bntowen's Full Review: Frank's RedHot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce: 5 OZ
It’s been over fifteen years since I served as a groomsman at my classmate Scott’s wedding in Seneca Falls, NY. Though centrally located, citizens of this small Upstate New York town in the Finger Lakes region sport the logos of the Buffalo Sabers and Buffalo Bills from flagpoles to bumpers. The bachelor party proved this town Buffalo allegiance with Buffalo wings piled in small, galvanized buckets at the elbow of every man in the bar. This was my first foray into Buffalo wingdom. Two buckets later, I to this day search for the taste and feeling of the first perfect Buffalo wings. The chili sauce and butter mixture wetted the barely fried winds. Curious about the sauce, the bartender educated me of the legend of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York.
I did some more research on the Anchor Bar website. Hang in there; this is a Franks RedHot review. In 1964, Frank and Teressa (spelled correctly) Bellisimo, well actually Teressa poured a secret sauce over what was thought to be the dinky throwaway parts of the chicken. It was the 1920 on the side of the 12oz. Franks RedHot bottle, which led to discovering that chili sauce was first made in New Iberia, Louisiana in 1918 and bottled in 1920 by Jacob Frank. This WAS the “secret” sauce Teressa used in the Anchor Bar forty-four years later in 1964. Durkees subsequently purchased Franks RedHot, and the Anchor Bar bottles and ships their own sauce under the name Frank & Teressa’s. But it was Frank’s (RedHot) that lit the Buffalo Wing fire.
I thought that as I searched for the perfect wing at various restaurants. Every time I loved the wings I’d ask what sauce they used. Time and time again, it was Franks RedHot the only sauce that captured the love at first bite feeling.
The reason comes in its claim to fame, heat AND flavor. It seems simple, but sauce after sauce errs on either side of that equation. This is not to throw off on Tabasco, which is heat, or Texas Pete (I actually drove by the plant that’s not in Texas but Winston-Salem, North Carolina) that’s more tang than heat. The balanced “heatang” of Frank’s aged red chili peppers according to the company come from proprietary peppers grown in the land between Mexico and New Mexico. Once harvested, they age in New Mexico before pulping and bottling with the other ingredients: vinegar, water, salt, and garlic powder. Unlike the other hot sauces, I can liberally apply and have used this sauce to soup bases, chili, red sauces over various meats, and even in homemade salad dressings.
Properly balanced “heating” permits making the heat a background flavor dispersed over six or seven shakes, verses the micro-measured other too-hot-to-cook-with sauces that are as fearfully dropped into foods as a mad scientist making a potion to kill Bugs Bunny in a Warner Bros. cartoon. I poured in directly on finished food such as pizza, eggs (steady), steaks, burgers, fish, potato casserole, and more. Adding it to ketchup or barbeque sauce doesn’t merely kick it up; it broadens the flavor without noticeably altering salt content. The vinegar is balanced so the aroma does not to cause a recently dunked batch of wings to choke the recipient. Red chili paste can collect on the bottle’s side and neck next to cap in partial bottles left in the fridge. Vigorous shaking solves the chili paste clumping. Frank’s RedHot’s gone nationwide, so it’s readily available at supermarkets. And lastly, I often notice the Frank’s RedHot shelf position to be difficult to find amidst the Tabasco-Texas Pete 16 flavor shelf-hog displays. It’s comforting to me when I see three of four bottles left of Frank’s RedHot versus the other brands.
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