"To be sure this stuff's actually really nice, like slightly chilli-flavoured brown sauce, I quite liFUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! How can so small an amount do so much damage?!?!" - My long suffering colleague Keith, upon trying this condiment.

I don't know if I should bother adding to the above, but I feel obliged.

You Can't Handle This Hot Sauce, by a company called Peppers Inc, is one of that peculiar range of ultra hot sauces that are devised more to allow for bragging rights than to actually taste of anything. However, unlike many of these, You Can't Handle This Hot Sauce (hereafter referred to as YCHTHS), actually tastes of something as well as being horribly, indomitably, hot.

The bottle says that as well as tasting great, "the extreme heat level allows you to mouth surf the big ones." I do not know what this means, and I'm not sure I want to, but I'd be grateful if someone could explain. The bottle also has a demon lawyer on the label, and comes with a little black cloth bit tied round the top with a gold string. The sauce itself is viscous, brown, and very pungent, with a texture like a rougher brown sauce. It also tastes very much like brown sauce, what with the molasses and everything.

Well, it tastes like brown sauce for about 10 seconds, then you become ominously aware of something rather hot coming your way, which builds and builds and builds and then you feel like you just tossed a dragon's salad. This stuff is REALLY hot, they aren't lying. Apparently it clocks in at 232,000 Scoville units, which makes it about 28% hotter than Dave's Insanity Sauce, 132% hotter than Blair's Beyond Death Sauce, and approximately 9,300% hotter than Tabasco sauce, but only 65% as hot as Mad Dog .357 and 11.6% as hot as pepper spray.

I personally find that the best use for YCHTHS is in curries, usually beef ones, where it can percolate and simmer throughout and provide a nice mixture of yummy taste and heat. Beef madras with this stuff equals fun times. Or, if you're feeling brave, take a teaspoon full and smear it across the top of a steak sandwich. You'll be glad you did.

One word of warning though - after cooking with this, please wash your hands before you go to the toilet.

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