Right now, there are a multitude of serious and scary things happening. But I wanted to use this space—sometimes devoted to those more serious things—to focus on what’s really important: hot sauce.

In the world right now, there’s a multitude of serious things happening. With this space – most of the time used to speak on those more serious issues – I wanted touch on something else important: hot sauce. 

I have been an avid user of many hot sauces in my life, ranging from the extreme “burn your face off” to mild ones that just “taste good.” At the top of my list, Huy Fong Sriracha has always been number one and I used to put it on anything I could. 

However, a few months ago, they suddenly stopped making their sriracha product. I was devastated, watching the price of the last bottles spike up to absurd highs and savoring what I had left of my bottle. At the time I didn’t know what had happened and found out a few weeks ago after they restarted their production. They had gotten into a dispute with Underwood Ranches, their previous chili supplier, about an overpayment. Huy Fong lost the battle, and both sides ended up cutting ties with each other.  I was bummed, but I had a lot of hope for my favorite hot sauce. 

Now, I am almost finished with my old sriracha bottle, so my dad and I decided to do a comparison with a new production bottle. The results were nothing but upsetting. The difference is clear. The color, taste and spice level of the new hot sauce isn’t even close to the previous. I found myself only noticing the things that were different. A lighter shade of red, a lesser spice factor, and an overall boring taste plagues the recipe. The “improved” formula doesn’t have any special qualities either—it tastes like every off-brand you can find at the store. This is the most disappointing factor, since my favorite part of the old formula was the more unique taste.

As my favorite hot sauce is out of the question, I have to look for something to replace it. I’ve started to look for other sriracha variants, but none have been to the level that the Huy Fong brand is. There are even different color srirachas, in which I own the green and yellow, but they have very different flavors from the red. Which hot sauce is going to step up to the podium? We’ll just have to wait and see.