Searching for “sriracha” on Google, you’ll find there are plenty of fan clubs – and a serious amount of people looking for hotter sriracha. It’s not that they don’t love the rooster; it’s that it’s no longer providing them with the rush they once got from adding it to damn near everything.
That’s understandable.
As far as hot sauces are concerned, the rooster doesn’t offer a lot of heat. It’s more of a garlicky condiment than an actual hot sauce.
Sriracha Doesn’t Really Count as a Hot Sauce
Think about your favorite wing spot. (Don’t worry, we’re not judging.) Most of them offer their wing flavors as a scale, ranging from light green to dark red. (We don’t judge this either.) Imagining one of these scales, the rooster variety of sriracha would fall somewhere between BBQ and Teriyaki and the very next hottest sauce. It wouldn’t be the bright red that your mind sees when you think about sriracha.
Huy Fong’s sriracha (and it’s never been trademarked, so we don’t need to capitalize it and it’s best practice to attach the brand name) falls between 1000 to 2500 on the Scoville scale. (It varies based on the actual chilies in the mix.) That’s less than your average jalapeño that tends to score between 2500 and 8000 on the same scale.
Let’s plunge those numbers into a deeper context: Tabasco (yes, absolutely trademarked) tends to range between 2500 and 5000 on the Scoville scale. If you were to line these two condiments side by side, Tabasco would win out on heat.
In part, that stems from the peppers used in these sauces. Huy Fong’s sriracha uses fully matured red jalapeños. Tabasco is made from peppers of the same name (Tabasco) which are more similar to Cayenne peppers and absolutely carry a great deal more fire in every delectable bite. But, it’s also due to the mixer ingredients and the ratio to chilies in the pot.
The Search for Something Hotter
Most people that once believed sriracha was hot could take the next logical step and start using Tabasco, but there is a flavor discrepancy. One of the reasons people love the rooster version of sriracha so much is the amount of garlic in the mix. There’s also a lot more sugar than vinegar.
What people want is the flavor of sriracha with the burn of something far more powerful.
We’ve got exactly that. Our Mad Dog 357 Reaper Sriracha Hot Sauce uses the same base – red jalapeños and garlic. It’s just that we didn’t stop there; we added a healthy dose of Carolina Reapers to the recipe.
Our sriracha hits the Scoville scale around 100,000 SHUs.
Given that many sriracha lovers find the bite in 2000 Scovilles, we have to wonder if they will cope. After all, many of them would have put the rooster in the bright red zone on the wing scale. Even news reports claim the jalapeño to be a medium-hot pepper. (We want to judge, but we’re trying not to.)
Still, if you’re looking for hotter sriracha, just know that we can help you.