Chileheads rejoice! Red Clay Hot Sauces, which began life on the tables of Charleston chef Geoff Rhyne, are now available to grace your tables. And they’re wicked good. Just ask Managing Editor Angie Zoobkoff.
Hot sauce holds a special place in my heart. And in my refrigerator. At any given time, there are never fewer than five bottles of hot sauce on rotation. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to sample what Red Clay had to offer. It turns out that the folks over at Red Clay know their stuff, and not just when it comes to hot sauce.
More than just hot sauce
The package that arrived on my doorstep included a bottle of mild hot sauce, a green hot sauce, a bottle of hot honey, and four jars of spice blends–spicy everything bagel salt, spicy red mash bbq seasoning blend, Bloody Mary salt, and margarita salt.
Red Clay offers suggestions for use on the back of each bottle and jar, and also offers simple recipes on their website. Using that as a starting point, I sprinkled the spicy everything salt over my avocado toast the next morning. The spice blend was so addictive that I found myself reaching for it again that evening to sprinkle over popcorn. The Bloody Mary I enjoyed that evening was also perfectly seasoned, with just the right amount of heat.
Red Clay hot honey for the win
In pondering how to best sample the hot sauces, I decided that grilled chicken wings would be the best way to enjoy and compare a couple. I tossed half of the grilled wings in a simple buffalo sauce made from Red Clay’s mild hot sauce and butter, and the other half was tossed in a combination of hot honey, soy sauce, and lime juice, as suggested by one of Red Clay’s online recipes. Both proved to be winners. The mild hot sauce is pleasantly spicy, and the flavor is infinitely more nuanced and complex than your average store-bought variety. While I’d love to try a hotter version of this sauce, it was a great choice for serving a family that doesn’t all have the same heat tolerance.
In the end, it was the hot honey that stole the show. A near-perfect blend of sweet and spicy, this will be a staple in my home. The wings were a fantastic vehicle to enjoy it, and I know it will be on hand the next time I pull a batch of biscuits out of the oven.
Where can I find Red Clay products?
Red Clay sauces and spice blends, as well as recipe suggestions, are available at redclayhotsauce.com.
