The Pepper Palace we were at had free samples. Various sauces on all the shelves had squeeze bottles for almost everything carried. Plastic spoon dispenser to use.
The guy said to be wary of actual variations in heat because what's in the squeeze bottles may not be quite as potent as what's in the unopened bottles for sale, depending on time since they were filled. He puts them all in the refrigerator every day, but said it's possible for some to have lost a bit of their potency.
Anyway, my daughter and I had a blast trying everything out before we settled on the 8 bottles of hot sauce and hot BBQ sauce.
As I've said before, I'm a flavor guy...I can take some heat, but if it's all about the heat and crap on flavor, I'm not interested. I was surprized at how well I handled their hottest sauces. Having some kind of flavor actually helps with the heat tolerance, in my opinion.
I picked up a bottle of Mr. Pain, which was supposed to be the hottest on the shelves. And I agree on that. The guy had hotter stuff behind the counter, and I considered buying a tiny bottle of The End - Flatline Hot Sauce. I was going to try some, but lost track of it during all the conversations we were having. According to their website, these who fall under their "extreme" hot sauce category, greater than 300,000 SHU. But nothing is individually rated for SHU, so I don't know how they all rate this way. You can find information about the SHU ratings of various peppers themselves, but not the bottled products.
ANYWAY...we're both looking forward to a Hot Ones type wing event and it's pretty much a given that the two of us are the only ones in the family who are going to do this. My other daughter might try
the BBQ hot sauce made with peaches. She's a big peach fan!
