John Hollner - Hot Sauce Sensei - Afterhours Encore
This podcast episode delves into the intricate world of hot sauces, highlighting the essential notion that the selection of a singular, optimal sauce can significantly enhance culinary experiences. I engage in a profound dialogue with John Hallner, who is affectionately referred to as the hot sauce sensei, accompanied by my co-host, Ms. Leanne Whippen. Together, we explore the diverse array of hot sauces available, discussing the merits of various flavors and ingredients, while underscoring the importance of reading labels to ensure quality. Hallner emphasizes the value of a well-balanced pepper blend sauce tailored to individual heat preferences, further elucidating the nuanced relationship between sauces and the foods they complement. Ultimately, we advocate for the exploration of new flavors, encouraging listeners to expand their palates and embrace the myriad of options that exist within the realm of hot sauces.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Tabasco
- Sriracha
- Heinz
- Kraft
- Dirty Dick's Hot Pepper Sauce
- Spicy Shark
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
Welcome to Barbecue Nation with JT's After Hours conversation that took place after the broadcast ended.
Speaker A:Hey, everybody, it's jt.
Speaker A:And this is a special version of Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:It is brought to you in part by Painted Hills Natural Beef, beef you can be proud to serve your family and friends.
Speaker A:That's Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:After hours.
Speaker A:Yes, it is after hours.
Speaker A:A lot of times, by the time we get done putting these shows together, it's, well, after hours.
Speaker A:Anyway, we're talking with John Hallner, the hot sauce sensei, along with my co pilot, Ms. Leanne Whippen.
Speaker A:For a lot of people, I think you were talking about having multiples, you know, 20 hot sauces in your fridge type thing and all that.
Speaker A:But I think for most people, and you made this point in the last segment on the regular show, if they find something they like, they will stick with that.
Speaker A:Yep, more or less.
Speaker A:And that's what they will use until somebody, you know, feeds them something different or they try something different at a food show affair, a farmer's market, whatever it is.
Speaker A:If you were going to say, here's one sauce that everybody should have, and don't say Tabasco, what would that.
Speaker A:What would that sauce be?
Speaker B:Wow, that's.
Speaker B:That's a very difficult question because.
Speaker B:I'm just trying to think about, you know, what I use on a regular basis.
Speaker B:And, and certainly the, the challenge that I run into from this question, I'm going to take a step back, is that normally I'm.
Speaker B:I'm essentially, I'm trying to push boundaries a little bit when I make stalls.
Speaker B:So I'm usually trying to follow some kind of a trope.
Speaker B:So where you are either doing a smoky sauce, because sometimes you want smoky, or I'm doing a medium heat red sauce, which I'm going to maybe try and blend some peppers and then use some garlic and some onion, because that's the flavor profile I want to go with.
Speaker B:So if I need to kind of say a hot cloth that everybody needs to have, I would say look for a good pepper blend sauce that's in the heat range that you want, that doesn't have, you know, get too crazy with the other elements in it, because, you know, a lot of the sauces that I make are almost designed to pair with specific foods.
Speaker B:So, you know, for example, you know, a pineapple basil verde, you know, is not going to be necessarily for steak.
Speaker B:It's more going to be leaning toward, you know, fish or pork, you know, and so the same way that you select the wood that you're going to smoke with, depending upon the protein that you're cooking, you're going to pick the sauce to go with that.
Speaker B:But I think, you know, having a pepper blend sauce and the heat level that you want, and then, you know, personally, I love garlic, you know, so if you can find something that's got a little extra garlic in it, I'm not going to alienate any of my.
Speaker B:My friends by saying, you need to have this one sauce.
Speaker B:So I apologize.
Speaker B:I'm going to dodge the question a little bit, but I get a. I'll answer it with having an all around pepper blend sauce.
Speaker B:But, you know, to say one sauce that everybody needs to have, I got too many folks that would say, why didn't you pick me?
Speaker A:I get it.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So, Leanne, what.
Speaker A:What's in your fridge as far as a hot sauce, if any?
Speaker C:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker C:You know, between barbecue sauces and hot sauces.
Speaker C:So I'm actually gonna.
Speaker C:I'm gonna bring him this sauce that I'm very curious about his opinion on, because it has grains of mustard in it, but it's super hot.
Speaker C:Let me get it.
Speaker C:I'll be right back, you guys.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker B:Well, and that kind of gets into the whole idea of, you know, the most important thing to me when you buy a hot sauce is, have you read the label?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because, you know, a lot of people, like, there's, you know, some of the larger places and you know, that, that sell, like if you walk into a hot sauce shop.
Speaker B:You know, my experience walking into most hot sauce shops is that you, you know, that are especially only one brand.
Speaker B:You're going to find things that, you know, basically are pepper, salt, vinegar, maybe one other adjunct, xanthan gum, maybe some water, and you're just going to see that.
Speaker B:That repeated and they just change the label.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Or, you know, more importantly, in some of these places, you'll see where they're using artificial flavoring to.
Speaker C:I like hot sauce.
Speaker B:What do you got there?
Speaker C:So this is the one that I was.
Speaker C:This one here.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:It's called Chili Language de Fuego.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:So it has cilantro, Scotch bonnet.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So that's the label.
Speaker C:I got it.
Speaker C:And I want to tell you, super hot, but super flavorful.
Speaker C:And it.
Speaker C:This is for about a year, and it's.
Speaker C:It's still holding on.
Speaker C:I love that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So cilantro is going to give you that really nice herbal note.
Speaker B:So a lot of times when you.
Speaker B:You want to select the verde hot sauce is because you're trying to get those herbal qualities in whatever dish that you're looking for.
Speaker B:I personally, I love verdes.
Speaker B:I almost lean more to verdes because I like a lot of herbal flavors.
Speaker B:I like cucumbers and other things with my sandwiches.
Speaker C:Passion fruit.
Speaker C:Passion fruit is in this.
Speaker B:Yes, that, that is a great ingredient.
Speaker B:So passion fruit, guava, you know, certainly pineapple is the normal, but passion fruit and guava really make fantastic hot sauce.
Speaker B:I've worked with both of those ingredients.
Speaker B:I don't think that I have recipes on the site for either of those, although I know I've been toying with putting it.
Speaker B:I actually have some passion fruit juice right now that I just use in a sauce.
Speaker C:Last week, this is my favorite all time hot sauce.
Speaker C:Dirty Dick's Hot pepper sauce with a tropical twist.
Speaker C:Now this has mangoes, pineapple, vinegar, bananas, etc.
Speaker C:And habaneros.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker B:Bananas are a ninja ingredient.
Speaker B:You know, Gabe at Spicy Shark uses bananas in a lot of his recipes.
Speaker B:Recipes.
Speaker B:And, you know, I've.
Speaker B:I've actually made probably three or four banana hot sauces in the last year and a half or so.
Speaker B:And you don't need a lot of it, but it really gives a very interesting mouth feel to the sauce.
Speaker B:It adds some nice sweetness.
Speaker B:And actually in the Philippines they have banana ketchup because they couldn't get tomatoes.
Speaker B:So they actually made a ketchup like condiment with bananas.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker B:And so I've long been wanting to kind of rip on that and do a hot sauce version of that, but I haven't.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's on my list of 30 other hot SA.
Speaker B:Sauces to make at the time.
Speaker B:And I have different, you know, priorities and projects that pop up.
Speaker B:But, but mangoes and habaneros are normal pairing.
Speaker B:That's a very common hot sauce trope.
Speaker B:So the fact that he's got, you know, the mango and the pineapple and the banana, those are all great, delicious, Great, great, great elements to add first, especially when you're working with.
Speaker C:Yeah, but that's what I mean.
Speaker C:They're all so different.
Speaker C:And like, I, I would use the mustard one on something else, then I would use the tropical one.
Speaker C:And that's why, gosh, I see what you're saying.
Speaker C:At least 20 bottles in your fridge.
Speaker C:And I will say that I probably have more than that and I probably have more barbecue sauce.
Speaker B:Yeah, about 12 different kinds of barbecue sauce alone.
Speaker B:12 Different regional barbecue styles.
Speaker B:So the fact that if you have, you know, one regional bottle of barbecue sauce, that's 12 right there.
Speaker B:If you got, you know, a couple of one region, it's easy to get up to 20 bottles.
Speaker B:My.
Speaker B:I have, I have four refrigerators in my house.
Speaker B:They're not all full size refrigerators, but, you know, I have a sauce refrigerator that only has sauce in it and a couple of bottles of wine in the door.
Speaker B:But, you know, by and large it's, it's.
Speaker C:Well, Jeff, what's your go to hot sauce?
Speaker A:I, I honestly don't have one.
Speaker A:One.
Speaker A:Just one.
Speaker A:I mean, I'll use like you, I do read the label.
Speaker A:I learned that a long time ago with.
Speaker A:And Leanna and I have discussed this many times on the show with barbecue rubs.
Speaker A:If you look at the list of ingredients on rubs, it's usually salt, paprika, garlic, you know, like that.
Speaker A:And then it gets down into the, the different things they use.
Speaker A:And so I, I look at that.
Speaker A:We do have a bottle of Tabasco sauce that I was joking about.
Speaker A:I don't use it.
Speaker A:I do like the tiger sauce.
Speaker A:That's been around for a long time.
Speaker A:I've used it.
Speaker C:Oh, I like tiger sauce.
Speaker C:I always forget about tiger sauce.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that was another deal with my father in law who turned me on to that.
Speaker A:But like you, Leanne, when I know I'm cooking something that is a little different and I want to pair it with something, I'll go seek out a sauce at the store.
Speaker A:I'm not as dedicated as John and create my own.
Speaker A:I'll go find one and then usually it sits there for about seven years because it just, I'm the only one that really likes it.
Speaker A:Our daughter doesn't live here anymore, so.
Speaker A:And like I described my wife earlier, so I've probably got two or three bottles in the outside fridge right now.
Speaker A:That's our one on the patio is what I keep all my barbecue stuff in and I use that.
Speaker A:But I would say that the tiger sauce is one that I use.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker B:It's pretty all purpose.
Speaker C:Yeah, it is, it is.
Speaker B:And that goes.
Speaker C:It's got a good viscosity too.
Speaker B:Yeah, it does.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And the crowd that I end up feeding most of the time, they're probably the least informed or palates developed for any type of hot sauces other than what we've talked about here.
Speaker A:You know, they're not very adventuresome, I'll put it that way.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, I just sent my mom a bunch of sauce for Mother's Day.
Speaker B:She loves to get a wide variety of things and, and one of the recipes I did a Little while back, you know, I'm a hockey fan, and a lot of times I'll do the other two sauces that I didn't talk about is I do a Cinco de Mayo sauce every year, which has five Mexican peppers in it.
Speaker B:This year, I did a rip on a Paloma cocktail in a hot sauce.
Speaker B:So I don't have.
Speaker B:I didn't have a grapefruit hot sauce recipe on the, on the site.
Speaker B:So I figured that was a good excuse to, to put that one in the rotation.
Speaker B:And then also I do, when the teams who are playing the Super Bowl, I'll take a look at both teams.
Speaker B:I'll come up with a sauce for both teams, usually trying to incorporate the team colors, something about the city.
Speaker B:So, like, for example, you know, Kansas City is a rip on a Kansas City barbecue.
Speaker B:And actually, I kind of cheated this year because since I had the Cincinnati recipe on the site already and they won again, you know, I didn't feel the urge to necessarily rush out.
Speaker B:I do have.
Speaker B:I did a variation on ketchup because Patrick Mahomes is a big fan of ketchup.
Speaker B:For anybody who follows the NFL in general, they've probably seen people joke about that.
Speaker B:And actually, I like the recipe too much to share it.
Speaker B:Might have to.
Speaker B:Might have to come up with another one and maybe share it for.
Speaker B:For this year's victory.
Speaker B:As a Broncos fan, it's very hard for me to say that, but.
Speaker A:And it should be.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:But what I did do is I lived in Denver when I was very young.
Speaker B:My father was in the Air Force.
Speaker B:And sidebar on that, like you're saying, jt, you know, please, you know, honor our troops and our veterans here.
Speaker B:Coming up for Memorial Day, I have a veterans page with veteran owned businesses on my site.
Speaker B:Jt, I know that's important to you and some of the work that you do.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I encourage people to check that out.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:So I lived in Denver so I can claim, you know, being a Denver sports fan.
Speaker B:But when I was growing up, you know, by the time I started actually watching hockey, I was living in Cleveland and we didn't have a team at the time, and I played the piano.
Speaker B:So the.
Speaker B:I saw the first hockey game I saw when I got cable.
Speaker B:You know, then it's like, what do you mean?
Speaker B:Cable hasn't always been around, but we finally got cable and we got it Hockey night in Canada, and it was the Leafs versus the Blues.
Speaker B:And I play piano, so the blues have a big music note on their jersey.
Speaker B:I'M like, who are they?
Speaker B:That's my team.
Speaker B:And 40 years of fan misery later, I finally get my Stanley Cup a couple of years back, but I never did my St. Louis Blues recipe.
Speaker B:So finally, when the Avs won the Stanley cup last year, I did a, a Colorado based hot sauce and I did a St. Louis hotel because I couldn't put just the Colorado because they're my second favorite team.
Speaker A:But there you go.
Speaker B:That, that, that recipe is on my site as well.
Speaker A:Well, you know, you, you were talking about different sauces and there's some commercial sauces.
Speaker A:Obviously there's a lot of Sriracha sauces now like that, but in those.
Speaker A:So like their Sriracha mayo sauce, I think Heinz makes it or Kraft makes it, one of them like that.
Speaker A:And, and they have those and they have obviously ketchups and they have everything else.
Speaker A:So that's kind of integrating over into everyday kitchen use products that you're seeing that the more milder ones.
Speaker A:I don't consider Sriracha a real lip ripper, you know, so.
Speaker A:But I've done recipes for some of the shows that you'd use Sriracha on a, on a burger or something that we've created and it works out really well.
Speaker A:And I think a lot of people are kind of at that level.
Speaker A:They like that it's got a little, got a little kick to it and all that.
Speaker A:But going back to that redundant thing I said, you know, they take, they can also taste the meat or fish or whatever it is they're, they're consuming.
Speaker A:So I think a word to people that are listening to this would be if you find something you like and it's at the levels you like it as heat and all that, you know, stick with it.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:Can't go wrong that way.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I think obviously these big manufacturers have focus groups and marketing money to spend to do all this research and figure out what's going to sell.
Speaker B:I think that, you know, the growth of hot sauce as its own standalone category is why you're seeing it bleed into the mayonnaise and some of the ketchups.
Speaker B:I mean, I've seen jalapeno ketchup, I've seen habanero ketchup, you know, which to me that's just a tomato habanero hot sauce.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker B:You know, but, and, but again, it's like, you know, again you talk about the tropical flavors and you know, when do you want something a little bit more tropical in note?
Speaker B:Well, the super hot chilies, habaneros, and up.
Speaker B:They all typically have those tropical flavor notes.
Speaker B:That's why they pair them with mangoes and pineapples and other things so often.
Speaker B:And so, you know, it's just the ease.
Speaker B:Like, if you know that you're going to default to heat anyway, why not have your mayonnaise come with the heat already added so you don't have to have the two condiments, you just have the one.
Speaker B:And I think that's why you're seeing, you know, some of these new combo condiments, shall we call them?
Speaker B:Because it's just trying to dumb it down and make it easy for the customer.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:John Hallner, this hot sauce sensei and field reporter for Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:Again, John, how can people find you?
Speaker A:Look at your work, put in an order for a custom sauce, whatever it is that you want to do for them.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So Hot Sauce Cookbook.com is my site that has my social medias On Twitter, I'm hot sauce blogger.
Speaker B:On Instagram, I'm hot sauce sensei.
Speaker B:And then again, I teach sauce.
Speaker B:And yeah, I do offer the opportunity for somebody that you love that wants their own custom sauce developed, spend a little bit of time with them, understand what their flavor profiles are all about, and then I'll actually come up with a scratch recipe.
Speaker B:I do that as a, as a standalone service.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And it's a lot of fun to be able to do that.
Speaker B:I've had, you know, kids, like moms give it to their kids and, and they just like, went crazy.
Speaker B:You know, for the person who has everything, that's a great gift because it's a, it's an experience gift and it's, it's something that's personal to them.
Speaker B:And then I usually type it up so they can frame it if they want, put in their kitchens, that kind of thing.
Speaker B:But hotsoftcookbook.com all the recipes are on the blog and, you know, certainly follow me on social media and you see a lot more of the fun stuff that I'm working on.
Speaker A:He's always working on something.
Speaker A:And thank you, thank you for supporting us on Barbecue Nation with your work.
Speaker A:We appreciate that.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:J.T.
Speaker B:It's a pleasure to be able to represent the nation and get out there.
Speaker B:And the last thing I'll close on is just try some new stuff.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Just because you found one thing that you like, there's so many different styles, and even if you don't use it all the time, you might find out that you got something really cool.
Speaker B:And, and to me, the best thing is to share sauce.
Speaker B:You know that when I make sauce pretty much all the time, I can't eat.
Speaker B:You can come close to eating all the sauce that I do make.
Speaker B:So I'm always giving it to friends and neighbors.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:I use it as a thank you gift for, you know, other folks when they do something nice for me.
Speaker B:I'm always sending them the latest samples.
Speaker B:It's my, my ultimate question is, do you like hot sauce?
Speaker B:And, you know, tell me how hot you like it and I'll, I'll set something up for you.
Speaker B:So, you know, certainly appreciate the opportunity to.
Speaker B:To share more.
Speaker B:And I just want to encourage people to jump in the kitchen, make it.
Speaker B:It's really easy.
Speaker B:Or at least, if nothing else, go try a few bottles off the shelf and see what you like.
Speaker B:And if you don't like it, give it to your neighbor.
Speaker B:They'll probably like it.
Speaker A:Yep, that's true.
Speaker A:All right, we're going to get out of here.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening.
Speaker A:Remember our motto here, turn it, don't burn it.
Speaker A:And also, don't forget why we are celebrating Memorial day.
Speaker A:So for Ms. Leanne and Mr. John Holder, the hot sauce sensei, I'd like to say thank you for listening.
Speaker A:And we'll be back next week with another edition of After Hours here on Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:Take care, everybody.
