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hot-sauce Your fave Sriracha?

OzDragon said:
YUP!
Griffin launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $5000. He hit it in 8 hours. He doubled the goal to $10,000 so that he could include a trip to Thailand. That was reached in 24 hours. He and Randy Clemons (Sriracha Cookbook, author) went there together and visited THE sriracha factory.
 
When the Kickstarter campaign ended, it was a little over $21,000.
 
BTW: Griffin interviewed me on camera. Let's see if I make it in the final cut.  :-)
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Very cool!  I hadn't heard anything about that.  I love chili pepper/sauce documentaries.  Thanks for sharing!
 
I say it's a "sweet garlic chile sauce".

I live and grew up in the SF Bay Area - we have a huge vietnamese population & hundreds of pho restaurants. I have 4 in my neighborhood alone. Many have Huy Fong sriracha - many have their own sriracha.

The only unified theme I've seen is that they're all sweet, not dominantly acidic (as compared to a Louisiana style) and garlic forward.

Otherwise I think heat level & pepper selection is irrelevant. We'll see what the documentary says I guess.
 
Lucky Dog Hot Sauce said:
I say it's a "sweet garlic chile sauce".

I live and grew up in the SF Bay Area - we have a huge vietnamese population & hundreds of pho restaurants. I have 4 in my neighborhood alone. Many have Huy Fong sriracha - many have their own sriracha.

The only unified theme I've seen is that they're all sweet, not dominantly acidic (as compared to a Louisiana style) and garlic forward.

Otherwise I think heat level & pepper selection is irrelevant. We'll see what the documentary says I guess.
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I agree with the sweet, minimal acidity and bold garlic. But what would you think about a green sriracha?
 
OzDragon said:
I agree with the sweet, minimal acidity and bold garlic. But what would you think about a green sriracha?
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If it followed the requisite flavor profile it could be lime green & I'd be fine with it.

I don't think color makes a sriracha a sriracha. Sweet & garlicky & good in Pho or on 5-spice chicken makes a sriracha.
That said, if it had a citrus note or tried to get creative as a "chocolate sriracha" (trendy, no?) then I'd take issue with it.

Clearly defined things should be kept pure. Like when I order a Reuben & the waitress asks if I want corned beef or pastrami. It's a named sammich - no convo required.
 
Lucky Dog Hot Sauce said:
If it followed the requisite flavor profile it could be lime green & I'd be fine with it.

I don't think color makes a sriracha a sriracha. Sweet & garlicky & good in Pho or on 5-spice chicken makes a sriracha.
That said, if it had a citrus note or tried to get creative as a "chocolate sriracha" (trendy, no?) then I'd take issue with it.

Clearly defined things should be kept pure. Like when I order a Reuben & the waitress asks if I want corned beef or pastrami. It's a named sammich - no convo required.
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A chocolate sriracha. Reminds me of chocolate-flavored cigars. If the real flavor needs to be masked, then just leave it alone. LOL!
Let us never see a "mild" sriracha.
 
Sriracha did not go global due to the style of the sauce, it was the distribution of the USA Huy Fong brand. Many people in Thailand do not know what sriracha is, and if they do, it is most likely the rooster brand, unless they are from Sri Racha (also Si Racha) Thailand where there is the sriracha style of sauce that David Tran of Huy Fong was inspired by. The other brands copied Huy Fong after it became a global sensation. Better than going to Thailand, you'd probably have a much more interesting doc by talking to David Tran.
 
There are many places with hot sauce on the table in Thailand. I've been there. But if you ask for sriracha you will most likely get the rooster (it's like asking for ketchup or Tabasco). The house sauce, that is similar, they often just call nam phrik. If you say "nam phrik" you will get their house hot sauce. If you say "sriracha nam prik" you will probably get the bottle, and chances are it's the rooster, from the good ole USA.
 
There have been Thai members here that say sriracha is not found there, or popular there, like people think.
 
Here's an interesting article: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/12/business/la-fi-himi-tran-20130414
 
Interesting. It seems that the condiment has very little to do with the city, and the condiment is something truly originated by David Tran. Sounds like he could have named it Orange Ooze.
 
Hehe yup. If you order Sri Racha in Thailand they will just tell you how to get there. Pretty much. Though many good nam phriks exist. It literally translates to fluid hot pepper, so basically hot sauce. But the styles vary and are thick, sweet, some garlicky. Some like chili paste, some chunky, some smooth. Some curries are based on them, but as a hot sauce you can ask for it and they will bring a dish of it. The word can be followed by the style, like nam phrik kapi, etc. The "Tuong" in Tuong ot Sriracha means fermented, I guess he liked a fermented sauce in the town of Sri Racha (the alternate spelling of the more popular Si Racha), and so it was born. In Cali.  ;)
 
Interesting find. This is apparently the sauce David Tran was inspired by when he created Sriracha:
 
Golden Mountain Sriraja Panich. Or they claim to be the original, who knows. That is how they market it to the US, but they obviously know about the phenomenon created by Tran. Golden Mountain spells it Sriraja (possibly because Tuong ot Sriracha is trademarked by Huy Fong in the US, or possibly just an alternate spelling).
 
Sri Racha is a small port town, and this (Golden Mountain version) is apparently a sauce from that town for dipping meats, and a dish called Kai Jeow, not as an all-purpose sauce like Huy Fong Sriracha. I believe his recipe, and obviously, marketing is responsible for the phenomenon. He's responsible for the sauce being called sriracha by combing the two words of the port town (I think), and that has become it's own style. So maybe Huy Fong is the original.
 
Anyone from Thailand want to chime in? Do you see this on tables? What do you get when you ask for it? I was there before all the buzz over this style of sauce. I ate lots of nam phriks and just asked for my dish spicy. I did eat a lot of heat!
 
I need to go back. I loved it.
 
By the way here's how it is pronounced:
 
What is the Thai pronunciation for Sriracha? 
“See-rah-jah.” The first “r” is not pronounced and the word is said as three distinct syllables.
 
That explains the two different spelling of the port town. Silent R. Damn, and I've been pronouncing that R!
 
Lucky Dog Hot Sauce said:
Fascinating topic. Great info THP!

David Tran is one of my heroes & a true American success story.
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Dude, I'd buy stock in Huy Fong if they weren't privately held. Yes, I have checked, lol.
 
Lucky Dog Hot Sauce said:
That TB can be a real nam phrik sometimes.
:woohoo:
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Ah, used in a sentence. Yes, yes he can. ;)
 
LOL

Would you say the US made salsa a global sensation? I think so. But not one brand can take the credit, like Huy Fong did here. Or can you credit one brand? Pace? Not to derail this, it's on topic for the business aspect of it. Just an example of someone taking an ethnic sauce, changing it to suit American tastebuds (heavy on tomato, low on heat), and now the world knows salsa as this tomato-based condiment, when really, in Mexico, it is much more than that. Most are pepper-based, and not diced, they are smooth. The similar salsa is pico de gallo. It's like someone took pico, added a ton more tomatoes, and processed it as a cooked salsa. Now, to the world, that is salsa. Similar thing here with Sriracha. But Tran has a virtual monopoly!
 
That's a great point - and I agree completely. Being in CA also affords me the luxury of 100s of mexican restaurants, and other than pico de gallo they are all indeed smooth/blended salsas - but around the country it's more processed/pasteurized/jarred salsa, and it's sort of a funky hybrid between chunky & smooth, as though they're trying to convey that fresh quality of a pico but produce it in a shelf-stable format (e.g. no refrigeration needed). More and more I think grocers are responding to demand and stocking a locally made brand of keep-refrigerated fresh salsa, but even those are sort of hybridized and no one brand represents the entire product category in the way that Huy Fong has. They are truly a pioneer & leader. That they used a heavily ethnic branding to make the sauce appear to be Vietnamese is actually very clever marketing on their part. Using English, French and whatever asiatic language that is on the bottle gives it a pseudo authentic Vietnamese feel, which may well be why so many Pho places adopted it so readily. 
 
Plus the fact that it's damn tasty sauce...that always helps in a success story. 
 
That the Trans are also survivors of upheaval in their transition out of Asia is another amazing part of the story. 
 
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