It’s the gift-giving time of year again, and you may have some friends or relatives who would appreciate receiving something that brings the heat. But please don’t buy those generic hot sauce gift sets that seem to pop up everywhere during this season (I go into more detail on those here). If you do some looking around, you can find plenty of good collections of hot sauce made (or put together your own) from quality ingredients that your friends or family members will really enjoy.
Just recently, I paid a visit to my local Walmart and found several hot sauce items that would make great gifts. I should note that I am not paid to promote that store’s products (hey Walmart, if you want to pay me to promote your products, I’m listening), but since the Sam Walton company is pretty much ubiquitous across the country, it’s worth letting you know what they have.
One of the biggest scores I found there is the Melinda’s Mini Liquid Spice Rack which is currently selling for only $9.99 in my area. That has ten 2 oz. squeeze bottles offering a nice selection of that company’s hot sauces. Included in the set are Thai Sweet Chili Sauce, Black Truffle Sauce, Green Sauce, Fire Roasted & Habanero Sauce, Ghost Pepper Wing Sauce, Mexicana Sauce, Cayenne Red Hot Sauce, Habanero Honey Mustard Sauce, XXXTra Hot Habanero Hot Sauce, and Pizza Hot Sauce. The suggested retail price for this set is $25, so ten bucks is a great deal and this makes a perfect gift for spice lovers.
I sampled six of the sauces in the set, and following are my thoughts on those:
Fire Roasted Garlic & Habanero: This one has a nice tang along with distinct habanero and garlic flavors. It also has a little bit of sweetness to it and a nice depth that probably comes from the roasting. And it brings some good heat, coming close to Hot on my scale.
Ghost Pepper Wing Sauce: This has the tang you expect from a wing sauce with a peppery kick. It delivers plenty of pucker without much sweetness to counterbalance, and it brings some heat going beyond Hot on my scale. This should certainly make some spicy and tasty wings.
Thai Sweet Chili Sauce: This has a definite garlic taste with some nice sweetness and some tang. It is not very hot, though, maybe Mild on my scale. But this would go well with egg rolls or dumplings (and might I suggest mixing in a little of the habanero sauce to kick it up).
Mexicana Sauce: This has a nice earthy taste with plenty of tang. It is very similar to Cholula or Valentina, though with more vinegar pucker. Heat-wise it comes in around Mild at best.
Pizza Hot Sauce: This one is heavy on the tang with some hints of tomato and just a little bit of sweetness. There is some garlic in there as well and I can see how this would go well with pizza. This one comes up to the Mild level.
XXXtra Hot Habanero Sauce: I tried this to see how it compares to the same sauce that comes in the 5 oz glass bottles (one of my favorites from Melinda’s), and it is very close to that. The fragrant flavor of habanero comes through with a nice kick. There is some tang along with some sweetness to balance that out. And it definitely brings the heat, coming close to Hot on my scale. It is a little thicker than the sauce in the glass bottle, but otherwise very close to that one.
The Green Sauce, Cayenne Sauce, and Habanero Honey Mustard Sauce I have tried previously, and all three are quite good. I passed on the Black Truffle sauce because I am no fan of truffles and that one will end up in a gift basket for someone else. I found this set on the shelf where they have the other hot sauces, but it’s possible they may have a display in the store somewhere as well.
But the Melinda’s score was not the only thing I found at my Walmart. I had seen people posting pictures online of a hot sauce sampler display at the stores near them, and that is what prompted me to go in the first place. I did find it, but the display in my store was not as large as some of the ones I saw online. Still, it was worth the trip.
Basically, this is a collection of small sauce bottles all going for a dollar each. The one at my store had Melinda’s Jalapeno and Ghost Pepper Ketchup along with the Black Truffle Sauce, Pizza Hot Sauce, Ghost Pepper Wing Sauce, and Thai Sweet Chili Sauce. It also had Yellowbird Serrano Sauce, Tabanero Original and Extra Hot Sauce, Kinder’s Wing Sauce, and a few barbeque sauces that didn’t offer much spice.
If your store happens to have the larger display, I expect the selection will be more expansive. If you grab a bunch of these for a buck and maybe get that Melinda’s pack as well (they also average out to a buck each), you have the start of a nice gift set. Beyond that, Walmart has a lot of the standards on their hot sauce shelf, but you can certainly find some good selections for a spicy gift basket or some great stocking stuffers. And the person you give these to will certainly appreciate them more than those generic hot sauce sets that are so common this time of year.