If you’ve been to a good Mexican restaurant before, you’ve seen it on the table–Cholula Hot Sauce. With all due respect to all of the great ones like Tabasco (delicious but thin) and Frank’s (only good on wings), Cholula is the ultimate hot sauce–it’s thick, perfectly spicy and goes with anything. Well, except maybe in chocolate milk.
When the NHL season kicked off recently, Cholula began a campaign for tailgating and recipes on Facebook that can be found here.
Meanwhile, these fine folks sent us a 4-pack of the sauce–all four flavors. I’d had the original flavor and in fact you can almost always find it in our fridge. Here is a review of all four:
Cholula Original–Awesome bright flavor and just the right amount of heat, and all from a simple list of ingredients–mostly peppers, vinegar and salt. And what you taste most is peppers, and that’s how it should be. This is the best hot sauce on the market today, in my humble opinion.
Cholula Chili Lime–The same bright flavor as the original, but with a slightly smoky flavor from paprika, and a big hit of lime juice. Pour this one into your salsa to wake up your taste buds, or in your bloody mary.
Cholula Chili Garlic–Wow, a big hit of garlic and of course the same heat from the original Cholula. But the thing is, the garlic is out front but yet not too overpowering. This is the kind of hot sauce used in many Oriental recipes, but it would also wake up just about any dish.
Cholula Chipotle–Pretty much the same ingredients as the original, but included in the pepper batch are some chipotle peppers, which are dried and smoked jalapenos. So the smoky flavor is even stronger than in the Chili Lime, but very different.
My verdict? I like them all a lot, but I still love the original. But if you haven’t tried Cholula, go buy yourself a bottle or 4-pack, and let me know if it’s not the best hot sauce you’ve tasted.
