Flickr/Natalia Wilson
When it comes to naming products, food manufacturers tend to avoid any terms that would offend or disgust potential customers. Blue cheese, for example, would likely not sell as well if it were called “Chunks o’ Blue Mold.”
Snob appeal also makes a difference. While younger wine manufacturers seem to be more whimsical with their names—Folie a Deux’s Menage a Trois and Vampire Vineyards’ Dracula come to mind—stalwarts still opt for canyons, creeks and châteaus.
But the hot sauce industry, particularly the smaller specialty vendors, is the exception. Not only does it revel in whimsy, but manufacturers seem to be in a race to see who can be the most offensive and/or disgusting. “Ass” is probably the most common word in their repertoire, followed by “sphincter” and “rectum.” The word “bitch” is also very popular, with a number of variations. Then, there are masturbatory and STD references, as well as levels of pain.
Not exactly appetizing, but they seem to do well, and there are many specialty hot sauce sellers online, including hotsauce.com, hotsauceworld.com, and mohotta.com.
Joo Min, also known as “The Pepper Lady,” owns a hot sauce shop called Light My Fire. Located in the historic Farmers Market at the Grove in Los Angeles, Light My Fire is a tiny space filled wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling with bottles. Min also sells the sauces online at hotteashop.com.
When asked about the industry’s predilection for salty names, she replied, “I believe the hot sauce industry caters to a far more risqué clientele. Forget mainstream, conservative uptight thinking. Hot sauce enthusiasts seem to be a little more open to the type of marketing found commonly in the industry. Raunchy, rowdy, often obscene and many times extremely juvenile humor is what sells.”
And she expects this won’t change. In fact, it will likely get raunchier. “Basically, the labels get more outrageous because that’s what sells. Most of the truly risqué labels are sold primarily in specialty shops like ours and not in mainstream grocery stores. Therefore, there is more freedom and flexibility to sell products that might be considered ‘inappropriate’ by some.”
Below, we compile a list, by no means exhaustive, of interestingly-named hot sauces. The more distasteful names don’t necessarily translate to hotter sauces. Depending on which distributor you hit, they either have a scale from one to 10 (with 10 on par with pepper spray) or one to four. For simplicity, the heat scale below goes from one to four.
1. Flaming Coon Ass 
Heat scale: 3 flames
This sauce has a raccoon on the label, and the assurance that this name is really all about Cajun flavors and critters. It’s described as “burn once, then twice, and maybe thrice, and you’ll be flaming too.”
2. Larry’s Hot Pussy Juice
Heat scale: 3 flames
Like Flaming Coon Sauce, this sauce helpfully included a cat on the label, lest there be misunderstandings. There’s also a reference to manliness. It’s described as “sweet and smoky sauce, goes well with everything.” They recommend it for fish.
