Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Lbys on December 12, 2008, 09:51:14 PM
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Ladies and gentlemen of APS, I come before you to discuss a topic that is slightly more polarizing than politics, and slightly less polarizing than real, slow-cooked barbecue. Hot sauce.
I've been lurking here a while, with an occasional post here and there, and have come to appreciate the intelligence and opinionation (yes, an invented word) of this forum. I haven't had a lot of luck starting conversations which maintain themselves in the past on this board and others, so I'm giving it another shot. I figure the folks here have a wide variety of interests and opinions, and I'm hoping that this topic proves the rule, and not the exception, of freely exchanged discussion.
Where I'm originally from, we use hot sauce, but not as frequently as those in Louisiana, Texas, or the desert southwest. Where I live now, a lot of people consider ketchup to be spicy (I'm kidding, but only a little). What I'd like to know is this: what is the sauce, or are the sauces, that you use? Why? How do you use them? I'll offer my own opinions up to scrutiny and ridicule, just to (hopefully) get the convo started:
Tabasco--the venerable classic, this is the pepper sauce on which I cut my teeth. However, I've weened of late because I think its heat/flavor ratio is a bit high. Also, the boys at Avery Island have gone a bit crazy with the flanker flavors, IMO.
Frank's--the Buffalo Wings staple, I think this is a decent everyday hot sauce. I put it on lots of things, most frequently vegetables and bland starches (potatoes, rice, etc.). Good, but a bit too much vinegar for a truly exceptional experience.
Louisiana Brand--I've just recently been introduced to this--it's not in many stores up here--and think it's goodness in a bottle. Nice balance of heat and flavor, with more depth than Tabasco. I think it out-Tabascos Tabasco.
Chohula--this Mexican salsa picante is good, but a bit of a niche player in my rotation. I like it on eggs, eggs & chorhizo, Mexican food, and on the rim of the occasional Tecate can. Past that, I don't get into it much.
Sriacha--this is the hottest in my cupboard (probably mild to a lot of folks here, but to each his own). I like it on sandwiches, in soups, and in my Bloody Marys. Sometimes, I'll squeeze a bit into a omlet, and of course, put it on most Asian cuisines, especially Chinese takout in Minnesota that isn't nearly hot enough.
So what are your favorites? Why? Do you buy in the grocery store, shop in the specialty markets, maybe make your own? What say you, APS?
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What no Crystal?
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Never heard of Crystal. That's exactly why I started this thread. Why is it good? Why do you like it?
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I like Tabasco in general because it served me well in many a C-ration. Loyal, I am. Also like Texas Pete for its flavor, and it's not too too hot. Last resupply my wife bought something called Kahlner's Louisiana Hot Sauce that's good enough but nothing to write home about.
For a wing sauce I recommend Sweet Baby Ray's. We tried their barbecue sauce a couple of years ago when it first showed up on local shelves and use it exclusively now, and when the wing sauce appeared down here we gave it a try. Nice flavor without scorching the palate.
Many moons ago when I worked for Domino's Pizza a driving buddy went home to Mexico for a visit and came back with some down-home Mexican hot sauce. We were forever trying things to jazz up the pizza we ate - you can get tired of anything after a while - so were game to try Armando's sauce. It was so hot I couldn't even taste the burnt flesh of my lips. The only one who liked it was Armando himself, who laughed at us as he scarfed down a pie drowned in the stuff. *shudder*
I don't remember what caused me to look into it but a while back I was surfing around the Web checking on different hot sauces and found one called Brand New ahole. I dunno if I'd ever taste it but I've thought about buying a bottle to keep around and offer to anyone who claims to like their food "aitch-oh-double-tee HOT!".
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Ah, a topic dear to my heart!
I've got several bottles of different brands, and they all get used based on what I feel like...
Red Tabasco - My old reliable. Bacon & eggs sunny side up just aren't the same without a couple drops of red on the eggs.
Green Tabasco - A milder version of above, very nice on raw oysters and omelettes. Very flavorful, but less heat.
Dave's Insanity - A little dab will do ya'. This is a good one for recipes that need a little kick, but be damned careful with it. Not quite Blair's Death, but closer than anything else in my inventory.
Iguana - This is a Costa Rican import, sold by the ABC Liquor Store chain and online, in a variety of flavors and heats. I discovered the brand at an outdoor burrito stand in Satellite Beach, FL named Da Kine Diegos Insane Burrito, and have been a fan ever since. I've got 5 of their varieties on store right now, from mild to wild. They've all got a unique blend, some with carrots, and of course garlic, etc. http://www.hotsauce.com/Iguana-Hot-Sauces-s/107.htm
I've also got plans in the works next summer to do my own hot sauces, thanks to a friend who "borrowed" a big batch of Habaneros from south of the border last year and found they grow just fine in Wisconsin soil. =D
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Crystal, Louisiana, Tapatio, Chipotle tabasco, green tabasco.
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Lee Kum Kee makes a "Fine Chili Sauce" that I've used to make killer Asian chili flavored hot wings. It is getting hard to find, though.
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Only "Hot Sauce" I've ever really liked is Green Tabasco. Red tastes like a battery to me.
To be honest, WAY too many seem to be focused on heat rather than flavor. And vinegar is not a flavor, unless it's malt vinegar, and that's another discussion entirely.
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For almost a decade now my favorite has been Religious Experience (http://www.thewrath.com/) salsa, mostly The Wrath variety.
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I like flavor enhancement, not insane amounts of heat.
By far the best I have ever found for that, and one of the cheapest, oddly enough, is Louisiana Hot Sauce, a product of Bruce Foods.
The stuff is wonderful.
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I like all flavors of Tabasco.
Chohula is my staple.
The Louisiana Hot Sauce Mike mentions is pretty good.
I also have a chili-lime hot sauce I picked up at the local hispanic market. It comes in a tall bottle like a 1L water bottle. It adds heat, but also a lot of flavor.
My brother turned me onto "Cackalacky", which is pretty good, but almost impossible to find outside of NC.
Chris
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Dear to me ole heart as well...
I don't like the salty hot sauces (Cholula, Tapatio, et. al.), vinegar base much preferred, and anything less than tabasco pepper heat levels just doesn't cut it. Cayenne and lower heat levels need not apply.
Tabasco - Perfection in a bottle. I find the bottom of a 5 ounce bottle once a week, as it goes in/on most everything. Shame that it's usually double-triple in cost what other hot sauce runs.
Sriracha - my number 2. GOOD heat level for such a cheap sauce, excellent sweet garlic flavor. No vinegar flavor, but I still like it.
Dave's Insanity - I keep this around for when I run out of the above sauces.
My pico de gallo is pretty good also, but I wouldn't classify that as a hot sauce.
I have tried a gazillion different sauces, those are the ones I stick with.
Anyone else like the little tabasco peppers in vinegar?
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Tabasco is my main sauce as a condiment. For cooking I have a bottle of Dave's Insanity.
I've made about $50 off that bottle of Dave's Insanity sauce. I bet $10 or $20 that the person can't lick a toothpick dipped in the sauce and not react. I've yet to loose that bet.
However, as I work my way through my 30's I find I still like to eat hot stuff, but the bill later on gets a lot worse.
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You all just reminded me that I'm out of hot sauce! :O
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Another vote for both Tapatio and Sriracha. They're my standby sauces for most quick meals. When I'm cooking something fancier I might use something different, but for 90% of what I make that needs heat, one of those two fills the bill, and they're dirt cheap.
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Warning regarding use of Dave's Insanity- Wash your hands before using the restroom
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Warning regarding use of Dave's Insanity- Wash your hands before using the restroom
You only ever do that once.
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Great suggestions. Sounds like Dave's Insanity might be another staple to try. Glad to hear that a lot of folks care for Louisiana--sounds like my taster is pretty well calibrated. Gewehr, or anybody else in the Great White North--where do you find it? I haven't found it at Target/Cub yet.
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Main staples are:
Cholula-good heat to flavor ratio and perfect for putting on tortilla chips to be washed down with beer
Tiger Sauce- sweet and not very hot, but the flavor goes well with everything....I drown burgers in this stuff
Chipotle Tabasco-only Tabasco milder than this is the Jalapeno ( which i like too), but I like the smoky flavor
I also keep some Frank's around for wings and some Crystal for when I get a wild hair.
W
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Cholula and cock sauce are both great and tasty... Dave's will make grown men cry like babies... And I've got a friend who I watched take about 2-3 tablespoons of the stuff and put it over a plate of scrambled eggs, and eat with much gusto.
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Louisiana is a great staple. The bottle says a drop, but I like to drench scrambled eggs in it. It's not much for heat, but the flavor is great.
I'm not a fan of classic Tobasco. It tastes like vinegar and OC spray. Dionysusigma hit it with the battery acid comment. I used to like it a lot, but then I found more flavorful stuff.
Tabasco Jalapeno is good. Almost no heat, but flavor rich.
Blair's stuff is surprisingly good. It gets insanely hot by the second bite, but it has flavor to match. I LOVE their potato chips.
I also love the real Tabasco pepper stuff. I like it over cooked greens, like stewed spinach. When the bottle is empty, you either refill it with vinegar and let it stew for a couple of weeks, or crack the lid off and cook with the peppers.
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Cholula and cock sauce are both great and tasty... Dave's will make grown men cry like babies... And I've got a friend who I watched take about 2-3 tablespoons of the stuff and put it over a plate of scrambled eggs, and eat with much gusto.
What is cock sauce? I'm afraid to google it...
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Sriracha = "Cock Sauce". Named for the rooster depicted on the bottle.
Fairly common in Asian restaurants, and I usually eat it on Pad Thai.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriracha
You can get Dave's Insanity online at a variety of place.
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Who currently has title on the evilest, meanest, nastiest stuff? I wanna get my bud a bottle for xmas... and see if he tries to eat it like he did the Dave's Insanity stuff...
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Sriracha = "Cock Sauce". Named for the rooster depicted on the bottle.
I've never heard it called that, thanks. Its not my favorite but I'll use it if it is there and the restaurant food needs the help.
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Bogie, if you have the need to torture somebody...
Blair's Death Sauce.
That's a start, one of his milder products, and it goes up from there.
Blair's even makes a 16 Million Reserve, which stands for 16 Million Scoville units of pure capsaicin pain.
For his hotter stuff, you have to sign a release form. ;)
http://hubpages.com/hub/Blairs-Death-Sauce
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Well, my bud thinks that Dave's Insanity is "tasty, but needs a bit more zing." The general agreement among those who know him is that there is that there is nothing in existence between his teeth and his cheeks... The southern cheeks.
Actually, it may be interdimensional hot sauce trauma... Where's Larry?
I want to see him crack a bottle, fix a plate of something, and pour some on it, and then watch him shovel in a quart of ice cream... Like I did. After about an eighth of a teaspoon of Dave's Insanity.
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A bit surprised that nobody mentioned Trappey's Red Devil. I've gone through a few bottles of it over the years; I find it a tad above average.
I have 1/2 a bottle or so of Frank's Red Hot at home. Purchased it because I kept hearing favorable reviews. Takes way too much to get to the heat level I like, and then it's too salty. Good flavor in smaller volumes, just not hot enough, I guess is what I am saying.
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Dave's Insanity is good. I usually use Dave's or one of the El Yuccatico flavors- either XXX or Carribean. I just finished up a batch of my own homemade smoked deer sausage and 1.5 tsp of El Yucco XXX per 10 pounds of sausage was real good and most people can still eat it.
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For those of you that bet on who can handle whatever kind of hot sauce be carefull!
I had throat surgery a few years ago and got tired of the way the pain meds made me feel so I tried all kinds of sore throat sprays.Some of them work pretty good at canceling out the effects of hot sauce on the mouth!
After one type of spray I felt good enough to cut up a little jalapino for my tuna sandwich.I took a few bites and no heat so I added some more and same thing so I cut up the whole pepper and put it in what was left of my sandwich and ate the sandwich,still no heat!Half an hour later my sinuses started to burn and within about an hour my sinus tracks actualy turned pink on the outside!Since I never felt any heat I never drank anything to wash the oils from the pepper down and they ended up in my sinuses,very bad thing to have happen!I never once had any heat or burning in my mouth for the whole ordeal.
Never bet anyone with a cherry red tint to there teeth and tounge!
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I'm a fan of the Chipotle Tabasco. I've only been addicted to one sauce and that was it.
I also like a sauce called Tiger Sauce for asian cuisine, though a good sechuan sauce can be the world in a stir fry.
Hotness that lingers never really dropped my silhouette though. I'm a big fan of the "Rage" hot, so I'm inclined to call it.
This rage is what you get when you eat some wasabi just right and your brain locks up and your tear ducts open and your soul hurts.
And then it is gone and you're ready for another.
Wasabi and chinese mustard can and will both provide this elaborate, refined rage.
Ben
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Cajun Chef fan, here. Jardine's Texas Champagne when I can't find CC.
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Yeah, wasabi or good fresh horseradish rocks... I used to go to one Chinese joint, where they thought I was insane, but would add extra red and black peppers upon request. That's flavor. But pain's another story.
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I don't talk about hot sauce anymore. Not since the accident.
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Mr Accident Pants?
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I like the garlic Tabasco variety, and Tiger sauce. Favorite hot sauce though is probably english mustard.
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Bufalo sauce. It's great on everything. It's also the best wing sauce I've ever found. It's usually in the mexican foods section of Krogers down here.
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Bufalo sauce. It's great on everything. It's also the best wing sauce I've ever found. It's usually in the mexican foods section of Krogers down here.
Bufalo sauce is good.
I've tried a lot of different ones, but I'd say Valentina or Tamazula extra hot is my daily go-to sauce. It's cheap, tasty, and not really that hot. I use it on everything from eggs to soup. Great stuff. When I want something a little hotter I use the El Yucateco green habanero. I don't really need anything hotter than that.
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Frank's is my everyday sauce.
Tabasco Green
Tabasco Chipotle
Trappy's Red Devil and Bull Brand.
Texas Pete
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Bufalo sauce. It's great on everything. It's also the best wing sauce I've ever found. It's usually in the mexican foods section of Krogers down here.
Another vote for "Bufalo"... very good stuff. They sell it in the Randalls/Tom Thumb also.
Jeff B.
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Speaking of horseradish: anyone ever been to the St. Elmo Steakhouse in downtown Indy? I visited about eight years ago, and was amazed at the cocktail sauce they served with their shrimp cocktail. The waiter told me they ground fresh horseradish on the premises (you could see roots stacked like cordwood in the front window, next to the raw bar), and it was the hottest I've ever had. It felt like I had lit an M-80, put it in my mouth, waited until it exploded, then poured acid on the remnants. Very satisfying experience.
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What I -really- need is something that starts off with good flavor, and then tries to kill you. So my bud takes a good big second mouthful before it really hits...
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Plain red Tabasco is the staple. Sriracha (or "Fighting cock" as we call it in the Balog household) gets quite a workout as well. Living in Seattle, we have a LOT of different no-name chili and garlic paste kinda sauces in the local markets, which are quite good.
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My girlfriend loves the Sriracha hot chili sauce. She likes hot sauces, but she doesn't like the heavy vinegar based hot sauces. I like the Sambal Oelek hot sauce made by the same folks at Huy Fong Foods. It's like a less smooth Sriracha without garlic or sugars.
I like Tapatio hot sauce. A group of us at work go out for a pizza lunch every week, and we would bring different ones to try. We had over a dozen that we tried. Tapatio was the favorite, as it has flavor as well as some heat. I always get stares when I put hot sauce on my pizza, but this is Minnesota. I encourage people who like heat to put a splash on pizza for fun. I like Louisiana style hot sauces too. Sometimes I get name brand, sometimes I find a store brand that tastes pretty good too. I guess I'm kind of easy when it comes to hot sauce. I even keep mini bottles of Tobasco in my briefcase for hot sauce emergencies.
I've been working on a new hot sauce lately; it's a habenero hot sauce made by the folks at Louisisana hot sauce. It's got a great flavor with some good heat as well.
A friend of mine got me a bottle of "Da Bomb Beyond Insanity" hot sauce. That stuff is pure hot. The pepper inhanced/infused hot sauces are too much to put on food; I have to put just a bit in a pot of chili or the heat is too much.
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Just passing through, but here are some favorites:
Dave's Insanity for adding heat during quick cooking -most frequently a good sized drop in the oil while popping corn (close the lid and don't breath fumes). Also have some Magma which is just nuts -supposedly 1 million scoville units.
Green El Yucateco for real Mexican food -you'll get looks from the staff if you return the first couple of "hot" sauces and ask for this.
Bello Classic from Dominica for rice and beans - on my last bottle!
Also I must suggest growing your own habaneros. We've had a bit of variation in heat but they have all started at "wow". They grow great next to our other peppers and tomatoes but take about 3 weeks longer to really finish producing so plant them early. These are sliced, frozen or dried, and used just one or two 1/8th inch ring at a time in most recipes (and we are not shy about hot food).
Oh, and definitely try grinding your own fresh horseradish sometime -my wife loves to tell about how I almost killed myself smelling some...
C
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I like Crystal. When I cook up spicy stuff, I usually just add the peppers I want for flavor.
One time, on a camping/shootout, we were sitting around the campfire, well into our cups, watching one of the other guys, who is a chef, cook supper. He took a teaspoon full of some white stuff and handed it to one guy and said to see how he liked the smell. Well, he ate it. It was white wasabi. I never knew a man could scream like that.......chris3
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Like many others here, my staple is regular Tabasco. But thanks to this thread, I'm gonna give Frank's a try... and maybe Dave's Insanity too. =D Though it's not a sauce, I'm a fan of pretty much anything wasabi. Love me some of those dried wasabi peas!
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My only problem with Tabasco and similar thin liquid sauces is they can add too much moisture. This is especially an issue with certain egg recipes.
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'Round here, it's Tapatio for Mexican food, Sriracha for Asian food (the other way around doesn't work, trust me), and Tapatio or a sauce made from malagueta peppers for Brazilian food.
I HATE Tabasco and Franks. Texas Pete is good on the right food.Chipotle and green Tabasco are good sometimes.
It's a lot like wine - know your sauces and use the right one on the right food.
If you think Cholula is good, definitely try Tapatio. Much better.
I like the Sambal Oelek
That's the one I was trying to remember. Sometimes I'll substitute it for Sriracha.
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Ladies and gentlemen of APS, I come before you to discuss a topic that is slightly more polarizing than politics, and slightly less polarizing than real, slow-cooked barbecue. Hot sauce.
I've been lurking here a while, with an occasional post here and there, and have come to appreciate the intelligence and opinionation (yes, an invented word) of this forum. I haven't had a lot of luck starting conversations which maintain themselves in the past on this board and others, so I'm giving it another shot. I figure the folks here have a wide variety of interests and opinions, and I'm hoping that this topic proves the rule, and not the exception, of freely exchanged discussion.
Where I'm originally from, we use hot sauce, but not as frequently as those in Louisiana, Texas, or the desert southwest. Where I live now, a lot of people consider ketchup to be spicy (I'm kidding, but only a little). What I'd like to know is this: what is the sauce, or are the sauces, that you use? Why? How do you use them? I'll offer my own opinions up to scrutiny and ridicule, just to (hopefully) get the convo started:
Tabasco--the venerable classic, this is the pepper sauce on which I cut my teeth. However, I've weened of late because I think its heat/flavor ratio is a bit high. Also, the boys at Avery Island have gone a bit crazy with the flanker flavors, IMO.
Frank's--the Buffalo Wings staple, I think this is a decent everyday hot sauce. I put it on lots of things, most frequently vegetables and bland starches (potatoes, rice, etc.). Good, but a bit too much vinegar for a truly exceptional experience.
Louisiana Brand--I've just recently been introduced to this--it's not in many stores up here--and think it's goodness in a bottle. Nice balance of heat and flavor, with more depth than Tabasco. I think it out-Tabascos Tabasco.
Chohula--this Mexican salsa picante is good, but a bit of a niche player in my rotation. I like it on eggs, eggs & chorhizo, Mexican food, and on the rim of the occasional Tecate can. Past that, I don't get into it much.
Sriacha--this is the hottest in my cupboard (probably mild to a lot of folks here, but to each his own). I like it on sandwiches, in soups, and in my Bloody Marys. Sometimes, I'll squeeze a bit into a omlet, and of course, put it on most Asian cuisines, especially Chinese takout in Minnesota that isn't nearly hot enough.
So what are your favorites? Why? Do you buy in the grocery store, shop in the specialty markets, maybe make your own? What say you, APS?
Caveat - While I like mildly-to-moderately spicy stuff, I don't use a whole lot of hot sauces myself. Having said that -
My stepson loves his Tabasco sauce, all the moreso since we discovered his mild sensitivity to tomatoes (forcing us to limit his ingestion of them to ~2 meals/week). He puts it on a lot of stuff.
While I was in the Navy, my buddy got all excited about a care package he got from his wife one deployment, which turned out to contain something called Dave's Insanity sauce. He got me to taste it - I touched the tip of my pinky to the tiny bit clinging to the cap, and tasted that. 2 seconds later, my mouth and throat were on fire, literally, I think. I'm not sure what kind of peppers were in it, but it was supposedly about as hot as you could get back then (about 1995?)
A quick web search shows that certain hot sauces and ingredients/additives available today are, apparently, significantly hotter than Dave's Insanity sauce. Dave's Insanity comes in at 180K Scoville units per it's Wiki entry, while some stuff today ranges from 500K up to 16 MILLION Scoville units :O. No thank you.
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Who currently has title on the evilest, meanest, nastiest stuff? I wanna get my bud a bottle for xmas... and see if he tries to eat it like he did the Dave's Insanity stuff...
Considering that you can get pure Capsaicin in crystal form. . . as hot as you want to go.
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Who currently has title on the evilest, meanest, nastiest stuff? I wanna get my bud a bottle for xmas... and see if he tries to eat it like he did the Dave's Insanity stuff...
Definitely Blair's. I bought a bottle of Blair's Jersey Death sauce (15 bucks for a little bottle, but I bet a bottle would last a long long time) because I read that it's pretty hot (360k scoville units). I took a sample drop of it and it was like lighting my entire face on fire. Tears were gushing out of my eyes and my face was instantly beet red. The thing is though, it has a nice taste to it (if you can actually consume any of it). I took it to work for one of my supervisors to try since he was always raving about hot sauces at Buffalo Wild Wings and he had the same reaction. Being a practical joker, he thought it would be "fun" to have various people try it, and reportedly (i wasn't there at the time) one or two even threw up (i can only imagine how awful that stuff is coming up). For the record Jersey Death isn't even the hottest one they make by far. I recently took a bite out of a habenero pepper (i didn't realize that would be hot) and it wasn't even close to the drop or two of Jersey Death.
For every day use, I like Frank's myself. Tobassco doesn't have that much flavor to it, but it does taste good on scrambled eggs. For a real treat splash some Frank's on your pizza.
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I've got several different Tobasco sauces in the larder, one of which has a 'fiery' red and orange label. I agree that it doesn't have the best flavour to taste ratio, so I often combine it with other random Tesco bought stuff (Jaimaican sauces and the like).
The hottest I have ever had is Blair's Mega Death Sauce, and only because a co-worker dared me to. He practically drinks the stuff, but then I have my suspcicions that he is in fact clinically insane. I would perhaps use maybe a few drops for a whole saucepan of regular sauce.
I do enjoy a nice curry though, which is what I had last night. I only had a mild Tikka Masala this time, which was lovely.
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Just tried Sriracha for the first time last night at a Chinese buffet in College Station....great-tasting stuff with egg rolls and grilled chicken...do they make a hot version?.....
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Picked up some Frank's yesterday. Like the taste, just wish it were a bit hotter. Still, I imagine it'll be gone inside of two weeks. =D
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Sriracha is becoming a new favorite of mine.
Apparently one of my former roommates left a bottle of it in the fridge at a former house and it got transferred to my fridge in the move.
Very flavorful, and it is more than enough hot for me if I get enough at one go (e.g. about a tablespoon or two per bowl of rice).
Ben
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Just tried Sriracha for the first time last night at a Chinese buffet in College Station....great-tasting stuff with egg rolls and grilled chicken...do they make a hot version?.....
They do make a hotter version that I saw in California, most easily differentiated by the color of the lid. Haven't seen the hotter stuff at any of my local grocery stores, but then I haven't looked too hard because the regular Srirachi is plenty hot for me.
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What color is the lid of the hot variety?
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Red, if I remember correctly. Green is the standard hot sauce.
ETA: Although doing some googling, it looks like they may not make that one anymore. This was back in 1999-2001 time period that I saw that variety. I tried it once; a little much temperature for my taste.
Edited again to add: The hotter red-lid variety I tried may have been an "imitator," rather than an official Huy Fong product:
Q3: I've seen the sauces with different color caps and slightly different graphics. Are they the same?
A: No, there have been many attempts to imitate our product, both in taste and looks, but all fall short of delivering quality products and a tasty sauce. Our sauces are trademarked by our green caps and rooster logo. Beware of imitations, make sure you are buying the original.
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Found this recipe for homemade Sriracha here: http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/srirachachilisauce.htm (http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/srirachachilisauce.htm)
I would guess adding more of the peppers would increase the temperature just fine:
Fill a container half full with peeled garlic cloves. Fill the rest of the way with 2 (at least) habaneros and a mix of dried serrano and cayenne pods that have been stemmed but not seeded. Add 1 tablespoon of non-iodized salt and fill the container (to cover chile pods and garlic) with 5% strength white vinegar. Cider vinegar or wine vinegar will work but will give you a different flavour.
As the chile pods re-hydrate top up the liquid with water or vinegar. After a few days to a week of steeping in the vinegar dump the whole mess into the food processor or blender and puree until a smooth, thick consistency is reached. If the mixture is too thick it may be thinned with vinegar or water.