What's your hot sauce of choice?

Really depends on the food and mood. Anywhere from basic crushed red pepper, Crystal, to ludicrous level stuff with ghosts and reapers.

I don't use nuclear stuff as much due to intestinal stuff as I'm getting older though.

Also, for any upcoming spice hounds, pickle juice works very well to kill the burn, if you like pickles.

Huy Fong Chili Garlic Sauce. They sell it by the gallon at an Asian market near me and all I can say is I'm tempted.

Maritime Madness, Candied Habanero or Lime Cilantro.

I can’t pick a single favorite, they all have different uses. Cholula or Valentina go with a lot of things, but obviously and especially Mexican food. Frank’s Red Hot is pretty much only for making Buffalo sauce, but I also like it on mac & cheese, and on steak (this is a weird thing I got from my dad). My favorite chili crisp is Fly By Jing. It makes Chinese takeout worth eating. Calabrian chili paste goes great on sandwiches and in tomato sauces. I’m not big on sriracha, but keep a bottle of Underwood Ranches on hand to make spicy ketchup or add to a sandwich or burger, ramen, etc. Speaking of Underwood Ranches, their chili garlic sauce is perfect on eggs. I also have a bottle of Secret Aardvark habanero sauce for chili and hot dogs and most importantly, chili dogs. The last one that comes to mind is the only obscure one that you get in those mall stores where 99% of their business is from frat boy joke labels: “Sauce Bitch”. Despite the stupid name, this one is unique and delicious. It’s fruity and dark and goes amazingly well with pork dishes as well as eggs. I stumbled on it in a restaurant and now I have to order it direct from the manufacturer because I haven’t found anything else quite like it.

Oh man, how has nobody mentioned cholula? I can't even use other sauces except for siracha.

I came here to mention Cholula. Glad someone did. Its just the right flavor and spice imo

Haven't seen Hank Sauce Cilanktro listed yet.

A good, fresh salsa verde

My own sauce because it's not cooked, without vinegar and hotter.

El Yucateco - all of their habanero-based sauces are good. I had the black label one recently and feel like I've discovered a new favorite.

Kill Sauce - limited selection but really unique sauces with complex flavor profiles to balance the heat. The Habanero is exemplary, but the Carolina and Ghost versions are the pinnacle, IMO.

Good old Tobasco.

suka pinakurat

My store bought favorites are chili garlic Cholula and the green tabasco. I also make my own (commented on another reply about what)

There's this belizean hot sauce called Marie Sharp's, I get the gold one. Doesn't sting me at all, my family can't handle heat, but it does the job well enough.

My favourite however is Salsa Macha. Can't get dried pepper where I'm at though, or I'd make it myself. Goes great with just about anything, even compound butter slathered bbq steaks.

I go for salsas and chunky condiments (e.g. black bean chilli crisp, hot Indian chutneys) than just a liquid hot sauce, even then it's sriracha.

Current favorites are The Seventh Reaper and Heartbeat Scorpion. Tasty and hot but not stupid hot.

Oh and in the milder end: Dirty Dick’s Hot Pepper Sauce With a Tropical Twist

Might not sound interesting - or maybe it isn't even a "hot sauce", but since it's like, the only I know, schezwan.

Tapatio for me.

Tapatio goes with everything!

-Homemade garlic cayenne hot sauce.

-Frank's Red Hot. I put that shit on everything.

-Cholula for Mexican food.

Willing to share your fav garlic cayenne formulation?
I use Franks and Franks wing sauce a lot.

I live in NM so we have New Mexican Food, for that it comes pre covered in green or red chile.

Cholula garlic, Valentina, Melinda's habenero garlic and various yellow bird.

Crystal hot sauce is my goto. Tangy and just the right amount of heat to casually throw on anything if you don't want to go into battle mode. Frank's come close. Surprised that I'm the only one mentioning Crystal.

Secret Aardvark I think would be my second goto if you aren't looking for a hot sauce with the acidity of Crystal, Tabasco, Frank's, etc.

Aw yeah Crystal is so good. I'm not in the US so it's hard to get for me but I agree, it's basically a sauce for everything.

Valentina. Not very hot, but I like it and use it like ketchup.

Try the black label if you want a bit more heat.
Love Valentina so much. Not too spicy, but it's got such a unique flavour too.

Melinda's ghost pepper sauce (kinda my default)
Tobasco scorpion (another default)
yuca tecca reserve (for tacos usually with another sauce for more heat)
trappey's tobacco peppers (for hot dogs, eggs, and chili)
Melinda's ghost pepper wing sauce (for nuggies)

El Yucateco Mayan Recipe

Everything from Secret Aardvark and most of Crazy Bastard

Aardvark Habanero and Renfro's Habanero Salsa. I just really like habanero, okay?

My own. I lacto ferment peppers with (and or) garlic, sjalots, ginger, veg, fruit, paprika, herbs, spices. It is easy to make.

I also make my own. I've tried a lot of different peppers and random ingredients. I think my favorite was a mango habanero (fermented with mango and some other goodies, also added some fresh mango at the end before blending and pasteurizing). I also made a few fun fermented sauces with those dried chilies you can get in bags from the grocery store, added some fresh ingredients like carrot and onion to get the ferment going.
Do you use an airlock or do you burp the vessel when you ferment?
- I used to have those but now I just use weck jars and burp them every day.

A nice beef gravy. Delicious.

haha I think they meant chilli hot instead of temperature hot, but I can't say no to a nice gravy.

That depends. For pizza and Asian cuisine, Sriracha. Special shout-out to Underwood Ranch specifically, because that shit is top tier. For everything else, chipotle Tabasco. When that goes on sale, I buy a few bottles because I know I'll go through it lol.

I bought a restaurant sized container of the Chipotle Tabasco a few years ago. Turns out that might be a bit too much for a single person to get through in a reasonable amount of time.
Sriracha on pizza, you're my kind of people.

I actually had somewhat of a dependency on sriracha at one point in my life. I was working at a summer camp, and the food being kinda bland I brought in a bottle of sriracha one day. Then a few others did the same. At the end of the summer, we were basically daring each other to douse our meals in unholy amounts of that rooster's sauce.

It took me three weeks after the job ended to be able to taste anything that didn't have sriracha on it.

BOMBA CALABRESE. Sorry, I can't say it in lowercase. It's just crushed peperoncini and oil. Yummmmm I put it on pizza, in soup, curry, stew, I dip my cheeses and fingers in it.

Cholula for eggs but it's hard to find around here.

I'll be on the lookout for Valentina as it's been brought up often in this thread.

Depends what I'm using it on.

Mambo Sauce and buffalo wing sauce for chicken.

Tabasco for eggs.

Franks has no equal.

Nando's Peri Peri sauce.

Yellowbird Habanero Sauce, Tapatío, Valentina, Sriracha.

Whatever nozzle fits in my ass best so I can boof it.

Gringo Bandito. It's a flavorful medium-heat hot sauce.

sambal djeroek

Valentina regular or black label

Chipotle tabasco

Xni'pek

In the Netherlands I use adjuma pepper instead of habanero and mix sweet orange juice + lime as the sour orange replacement.

Goblin Sauce by Torchbearer, made in collaboration with the band Nekrogoblikon. Jalapeno, pineapple, scorpion pepper. Good solid heat, little fruity. Bought a case of it

Not sure it counts as hot sauce but a chili oil like Lao Gan Ma is my favourite. Otherwise when I do use hot sauce my favourites are Hot Ones Los Calientes Rojo, Tabasco Chipotle, and Secret Aardvark.

that absolutely counts

Blair's Death.

Really liked one of their XB series.

Was about to comment Blair's Sudden Death Sauce. They make really good sauce yeah

Tobasco or a mild cherry hot sauce

my favorite used to be a sauce named "amor" that was primarily centered around southern california and baja california.

it was a little bit like cholula, but w MUCH stronger vinegar punch to it and it makes my mouth water every time i think about it on top of chips or other snacks; sort of like frank's hot sauce if it were more sour and more picante at the same time.

the brand still exists, but their recipe changed significantly about 20-ish years ago and i've been unable to find anything like it to call my favorite.

All that buildup only for heartbreak in the last sentence!

Current favorite is Cosmic Disco by Karma Sauce. It's blazing hot with some great Asian accents that make it perfect for most of what I cook at home.

I haven't tried that many hot sauces but I like hot sauces that have a good mix of both heat and flavor. What I prefer depends on what I'm eating, so sometimes I prefer Tapatio and other times I prefer (real) Sriracha. I do also sometimes use other hot sauces like the ghost pepper ranch from Wendy's when I can get them.

Trappey's Bull is good. Also have a few varieties of Tabasco (jalapeno, scorpion pepper, cayenne & garlic), and some made by the students at a local culinary program.