What is Louisiana Hot Sauce?
Louisiana hot sauce is a style of hot sauce which is made by blending hot peppers, vinegar, and salt to make a generally thin bright red sauce with a moderate heat level. Most producers of Louisiana hot sauce pride themselves on making a product which is “not too hot, not too mild,” in the words of Bruce Foods, a famous producer of this style of hot sauce. There are numerous uses for this moderately hot condiment, and it is famously included in many Cajun and Creole dishes; it is also a feature of the classic Bloody Mary, a cocktail which blends tomato juice, clam juice, vodka, and Louisiana style hot sauce for a fiery kick.
Both cayenne and tabasco peppers can be used to produce Louisiana hot sauce. Some famous brands include the Original Louisiana Style Hot Sauce, Tabasco, Crystal, and Frank's Red Hot. Sauces made with tabasco peppers such as the eponymous Tabasco sauce tend to be more peppery, while cayenne-based sauces can be more gentle. Many of these producers continue to make Louisiana hot sauce in the state that it is named for; Tabasco, for example, is still made on Avery Island, Louisiana, where some of the peppers for the famous sauce are grown.
Numerous markets across the United States sell at least one brand of Louisiana hot sauce, while stores in the Southern United States often carry an assortment. Louisiana hot sauce is also a ubiquitous condiment across the United States in places like diners, where it may be set out on the table along with salt, pepper, ketchup, and sweeteners. Many consumers have a preference for a specific brand, as different companies use slightly different formulas which have unique flavors and levels of spiciness.
In most cases, Louisiana hot sauce is actually fermented and aged for up to three years in casks with vinegar and salt as a preservative. The aging creates a distinctive hint of fermentation in the flavor which some consumers enjoy. By tradition, other ingredients are not added to Louisiana hot sauce, as these would obscure the heat of the peppers and the natural flavor of the sauce. Some companies do make variants with other types of peppers or ingredients like chipotle peppers, which are slowly smoked to yield a very unique flavor.
Although Louisiana hot sauce is generally mild, some varieties do carry a kick. For people who are not used to hot sauces, it can seem unbearably hot. If you find yourself with a mouthful of hot sauce which is too much for you to handle, squeeze some lemon juice into your mouth. The acid of the lemon juice will neutralize the basic capsaicin of the chili peppers, calming the reaction and soothing your mouth.
Written by S.E. Smith
