Let’s talk about hot sauce.

I was never a spicy foods person when I was younger. Growing up in a… Minnesotan household usually exposes you to only the blandest of foods. We never had much beyond mild salsa in our fridge and chili may as well have been spelled “chilly”. Only in the last couple of years have I started craving spicy foods. I hope I’m not pregnant.

It started with Cholula. I bought a bottle for taco night and liked it. I started putting it on other things. Hashbrowns, mac and cheese, pizza. I started to expand my horizons and got a bottle of Tapatio to change things up.

Eventually that wasn’t doing it for me. I was getting used to the heat. It barely registered. The Guns N’ Roses song “Mr. Brownstone” started finally making sense to me.

I’m currently on Sriracha. It’s replaced ketchup in my diet. I’d put it on ice cream if I thought it’d taste good.

Several months ago when I realized I was starting to build a tolerance to spice I searched the internet for different hot sauces and came across hotsauceworld.com. It had literally thousands of brands of hot sauce categorized by level of intensity. I checked the “hot” page and noticed that the names of these sauces followed three distinct themes.

S&M NAMES
Several sauces suggest that the reason you’re putting this on your food is because you get some sort of sexual pleasure out of it. The bottles usually have a picture of a woman in leather brandishing a whip because that’s why you eat tacos.

– Goddess of Fire
– Pain is Good
– Kiss of Fire
– Pleasure and Pain Rated XXX Hot Sauce

VAGUELY POLITICAL NAMES
You’ve got political opinions but how are you going to share them? Voting? Writing an op ed piece for your local newspaper? How about making your own hot sauce? Descriptions from the website included.

– PETA (People for Eating Tasty Animals) Hot Sauce: Where’s the beef… and the veal, pork and chicken too? And don’t forget the whale, dolphin, baby seal and Panda. Loving all God’s creatures next to my potatoes!

– The Final Countdown Hot Sauce (George W. Bush): 01-20-09 Poor Georgie boy. His days are numbered and the nation is counting them down. Help celebrate the countdown when America will regain it’s ability to actually think again in the year 2009.

– Teddy’s Sauced Hot Sauce: Get Ted’s new book “How to Navigate a bridge while under suspicion of being impaired and without a valid drivers license”.

– Hillary’s Diet Sauce: For use in place of health insurance! because this is all she is going to leave you with! Just Imagine Hillary Clinton as President!

PUTTING THIS ON FOOD AND EATING IT WILL MAKE YOUR BUTT HURT
This is by far the most popular method of naming hot sauce. The world’s hot sauce makers have literally used every synonym for rectal discomfort in the naming of their sauces. I think one is actually named rectal discomfort. This list doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of butthurt names

– Heiney Hurt
– Colon Cleaner
– Hog’s Ass
– Hemorrhoid Helper
– Wet Fart
– Fiery Fart
– Sphincter Shrinker
– Flaming Coon Ass
– Red Rectum
– Assplosion
– Bayou Butt Burner
– Weapons of Ass Destruction
– Rectal Revenge
– Rectum Ripper
– Butt Plug Relief
– Butt Twister
– Brenda’s Booty Burner
– Bubba’s Butt Blaster
– Rectal Rocket Fuel
– Reindeer Revenge (check the picture to see why this is a butt one)

If that doesn't make you hungry for hot sauce I don't know what would.

Thanks, hotsauceworld.com but I think I’ll stick with the Sriracha for now.