If people are what they eat then we have a lot of hot people in the United States. People have been eating peppers for thousands of years but in recent years people have been looking to get a little more adventurous with their food and Gourmet hot sauces are quite the hot item. The number of hot sauce aficionados continues to grow and is quickly becoming a part of American mainstream.

The National Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show, started in 1989, is the Woodstock of hot sauces in the United States. An instant success, it spawned a widespread interest in gourmet hot sauce, which are hot for hot's sake. Dave's insanity sauce from Dave's gourmet was the first hot sauce to be banned from the fiery food show for being too hot. Its heat content stood at 50,000 Scoville units. However, that was way back. Nowadays, sauces are doing the catfight for the hottest title and the Scoville units are blowing sky high with 500,000 to 10,000,000 units becoming the norm. It has become common for a gourmet hot sauce container to carry the statutory warning: "must be diluted before use," or "use as an ingredient only," or "for use as an additive, not for direct consumption.". Are hot sauces leaving the dining table and going to the display cabinet, to be flaunted as a collector's item, is the question.

Collecting hot sauces has become a trend only in the past several years. Like stamp collecting there are literally thousands of hot sauces to choose from whether you only want to collect the hottest of all sauces, funny hot sauces, limited edition hot sauces or all of the above.

Mad Dog hot sauce from Ashley Foods however is a nice departure. Probably, because Mad Dog gives equal weightage to heat and flavor. Coming in many varieties- mild, medium, hot and extreme, Mad Dog hot sauces are equally suitable for the spiky youngster, looking for spice and the calmer palate of the older crowd. If you choose to venture on the extreme side of the Scoville scale I recommend Mad Dog 357 hot sauce. This sauce is an excellent selection. This sauce will literally blast your sinuses away. On the other hand the Mad Dog Teriyaki hot sauce is ideal for dipping your food. An all-rounder gourmet hot sauce, in every sense, it is great as a marinade or as a grilling sauce.

Some of the hottest gourmet hot sauce are-Ass in Antartica Hot Sauce, Ass in Hell Hot Sauce, Assplosion Hot Sauce, Blair's After Death and Blair's Megadeath Hot Sauce. Dave's Gourmet, is of course in a class by itself. Dave's Commemorative Insanity, Dave's Total Insanity, Dave's Ultimate Insanity-it has virtually become a stud farm for hot sauces.