Chile peppers are part and parcel of Tex-Mex cooking, and some naturally have more of a kick than others.
Some Tex-Mex lovers, however, really like the hot stuff, and add hot sauce to their Tex-Mex to really spice things up. And that’s fine, because spiciness is what makes Tex-Mex great.
The heat of hot sauces is measured in something called Scoville units. The more Scoville units, the hotter the sauce. To give you some sense of scale, a jalapeno pepper is about 10,000 Scoville units. Hot sauces with the most intense heat can be several million Scoville units.
For those who like it hot, here is a short list of some of the hottest of hot sauces.
- CaJohns Black Mamba 6 Get Bitten
This is number one on the list – the hottest of the hot. It’s made from very tasty chocolate habanero peppers, which give the sauce a robust, smoky taste. It runs at around six million Scoville units. A little bit of trivia – its inventor was a man by the name of John Hard, a fire protection engineer.
Those who have had it praise its great flavor, even though it made half their face go numb.
- Heavenly Heat Meet Your Maker Retribution Sauce
This one is made from pureed Ghost peppers, Ghost pepper extract, and dried, ground Ghost peppers. It also clocks in at about six million Scoville units. Just to let you know what you are in for if you try this stuff, it’s packaged in a little wood coffin. Not only that, you have to sign a product waiver before buying it!
- Pepper Palace Hottest Sauce in the Universe – 2nd Dimension
This one is made from Ghost peppers and aged red peppers. It hits the 3.5 million Scoville unit mark. Its label may be a bit misleading – it’s not the hottest in the universe – but it’s still plenty hot.
- PuckerButt Pepper Company Reaper Squeezins
PuckerButt uses Carolina Reaper peppers to generate its heat, which runs at about 2.2 million Scoville units. Its maker, Ed Currie, grows his own peppers to use in the sauce.
If you want some hot sauce on your meal here at Mattito’s, let your server know and we’ll make sure to give you some great hot, hot, hot stuff! (By the way, if you find the hot sauce to be too hot, don’t drink water – it tends to spread the oily capsaicin. Drink milk instead.)
