Sriracha is back!
The nightmare is over...
At long last, the national nightmare is over—Sriracha is back! (I would feel bad about buying this from Amazon instead of my friendly neighborhood grocery store, except that my friendly neighborhood grocery store is also owned by Amazon.)
I realize that I’ve been unconsciously drafting a lament for my favorite chili sauce, but now I get to pen a paean! Huy Fong Sriracha ladies and gentlemen, the generic that nobody quite managed to knock off, is back!
As an erstwhile professional product namer and occasional branding guy, I’ve always been bewildered by the sauce I grew up calling “rooster sauce” out of necessity—Its spelling resists sounding out, and any close reading of the label requires a knowledge of diacritics—superscript curls, horns and reverse apostrophes— that would befuddle an ivy league linguist. Not to mention the inexplicable use of at least seven fonts, including Balloon, Balloon Shadow, Brody, Impress, Tecton, one unnamed Asian font and..wait for it…Ariel. That starburst surrounding the words “natural color” is somehow less confidence inspiring than the small print safety warning on the back urging us to “Face the product away from person(s) and valuable items.” That’s right, stamp collectors, back the f#%& up!
Sriracha is an everyday essential whose months-long lack of availability seems to have steadfastly resisted the combined might of various industrial complexes and all manner of human ingenuity. The blame was placed on everything from climate change to Ukraine, but can be summed up nicely with, what else, a tongue twister! Persistent problems purchasing from pepper providers. As I was saying that ten times fast my wife came in and mused, “Could be counterfeit…” But no. A dollop on the tip of my finger, and 10 minutes later, my scalp is still sweating.