Eat Arkansas

If you haven't done it before, stop at the Panola plant, just south of the Arkansas-Louisiana border on Hwy 65. The staff is charming and happy to give tours of the whole pepper-to-bottle process. Plus, they have a gift shop with all kinds of Panola products I haven't seen anywhere else. It's a fun little roadtrip diversion.

Tangy Bang is my favorite. Horseradish is the jumping off spot. But next to impossible to find. Click my name for the website, but if anyone knows where I can find it locally I'd love to know.

Max, next time you have some extra space on genuine smoker, using hickory or mesquite, put some fresh cayene pepper on and slowly allow them to smoke. Set aside and allow to finish drying.
Use the smoked cayennes to make a host of sauces.
I take some smoked chiles (cayenne), sun dried tomatoes, dried onion, add a few tablespoons of distilled or filtered water (nothing like chlorine to kill a flavor) and enough clear vinegar to make it tangy. Blend the ingredients while adding garlic clove, allspice, lemon juice, ground cumin sometimes a little touch of cinnamon, a small sprinkle of celery seed.
_

I gotta say: I've tried all kinds of hot sauce, and I still tend to think cheap and simple is best in this case. With the fancy stuff, you either tend to get something weird (mango-tango-tangerine-fusion) or something so galldang hot you'd have to have an asbestos tongue and a cast iron gullet to eat it.

As for me and my house: Give me good old fashioned Louisiana Hot Sauce (or, if I'm in a spending mood, Frank's Red Hot).

Just a follow up: while surfing the Panola website listed above, I noticed that they do "private label" bottling, where they bottle up their hot sauce in a plain bottle and slap a label of your design on it.

Maybe Eat Arkansas should have them do a run with Max's mug on the bottle. Any votes for a name?

I agree with Monkey...I am a simpleton when it comes to hot sauce...

Either Louisiana or Tabasco...depending on what mrs rosso is hankerin'...

That reminds me, I need to replenish my cupboard...got lots of ribs and chicken to work on Sunday...

I'm going to take advantage of that sale for sure...love the Sauce Co....

I agree with the Panola endorsement, and Tabasco is good for cookin' but for a general purpose hot sauce for the table, (I'm going against my raisin' here), the best is Frank's Red Hot sauce, which is made in (gulp) Parisanny, N.J. [Insert your favorite variation of the Pace Salsa "New Yooork City" joke here.]

Parsippany. Believe me, Parsippany is no Noo Yawk.

I love hot sauces and will try anything, but, like rosso, I am easily satisfied with off-the-shelf, long-time favorites.

As a child, I remember being appalled to see my Dad (rest his soul) douse his breakfast eggs with Tabasco--I tried it then, and, needless to say, found it unpalatable to a child's taste. It took me about twenty years to finally appreciate the flavor he'd craved.

I agree that those sauces are great but the best sauce that has ever passed my lips is Ring of Fire Chipotle & Roasted Garlic. http://www.mikeanddianes.com/engine/cart/details.aspx?id=3

Just a follow up: while surfing the Panola website listed above, I noticed that they do "private label" bottling, where they bottle up their hot sauce in a plain bottle and slap a label of your design on it....<<<

Yep. That brings up a good story:

A few years ago the wife & I stopped at the Panola factory and got the tour from the owner. He explained that while they do pretty well with their own label, they do better with supplying "store brand" sauces to grocery stores. He went on to say that their very best clients are prisons, and he then pointed out all of the plastic bottles. Those go to the pokey, where no glass is allowed.

We toured a bit more, and the guy bragged on the new facility. He explained that a disgruntled former employee burned the old place down.

So I asked, "Would your former employee be enjoying your product out of a plastic bottle right about now?"

"Sure is," he replied, "I'm on the parish prison board and we're takin' real good care of him!"

I love The South. You can't make this stuff up.

Okay I forgot to mention my favorite pure red hot sauce. Crystal from New Orleans. I snagged about 6 big bottles from a store down there a couple of months after Katrina. The NOLA factory was destroyed and I was afraid I'd never see it again. I understand they ended up just moving somewhere else. But I'm still glad I've got my originals for now. Never know if it's going to taste different from the new plant.

Before he left office, State Rep. Randy Rankin gave me a bottle of hot sauce that was one of the best I've had. Unfortunately, it's not got the actual company's name anywhere on the label.

Now that I think about it, he told me once where it came from, and I think it's Panola's private label. Gotta get more of that!