Wing CountryWhat’s in the bottle
Every number here came off a label. Who wins gets argued elsewhere, at length.
Salt, by the tablespoon
One dot per bottle, 20 in all; the upright tick marks its row's median. Across every bottle the median runs 227 mg a tablespoon, against the 2,300 mg the FDA counts as a day. Old Bay Seasoning tops it at 1,680 mg. Careful with the far right: 2 of these are dry seasonings whose own serving is a quarter teaspoon or less, scaled to a tablespoon here so they sit on the same axis. Nobody eats a tablespoon of them. Hover a dot for the bottle.
The same numbers as a table
| Sauce | Maker | Base | Sodium mg/tbsp |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old Bay Seasoning | McCormick & Company, Inc. | Dry rub | 1,680 |
| Lemon pepper | McCormick & Company, Inc. | Citrus and pepper | 720 |
| Jerk marinade | Georgia Peach Products, Inc. (Spur Tree Jamaican) | Other | 700 |
| Teriyaki sauce | Kikkoman Sales USA, Inc. | Soy and sweet | 610 |
| Frank's RedHot | McCormick & Company, Inc. | Vinegar and pepper | 570 |
| Memphis dry rub | Adams Extract Co. | Dry rub | 480 |
| Buffalo sauce | McCormick & Company, Inc. | Cayenne and butter | 460 |
| Soy garlic sauce | Korean Delights LLC (We Love You) | Soy and sweet | 430 |
| Crystal Hot Sauce | Baumer Foods, Inc. | Vinegar and pepper | 405 |
| Yangnyeom sauce | American Roland Food LLC | Other | 234 |
| Sweet chili sauce | PANOS Brands LLC (Ka-Me) | Other | 220 |
| Alabama white sauce | In-Between Sportwear, Inc. (Saw's) | Dairy dips | 150 |
| Honey barbecue sauce | Sweet Baby Ray's Inc. | Sweet and red | 150 |
| Blue cheese dressing | Ken's Foods, Inc. | Dairy dips | 145 |
| Mild sauce | Southern Signature, Inc. | Sweet and red | 140 |
| Ranch dressing | The HVR Company (Hidden Valley) | Dairy dips | 120 |
| Garlic parmesan sauce | P. K. Kinder Co., Inc. | Herb and garlic | 120 |
| Mango habanero | Sweet Baby Ray's Inc. | Other | 100 |
| Mumbo sauce | Capital City, LLC | Sweet and red | 80 |
| Hot honey | Mike's Hot Honey Inc. | Other | 0 |
Sugar, by the tablespoon
The same bottles on the other axis, 19 of them. A tablespoon of table sugar holds about 12.6 g, so a bottle out at the right-hand end is most of the way to syrup. A cayenne sauce sits at zero and a honey-barbecue sits where the sweet is. Same wing, two different foods.
The same numbers as a table
| Sauce | Maker | Base | Sugar g/tbsp |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hot honey | Mike's Hot Honey Inc. | Other | 14 |
| Memphis dry rub | Adams Extract Co. | Dry rub | 12 |
| Honey barbecue sauce | Sweet Baby Ray's Inc. | Sweet and red | 7.5 |
| Mango habanero | Sweet Baby Ray's Inc. | Other | 7 |
| Sweet chili sauce | PANOS Brands LLC (Ka-Me) | Other | 6 |
| Soy garlic sauce | Korean Delights LLC (We Love You) | Soy and sweet | 6 |
| Mild sauce | Southern Signature, Inc. | Sweet and red | 5.5 |
| Mumbo sauce | Capital City, LLC | Sweet and red | 5 |
| Yangnyeom sauce | American Roland Food LLC | Other | 3.5 |
| Teriyaki sauce | Kikkoman Sales USA, Inc. | Soy and sweet | 2 |
| Garlic parmesan sauce | P. K. Kinder Co., Inc. | Herb and garlic | 1 |
| Jerk marinade | Georgia Peach Products, Inc. (Spur Tree Jamaican) | Other | 1 |
| Alabama white sauce | In-Between Sportwear, Inc. (Saw's) | Dairy dips | 0.5 |
| Blue cheese dressing | Ken's Foods, Inc. | Dairy dips | 0.5 |
| Ranch dressing | The HVR Company (Hidden Valley) | Dairy dips | 0.5 |
| Buffalo sauce | McCormick & Company, Inc. | Cayenne and butter | 0 |
| Lemon pepper | McCormick & Company, Inc. | Citrus and pepper | 0 |
| Crystal Hot Sauce | Baumer Foods, Inc. | Vinegar and pepper | 0 |
| Frank's RedHot | McCormick & Company, Inc. | Vinegar and pepper | 0 |
What comes first on the label
A label lists ingredients in descending order by weight, so the first word states the sauce's whole argument. Watch for the bracket: aged cayenne peppers are printed with their own vinegar inside the bracket, which is a pepper sauce, not a vinegar one. Numbers on the segments count bottles; the number at the right is the row total.
The same counts as a table
| Base | Pepper or chile first | Vinegar or water first | Butter or oil first | Sugar or tomato first | Something else first | Bottles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cayenne and butter | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Vinegar and pepper | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Dry rub | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Citrus and pepper | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Herb and garlic | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Sweet and red | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Soy and sweet | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Dairy dips | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Other | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 6 |
Where the makers are
One little country per sauce. A dot marks a bottler's town, not a restaurant; several bottles from one town sit on one dot.
Heat nobody measures
1 of 22 bottles carry a Scoville number anybody publishes. Scoville heat units come from a lab assay of capsaicin, and almost no wing-sauce maker pays for one; the word on the front — mild, medium, hot, and whatever a challenge sauce calls itself — is a maker's claim about its own product and nothing more. Each claim sits on its sauce's page as heat_claim, in the maker's own words.
Every bottle we read
1 means first on the label. A dash means it isn’t on there. Blank means we couldn’t find a label.
| Sauce | Maker | Town | Base | Pepper | Vinegar | Fat | Sugar | Soy | Sodium mg/tbsp | Sugar g/tbsp | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buffalo sauce | McCormick & Company, Inc. | Springfield, MO | Cayenne and butter | 2 | 1 | 5 | — | — | 460 | 0 | seen here |
| Lemon pepper | McCormick & Company, Inc. | Hunt Valley, MD | Citrus and pepper | — | — | — | 5 | — | 720 | 0 | seen here |
| Lemon pepper wet | Atlanta, GA | Citrus and pepper | seen here | ||||||||
| Alabama white sauce | In-Between Sportwear, Inc. (Saw's) | Birmingham, AL | Dairy dips | — | 3 | 1 | 5 | — | 150 | 0.5 | seen here |
| Blue cheese dressing | Ken's Foods, Inc. | Dairy dips | — | 3 | 1 | 6 | — | 145 | 0.5 | seen here | |
| Ranch dressing | The HVR Company (Hidden Valley) | Dairy dips | — | 11 | 1 | 4 | — | 120 | 0.5 | seen here | |
| Memphis dry rub | Adams Extract Co. | Dry rub | 6 | — | — | 1 | — | 480 | 12 | seen here | |
| Old Bay Seasoning | McCormick & Company, Inc. | Hunt Valley, MD | Dry rub | 2 | — | — | — | — | 1,680 | seen here | |
| Garlic parmesan sauce | P. K. Kinder Co., Inc. | Herb and garlic | — | 7 | 1 | 4 | — | 120 | 1 | seen here | |
| Hot honey | Mike's Hot Honey Inc. | Brooklyn, NY | Other | 2 | 3 | — | 1 | — | 0 | 14 | seen here |
| Jerk marinade | Georgia Peach Products, Inc. (Spur Tree Jamaican) | Other | 2 | 4 | — | 9 | — | 700 | 1 | seen here | |
| Mango habanero | Sweet Baby Ray's Inc. | Other | 7 | 3 | — | 1 | — | 100 | 7 | seen here | |
| Nashville hot paste | Nashville, TN | Other | seen here | ||||||||
| Sweet chili sauce | PANOS Brands LLC (Ka-Me) | Other | 3 | 7 | — | 2 | — | 220 | 6 | seen here | |
| Yangnyeom sauce | American Roland Food LLC | Other | 2 | 13 | — | 4 | 5 | 234 | 3.5 | seen here | |
| Soy garlic sauce | Korean Delights LLC (We Love You) | Soy and sweet | — | 6 | — | 2 | 1 | 430 | 6 | seen here | |
| Teriyaki sauce | Kikkoman Sales USA, Inc. | Soy and sweet | — | 5 | — | 3 | 1 | 610 | 2 | seen here | |
| Honey barbecue sauce | Sweet Baby Ray's Inc. | Sweet and red | — | 2 | — | 1 | — | 150 | 7.5 | seen here | |
| Mild sauce | Southern Signature, Inc. | Sweet and red | — | 3 | — | 2 | — | 140 | 5.5 | seen here | |
| Mumbo sauce | Capital City, LLC | Washington, DC | Sweet and red | 6 | 5 | — | 2 | 4 | 80 | 5 | seen here |
| Crystal Hot Sauce | Baumer Foods, Inc. | Reserve, LA | Vinegar and pepper | 1 | 2 | — | — | — | 405 | 0 | seen here |
| Frank's RedHot | McCormick & Company, Inc. | Springfield, MO | Vinegar and pepper | 1 | 2 | — | — | — | 570 | 0 | seen here |
The bottles
A mayonnaise-based barbecue sauce, thin, pale and sharp. Typical ingredients are vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and horseradish stirred into
A thick white dip of blue cheese with mayonnaise and buttermilk, sour cream or yogurt, plus milk, vinegar, onion powder and garlic powder.
Cayenne pepper hot sauce cut with melted butter. Two things, warmed together and held warm, poured over fried wings in a metal bowl and shaken.
A reddish-orange Louisiana pepper sauce made by Baumer Foods since 1923: aged red cayenne peppers, distilled vinegar, salt. Three ingredients on the 6 fl oz bot
A thin orange cayenne pepper sauce: aged cayenne red peppers, distilled vinegar, water, salt, garlic powder, in that order on the label. McCormick & Company mak
A pale, garlicky wing coating with parmesan in it. Two versions share the name: a creamy emulsified sauce built on oil and egg yolk with parmesan powder, sold b
A thick sweet red sauce: corn syrup or sugar, vinegar, tomato, honey, smoke flavour and spices. Sticky enough to hold on a wing without butter, sweet enough to
Honey with chillies in it. Sweet first, then a heat that builds slowly — the flavour writers describe as "sweet-first" with a "slow-building heat".
A wet marinade, or a dry rub, built on allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers — both native to Jamaica and grown there by the Taíno.
A dry blend of granulated lemon zest and cracked black peppercorns. The zest is mashed into the pepper so citrus oil soaks in, then the mix is baked and dried.
A wing that has been through something wet and then through lemon pepper.
A sweet-then-hot wing sauce: mango purée and corn syrup in front, habanero and cayenne behind. Orange, thick, and built to be tossed.
A dry mix of salt, paprika, sugar and spices, patted onto meat before it cooks and shaken over it again after.
A red-brown condiment poured over fried chicken and wings on Chicago's South and West Sides. Recipes vary a great deal; many versions combine ketchup, barbecue
A carryout condiment of Washington, D.C.: red-orange, thick, poured over fried chicken wings, french fries, fried jumbo shrimp and fried rice.
A cayenne paste, spooned onto fried chicken the moment it leaves the fryer.
A blend of eighteen herbs and spices built on celery salt — salt and celery seed — with red pepper, black pepper and paprika.
A savoury creamy dressing of buttermilk, salt, garlic, onion, black pepper and herbs — commonly chives, parsley and dill — mixed into mayonnaise or another oil
A brown glaze of soy sauce, sugar and garlic, brushed onto fried chicken after the fryer. Sweet and savoury rather than hot; often heavily garlicky.
A clear, thickened red sauce of chillies, rice wine vinegar and sugar, often with garlic and sometimes fish sauce. Red chilli peppers — Fresno, Thai or red jala
Soy sauce, mirin or sake, and sugar, boiled down to a glaze. The Japanese name for it is tare (タレ).
A sweet and spicy glaze built on gochujang — a fermented Korean paste of red chili powder, glutinous rice, fermented soybean powder, barley malt powder and salt
Labels were read on the makers' own pages, on retailers' product pages and in the USDA's FoodData Central branded-food panels, which are public domain; each row links to the page it was read from, and the date sits on the sauce's own entry. Nutrition Facts round sugar to the gram, so a bottle showing 0 g may hold a little. The data is at api/sauces.json.