Chocolate Hazelnut Assplosion
I had big plans for hot sauce. I dribble the stuff on everything I eat, so I have four different kinds in my fridge. A nice idea, I thought, would be to try the whole series of sauces in coffee, then have a post comparing them all, with an intricate rating system to help you, dear reader, choose the perfect hot sauce for your morning beverage.
Here is how those plans got derailed.
Assplosion was a lovely gift from my family. It’s not a great hot sauce; it’s spicy enough, but hadn’t really lived up to its name. Still, I had to try it first, to start this series with a “bang.”
The only coffee I had ready was chocolate-hazelnut flavoured. And you know how chocolate with chili in it is all the rage these days? I thought I’d enhance the chocolate with some Fry’s cocoa and go for that idea in drink form.
I’ve been watching Dexter a lot lately, which makes red drips remind me of blood. That was probably the first sign this wouldn’t turn out well.
When it was all mixed up, the smell was … alarming. It literally hurt my nose a bit, with the combination of bitter cocoa and noxious spice. Ah, but I had to try tasting it anyway. For you, dear reader. All for you.
All I could taste was the Assplosion. I only put a few drops in, but it overwhelmed the coffee, hazelnut, and chocolate such that all they did was add some bitterness and enhance the illusion that I was drinking poison. Or ass.
I want to give other hot sauces a chance. Maybe it’d be better with regular coffee and no chocolate. Maybe there is a sauce out there that can contribute to the pleasant coffee / spice balance I experienced with curry coffee. But I can’t bring myself to try any more; not any time soon.
Plus, I’m starting to feel a rumbling down below.
Putting Weird Things in Coffee 
Maybe you could try a hot sauce that’s not based in vinegar? A lot have either that or garlic, which might mess up the flavours. I can’t really think of a good alternate though.
Good point! Seems like everything with vinegar has failed so far (see low fat whipped dressing), and spices have been perfectly good when they’re not mixed with anything else.
Google told me to try this.
Dude, I would pay good money (edit: no money) for a review on Cajun Creole Hot Nut Coffee.
Damnit Phronk, you need to brew the coffee with the cocoa in the grounds, not stir them in! Also, did you get the package I sent you a while back?
i put cayenne in hot chocolate with a bit of cinnamon (the cinnamon helps balance the cayenn out).
maybe a variation of that would work?
I brew my water with crush red pepper and a lil jalapeno salt butter and cinammon…I scoop out some of the c.r.p. …I only have Folgers coffee bags right now…still good stuff…I used hazelnut creamers…and crumbled chips ahoys inside…Nestle makes this Mexican chocolate mix called Abuelita…its hard to crush but id add bout half a teaspoon…I topped with whipped topping
I couldn’t stop laughing at Assplosion
maybe you’ve tried it by now… but this summer I had ordered a coffee called ‘The Lil’ Louisiane’ from a vendor at a small music festival (the stand was called the Festival Espresso, i know, right?)
Basically it was an Americano with cream and a bit of Louisiana hot sauce. It was awesome! I’m sure the mix of espresso/water/cream/hot sauce has a lot to do with it, but it was the perfect blend of rich and spicy.
If you haven’t tried it, do so and give credit to Dave Soroka who is a musician and owner of the Festival Espresso in British Columbia, Canada.
Sounds good. I do love a good Americano over drip coffee whenever possible. Thanks!
Actually, I also make a coffee I call Black Cherry Blues (after a novel by James Lee Burke). Put a pump of chocolate sauce in a 16-oz cup, add two shots of black cherry syrup, put in some hot water to mix that all up, pull a shot of espresso into the cup and then fill to the top with frothy milk, and finally, a good six or eight heavy drops of Louisiana hot sauce on top. Don’t stir, but just kind of push the hot sauce deep into the drink with a stir stick, so there’s traces of it all the way down.
Oh my. You are my dream man. I thought nobody loved coffee more than I did.
Bravo to your creativity.
I don’t use the hot sauce. Try w/o it.