Frank’s RedHot is a hot sauce made from a variety of cayenne peppers, produced by McCormick & Company. The Original blend ranks low on the Scoville scale, with 450 SHUs, but the XTRA Hot variety measures 2,000 SHUs.
The name Frank has become intrinsically linked to the words “red hot.” Ask someone at a wing joint to pass the “Frank’s” and they will know exactly what you mean. But who was Frank, and how did this tasty hot sauce come to be named after him?
Frank’s RedHot sauce is named for its founder Jacob Frank. Frank was not new to naming companies and food products after himself. Prior to his venture into the world of hot sauce, Jacob Frank owned and operated a spice company out of Cincinnati called Frank’s Tea and Spices which, by 1906, grew to include such products as Frank’s Jumbo Brand Peanut Butter.
In 1918, Frank traveled south to start on a new venture and learn about hot sauce making. Specifically, he wanted to learn about using cayenne pepper instead of the tabasco peppers used in a popular sauce of the time of the same name. Frank took his knowledge of spices, and his newfound knowledge of cayenne peppers and used it to make the first batches of Frank’s RedHot sauce, and the rest is history.
The key ingredient in any hot sauce is the peppers. According to “Unwrapped,” Frank’s uses red cayenne peppers grown in New Mexico entirely for the use in their pepper sauce, a harkening back to pepper farmer and co-founder Adam Estilette. The control over the crops allows Frank’s to have a consistent flavor. Once the peppers are picked, they are sorted before being washed, chopped up, and poured into large fermenting tanks that seem to look more at home on a farm than in a pepper factory. This is where the secret comes in, however.
The peppers are left to age for an undisclosed amount of time and when the fermentation process has finished, the peppers are shipped to the final processing plant, where vinegar and the top-secret Frank’s spice mix are added. The spice mix in Frank’s RedHot is the same recipe as it was when the sauce premiered. Aside from some updates in processing, Frank’s RedHot sauce remains the same as it did in 1920.
Frank’s RedHot is the primary ingredient in many Buffalo wing recipes, but was probably not used in the original 1964 Anchor Bar recipe.
According to mashed.com. Source of photos: internet
