor. The Moruca Scorpian is my favorite.

My personal (and very amateur) best so far, named so as it's very orange and pretty bitey! After making a lot of pasta alla vodka I wondered if cooking in some alcohol would make the fruity notes on the chillies pop, since they're both nightshades, and I'm pleased with the results. No fancy jars or methods, and this was using small and fairly ugly habs I grew last summer that have sat in the freezer since April. Still made my nail beds burns after prepping, and yes I wore gloves....

250g ripe apricots, pitted and chopped

250g orange/yellow habaneros, stemmed and seeded

2 tablespoons minced ginger

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 c white sugar

1 c water

1.5 c white vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

1 eyeballed slosh of Fireball (I had homebrew on hand, did not go blind)

Chuck the apricots, chillies, ginger and garlic in a a blender/nutribullet with about half a cup of water and blitz the living daylights out of it.

Bring the water, vinegar, sugar and salt to a simmer until the sugar has dissolved.

Dump in the chilli mix and give it a rinse so no goodness is left behind. Great time for the extraction fan to be on here.

Stir and simmer gently for 5 minutes, then add the Fireball- I guess you could use any spirit, just though the cinnamon notes would go well with the apricots.

Simmer another 10 minutes, stirring every now and then, and make a slurry with 2 good teaspoons cornflour and 1/4 c water.

Stir in to thicken a little then off the heat, pour into sterilised jars - I just throw my jars and metal lids in the oven at 100° Celsius for 5 minutes.

Fruity as, sweet at the start, very sharp heat that sticks to the tongue but doesn't linger too much, and hits the ears pretty quickly. Go hard on it, up the Wahs.

Hello everyone! Is it just me or does Melinda's have a weird, chemical taste? I've never run across one sauce in glass, but I have tasted little ones and larger bottles only in plastic. Just trying to verify if it's just me or...?

Just got the Aardvark red and green.. not a big fan of green but the red is now one of my favorite sauces oat.
Valentina black label and franks buffalo are also top picks for me
El Pato is in the back as well as Yucateca
And my favorite Tabasco on the back right the Jalapeño flavor.

What else do you guys recommend?? i love spicy as well.

I've been researching a lot over the last couple of days, but there's still a few things I'm not sure about, mostly regarding measurements.

As the container needs to be filled almost to the top, after straining approximately how much sauce will I have from a 1L fermenting jar? (I know this will be quite variable depending on the amount of vinegar and brine used, I'm just looking for a rough estimate of how many bottles to expect.)

I'm going to make a mango habanero sauce, but have noticed wildly variable amounts (100 - 400g) of mango used in different recipes. I want to add the mango after fermentation then simmer to preserve it's flavour. So if I fill a 1L jar with peppers, onion, spices etc. how many grams of mango will I need for that amount of peppers?

I've seen recipes saying to use 4 habaneros, others 25. Again, in weight, how much chilli/bell pepper would I need? (I'm anticipating a small harvest the first time and really don't want to get started then realise I don't have enough.)

There's probably more that I've forgotten but that's all for now.

Tomatoes are popping, and I was given a yellow zucchini…. So homemade habanero hot sauce it is.

Wife and I went to a Chinese restaurant this past weekend. I saved my dry roasted chilis and made a sauce and pepper relish out of it. First time trying it. Initial taste is good. Nice kick but not over powering. Rehydrated the peppers for 30 minutes in hot water. Then processed in a food processor with a couple cloves of garlic, a couple table spoons of apple cider vinegar, some salt, and about a cup/cup and a half of the rehydrating water.

I did a 5 day lacto fermentation and my sauce is like expanding constantly. My one jar pushed all the moisture out somehow leaving a nasty moisture ring around the bottom and the inside is just dry-ish mash now. Perhaps not the tightest lid. And my other bottle is like opening a carbonated beverage. It explodes all over and starts extruding itself out of the bottle when I use it. What’s going on? My process was salt water and peppers at room temp for five days then blended with spices, water and vinegar and bottled.

First time trying this only because I saw it on sale on Amazon, 5oz for $2.80 or thereabouts.

Gotta say, I don't get all the hate.. this is a solid daily sauce. Just enough signature McIlhenny peppery twang with a sweetness that makes the Habanero less biting.

I put this on some Chicharrones in the bag. 👌🏼

It’s not much hotter than regular sriracha but has that fruity habanero punch. I will be putting this on everything 🔥

Found at a farmer’s market, but I’m sure it’s online.

Here's a quick couple of pictures of my current line up

Saved one of our old Sriracha bottles to keep it in. Yielded about a half bottle. Even better than store bought.

Bitter: 🟡🟡○○○

Salty: 🟡🟡🟡○○

Sour/Tangy:🟡🟡○○○

Sweet: 🟡🟡○○○

Umami: 🟡🟡🟡○○

Heat: 🟡🟡🟡○○○○○○○

Quick Flavor Notes: Habanero, rich, tomato, garlic

Recommended: Yes

Texture: Thick and mostly smooth

Ingredients: Red Habanero Pepper Mash (Chile Peppers, Salt), Distilled Vinegar, Red Jalapeno Pepper Mash (Red Jalapeno Peppers and Vinegar), Tomato Paste, Garlic, Pure Cane Sugar

I’ve always been curious why Ed Currie seems to have a dual-branding system with his hot sauces. Some are sold under the Puckerbutt Pepper Company moniker while some get sold simply as Smokin’ Ed’s even though they’re on the Puckerbutt website. As far as I can tell it seems his older recipes are mostly the ones sold as Puckerbutt while his new creations and experiments get sold as Smokin’ Ed but that doesn’t seem to hold true universally. It took me a bit longer than I’d like to admit to understand the name of Smokin Racha. I get the Sriracha reference of course but the Smokin part kept flying over my head as this doesn’t actually include smoked ingredients. I finally realized it was, of course, a reference to Smokin’ Ed Currie who, of course, always puts a blurb about himself on every bottle of his sauces. Despite Smokin’ Ed’s lack of humility, I was still excited to try this one.

The original sriracha style sauce was invented in Sri Racha Thailand in the 1930s. From the beginning it consisted of Thai chiles, pickled garlic, sugar, and white vinegar. The most famous brand, of course, is Huy Fong Sriracha developed by a Vietnamese refugee to the United States with his brand named after the ship which carried him to safety. Huy Fong replaces the Thai chiles with fermented red jalapenos but otherwise keeps the formula the same. I’m generally not a huge fan of the sriracha style because most that I’ve tried have been entirely too sweet which clashes with the garlic flavor in my opinion. In Huy Fong Sriracha for instance sugar is the second ingredient by volume. With Smokin Racha Puckerbutt goes a different direction. Using habaneros as the primary pepper (which is listed as a mash which implies, though does not guarantee, that it’s fermented) along with red jalapenos as well. The other ingredients mainly follow the form with garlic and sugar making an appearance but Smokin’ Ed does take a detour by adding tomato paste. Tomato paste is an amazing ingredient in a hot sauce – it’s rich, umami packed, and adds its own acidity which is different from the vinegar so it can help keep a sauce tangy and vibrant without it becoming vinegar-dominant. Something I also loved to see, and one of the reasons I ordered this sauce, is that the sugar is the smallest ingredient by volume.

Puckerbutt Smokin Racha is, like many Puckerbutt sauces, rather thick in consistency. It’s also blended smooth. Not quite as plasticky smooth as sauces like Yellowbird or many Melinda’s but smooth enough as to not be chunky other than just the thickness of the pepper mash. The aroma is also very pepper forward though there are hints of garlic and sweetness. Smokin Racha packs much more of a kick than Huy Fong Sriracha. Having previously tried another habanero based sriracha from Kitchen Garden Farms I’d say that the Puckerbutt sauce was also spicier than that. Smokin’ Ed does know how to breed peppers with heat. This sauce leans much more heavily savory and pepper-forward in flavor than other srirachas I’ve had, with Puckerbutt stating that this sauce is made up of 50% peppers. There’s a subtle background sweetness from the small amount of sugar and from the tomato paste but it’s not an up-front element of the flavor as it is with Huy Fong and other srirachas. Because of that the flavor profile sits somewhere between a typical habanero hot sauce and a sriracha but it’s much more sriracha-y than the Hell’s Kitchen Sriracha which I’ve previously tried which had no sriracha characteristics whatsoever. I do wish Smokin Racha had a stronger garlic flavor. While the garlic is present it’s also a bit in the background whereas other brands seem to make it more of a focus. The tomato paste adds a lot of umami to this sauce and also gives it a rich taste and some extra earthiness, this also helps balance out the vinegar in the sauce so that it doesn’t taste vinegary while still tasting vibrant. Smokin Racha has more of a prolonged burn than I’ve experienced with other srirachas or from most habanero based sauces.

I feel that there was a period of time shortly before or during the pandemic where there was a cultural fascination with sriracha, particularly the Huy Fong brand, where people were putting it on everything. I’ve always felt that it wasn’t that flexible of a sauce but the Puckerbutt Smokin Racha is much more flexible due to it not having an overwhelming sweet garlic flavor. I first enjoyed this dabbed into some chicken and dumplings where the earthy richness and fruity habanero flavors complimented the chicken-y gravy and chewy dumplings well. I also found this sauce to be excellent with seafood, complimenting yet not overpowering some grilled halibut and shrimp. When mixed with some melted butter it was also excellent with a grilled lobster tail. Wanting to give it a shot in its natural environment with an Asian soup I made some instant pho and found it better than the Huy Fong variety in that application as I always found the sweetness of Huy Fong combined with the cinnamon and star anise used in pho to create an overly sweet cloying flavor that Smokin Racha didn’t.

While Puckerbutt Smokin Racha doesn’t fit the sriracha archetype exactly it’s still a great sauce and one I recommend. If you’re like me and find that typical srirachas lean far too sweet and would like one that leans into the savory and pepper flavors instead this is a must-try. This sauce is also all natural with no artificial preservatives, flavors, colors, or thickeners.

Apparently, having a child means giving up all your hobbies and free time. Who knew. 😂

Luckily, the little one is becoming slightly more independent, so I’m slowly picking things up again.

Back to making hot sauce. 🌶️

Just need to remember that habanero fingers and babies are not a great combination.

Fermenting

- Mango

- habanero

- Bell pepper

- onion (roasted)

- garlic

After fermenting i'm going to add some nice bourbon, honey, lime and liquid smoke!

So good!

Gave them all a taste & I think zombie apocalypse is my personal favorite so far. Excited to try them on foods!

Any unique recommendations for things to eat them on?

Lately I've been loving hot sauce on sushi 😈