Fire in the hole!
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I generally prefer stuff I can find at things like farmer’s markets/locally depending where I’m visiting.
I mean, it is fun occasionally grabbing something stupidly hot and watching as every poor victim (myself included) starts panicking over the absence of water, milk, bread, etc at the table… But I kind of prefer going for interesting tastes these days, even if the sauce is on the milder side.
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Not wanting a sauce that is too spicy for you is understandable and advisable, but what makes a sauce a “gimmick” to you? 1 million SHU is only half as hot as Carolina Reaper pods, which I use in my salsa and enjoy a great deal.
Mad Dog 357 Gold has great flavor and is perfect for making pain nachos.
The purpose of high-Scoville hot sauces is to provide the person enjoying them with harmless but overwhelming pain. We chiliheads love that. The more it burns, the more intense the endorphin rush that follows it. Some sauces (Like Da Bomb Beyond Insanity) are extremely painful to eat, but most of us avoid eating them because they taste like crap. Mad Dog 357 Gold is actually delightful, flavor-wise. Hence, the recommendation.
Ortega or Pace medium chunky salsa! But I am interested in learning about other stuff that is mild/med heat and super tasty.
That Aardvark sauce sounds interesting and I may just get some!
It also seems that I need to learn about this Frank’s brand.
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Frank’s is the original Buffalo Wing Sauce. The first Buffalo Wings ever made were made with Frank’s. Its flavor is iconic and its heat profile is mild. Extremely flavorful and goes well with anything.
I have never had wings. I have never had Frank’s. I have never had buffalo sauce.
I am old and live under a rock, sort of. I really don’t ever go out if I can help it.
Frank’s is solid. It’s pretty similar to Tabasco and it’s been around since 1918! It’s always been a staple at classic American diners, ball parks, that kind of thing. If I was out of tabasco I’d use Frank’s.
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Franks and Sriracha are the most common hot sauces found around here at any rate on things like fast food and food vendors that once had communal bottles of condiments. New York Fries though favors Tabasco.
Neither are bad tasting, and neither are stupidly spicy if you’re worried. I’ve thrown franks in with alfredo pasta before for example, and it’s really not a bad taste.
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Having it on wings would be great, but you don’t need that. You can put it on anything. Your pizza, greens fresh from the garden, bagels, McMuffins, burgers, steak, or whatever you’re eating.
If you grab yourself a bottle of Frank’s from somewhere, you’ll also be an expert in Buffalo Wing sauce, because Frank’s is the most perfect example of what buffalo flavor is.
Umm…I have never used Tabasco either. I grew up with really plain food - a fantastic experience to learn what properly cooked basics taste like! We hunted, fished, grew, most of our food and the other stuff was co-op or commissary. I got the gardening bug early!
But I found even mild to be spicy then. Now I am up to Medium…and love jerk sauce and curries so I think I am ready to explore hot sauces.
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Incidentally, if you do get some fried chicken wings, cook them like you normally would, then AFTER they’re cooked, toss them while they’re still hot in a half-and-half mixture of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce and good butter like sweet cream butter or Darigold until all the wings are well-coated.
I like a bit of heat in pasta. Arabiata is the version and I tend to use chili pepper flakes from peppers I grew.
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I make my own, of course, there isn’t a hot sauce on the market that can get the right heat and taste that I like, so I started growing my own ghost peppers and made my own. Improvise, adapt and overcome!
Semper Fi! 
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Just put charcoal in your mouth, you’ll achieve the same sensation.
Me too! That’s why I started growing scotch bonnet peppers. Medium heat and they have the exact flavor profile demanded by jerk rubs and other Caribbean recipes.
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The reason we eat super hots instead of putting charcoal in our mouths is that we get the same pain and the same endorphin rush doing both things, but one thing is harmless and fades in 5-10 minutes while the other causes severe tissue damage and could take years to recover from. 
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
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Eh, I see Stuff like Mad Dog as something you might pull on a celeb on “Hot Ones” just for the reaction. It has its place, which isn’t in my spice rack. I make a lot of cajun/creole food and I don’t need the scovilles overwhelming my holy trinity.
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You are making me hungry.
I have only leftover marinated grill chicken thighs, grilled squash/vidalia onions, and cilantro lime rice.
I need to think about the next batch cook meal.
Invite me! (kidding)
I agree though. The heat needs to be a compliment to the flavor with the flavor carrying it. For me, anyway.
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Fair enough. And you’re not really wrong. Non-chiliheads prank each other all the time with sauces like that, and to be honest, I don’t appreciate it.
I don’t get bent out of shape or anything, you know, people can do what they want - but I love extremely hot peppers. Passionately. That burn is one of the best things about being alive to me. It’s exhilarating and it makes me feel energized and refreshed like few other things can.
So, when I see someone getting pranked with hot sauce, it worries me. I didn’t always like heat that much. What if someone had pranked me? Would I have said, “I hate hot stuff! Never again!” and never tried anything hot again? Maybe. And I don’t want that to ever happen to anyone.
I’d rather invite people in to the world of heat by encouraging them to try sauces in their comfort zone. When you’re comfortable with that, dare to go a bit hotter.
I’ve taken friends who thought Jalapeños were too hot and, over the course of months, helped them reach a point where they were eating whole reapers, chocolate 7 pot peppers, and ghost peppers with me for fun.
The “pain nachos” I mentioned earlier are just really tasty nachos with whatever you like on them (I do Frito’s Jalapeño Cheddar Cheese Dip, ground beef seasoned with Taco Bell seasoning, shredded cheese, diced tomatoes, diced jalapeños, diced onion, chopped green onion, sheep’s milk yogurt (I’m allergic to sour cream and this tastes EXACTLY like sour cream)) - and then you just sprinkle as much Mad Dog as you dare on your chips and enjoy.
It’s not done as a jackass stunt, although you could if you wanted to.
It’s done to combine a meal of delicious nachos with an intense and satiating burn so that you get the endorphins from being full of comfort food at the same time you get the endorphins from the severe burning sensation.
It’s an addiction once you get started, but given all the promising longevity research associated with spicy foods, I class it as a healthy addiction in the same category as chasing a “runner’s high.”
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My wife loves Pace
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