Hot Sauce Cocktails That Actually Work

The majority of "spicy cocktails" at bars are terrible. Someone shakes Tabasco into a margarita and calls it creative. The vinegar clashes with the citrus, the heat is all wrong, and the drink tastes like an accident. But there are a handful of cocktails where hot sauce genuinely belongs, where the heat and flavour of a good sauce complement the other ingredients instead of fighting them.

The Bloody Caesar

Canada's national cocktail, and the best hot sauce cocktail in existence. Not a Bloody Mary. Caesars use Clamato (clam-tomato juice) instead of plain tomato juice, and the briny, savoury base is a perfect match for hot sauce.

Recipe:

• 1.5 oz vodka
• 4 oz Clamato juice
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp our Original Habanero sauce
• Juice of half a lime
• Pinch of celery salt
• Freshly cracked black pepper
• Ice

Rim a tall glass with celery salt and fill with ice. Add all ingredients and stir. Garnish with a celery stalk, a lime wedge, and whatever else you want to stick in there. The habanero sauce adds fruity heat that plays beautifully with the Clamato's umami depth. This is the ideal brunch drink.

The Michelada

A Mexican beer cocktail that's part drink, part snack, part hangover cure. The base is beer, lime, and hot sauce, with Maggi seasoning and a salted rim. It sounds strange if you haven't tried it. It's addictive once you have.

Recipe:

• 12 oz light Mexican lager (Modelo, Pacifico, or Corona)
• Juice of one lime
• 2 tsp our Smoky Chipotle sauce
• 1 tsp Maggi seasoning sauce (or soy sauce)
• Pinch of black pepper
• Tajin or chili-lime salt for the rim
• Ice

Rim a large glass with lime juice and Tajin. Fill with ice. Add the lime juice, hot sauce, Maggi, and pepper. Stir. Slowly pour the beer over top. The Smoky Chipotle works better than a vinegar-based sauce here because the smoke flavour meshes with the malty beer and the char of the Tajin rim. Drink this on a hot afternoon and tell me it isn't perfect.

The Spicy Margarita (Done Right)

The trick to a spicy margarita is using the right kind of heat. You don't want vinegar competing with the lime juice. You want pepper flavour that enhances the tequila's natural agave sweetness.

Recipe:

• 2 oz blanco tequila (100% agave)
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• 0.75 oz agave syrup
• 0.5 tsp our Caribbean Scotch Bonnet sauce
• Ice

Shake all ingredients hard with ice for 15 seconds. Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice. The Scotch Bonnet's fruity, floral heat pairs with the tequila instead of clashing. The agave syrup rounds everything out. This is a cocktail where the hot sauce makes the drink better, not just hotter. Garnish with a thin lime wheel and a pinch of flaky sea salt on the rim if you're feeling fancy.

General Principles

If you want to experiment with hot sauce in cocktails, remember: fermented sauces work better than vinegar-based in most drinks. Use less than you think, you can always add more. And match the sauce's flavour profile to the drink's base spirit. Smoky sauces with dark spirits and beer. Fruity sauces with tequila and rum. Save the vinegar-heavy sauces for Caesars and Bloody Marys where that acidity is welcome.