Eli Manning Joins Twitter
For a brief, fleeting moment, Eli made the world a better place and joined twitter. He then zinged Tom Brady.
Sadly the joy was not to last long as it became extremely apparent that 1: Eli very likely isn’t the one making tweets. His tweets read the same way a “Fun” corporate brand account’s tweets read. Which makes sense, because 2: His account was clearly made as part of an endorsement deal with Frank’s Red Hot. “Eli” spent the next day making extremely branded tweets about Peyton’s charity golf event.
Maybe it is actually Eli having fun behind the account, most of his humor is very dry and dripping in that classic Dad-sarcasm so it feels on-brand. At the same time, yikes to this. Sassy brand accounts are the worst and I’m glad people have finally gotten over Wendy’s. Wendy’s is a trash fast food joint and tweeting jokes at McDonalds doesn’t make their fries better.
At least Eli picked a good hot sauce to shill. Due to the Louisiana connection I’m really surprised Tobasco didn’t aim for that endorsement first, feels like a missed opportunity for them. Tobasco however, is ass. More like Tobassco. Hell, lets just rank some hot sauces right now and start a fight. I love hot sauce, I’m the type who puts hot sauce on everything, and I have opinions. Let’s only rank the basic super market sauces since there are about a bazillion local and artisan hot sauces out there worth trying. This is the junk you find in every store, and the more mild end of the spectrum because everybody can enjoy these sauces. Once you go Habanero level you are gonna lose all the weaklings out there.
OVERRATED TRASH TIER – I’m going to avoid them pretty much every time tier
-Tobasco. It is basically the only hot sauce in most restaurants outside of certain regions and I don’t know how it got that way because it just isn’t very good. It tastes like someone took a good vinegar sauce and mixed in a bit of battery acid. The green Tobasco isn’t that bad though, and some of the weirder flavors are okay. The main product is balls and if I have a choice of Tobasco or no hot sauce, I’m just going to skip the sauce. I will however concede that Tobasco improves bloody marys significantly. Probably because the bloody mary drowns out the sauce flavor and leaves just the heat.
-Sriracha. I’m glad the Sriracha craze is done with because it sucks and is surprisingly limited in use. The flavor doesn’t go with a lot of foods and as a “EGGS ARE A VEHICLE FOR HOT SAUCE” guy it just ruins my eggs. It overpowers everything you put it on, but not in the fun hot sauce way because it isn’t even that spicy. It’s like spicy ketchup. The only time I’ve found Sriracha enhanced my meal was when I dumped a bunch of it into a bowl of boring insta-ramen. Go to an asian market and find the asian equivalent, it’ll be 10x better.
BASICALLY JUST EXISTS TIER -If any of these hot sauces are available, I’ll consider them, but only if better options are missing and my food is very bland.
-Cholula. We have this hot sauce in the fridge at work, and I’ve used it many times to make my reheated leftovers less bland. But I couldn’t tell you anything about it. It’s like the hot sauce equivalent of FRIENDS. It just doesn’t matter.
-Tapatio. We also have a bottle of this sitting next to the bottle of Cholula in the same fridge. I have the same feelings about it. I think it has a worse texture too.
-Valentina. Honestly I’ve only had this one a couple of times and I don’t remember it standing out. Might need to try it again.
PRETTY GOOD TIER – yeah I’ll dump these on everything
-Lousiana Hot Sauce. It is basically a slightly worse version of the other two on this list, but that is good enough. I wont buy it because of the others, but if a place has it and not the other two, this is what I’m going for.
-Franks Red Hot. Yeah, it goes real good on basically everything and I’ll happily swamp my pizza and my eggs in this stuff.
GOD TIER
-Crystal. I could drink it straight out of the bottle and may have done that on a couple of occasions. I went to the store once and they were out and I literally yelped. I think I even put it on ice cream once and still liked it. If there is any hot sauce in the world that will always be in my house, it’s this stuff.
That’s the stuff even grandma could enjoy. As far as REAL BOY hot sauces go (sauces that actually have heat instead of a pleasant tingle), the world has far too many to rank and I have tried so few. Habanero sauces are usually my favorite simply because they give you lots of flavor plus decent heat, so you can still be pretty liberal with the coverage. Above that it starts to become a sweatfest more about the fire than the flavor, and you can’t use a lot of the sauces on anything because of how strong it is.
The problem with trying and buying hot sauces is that it is easy to get stuck with one that isn’t special and you can’t tell till you get home. It takes a rare sauce to get a second purchase in my house, but here are a couple recommendations from ya boi; these 3 are some of the few I will buy on repeat.
-Secret Aardvark. It’s pretty well known now, but it is a fantastic chunky habanero sauce. Goes great on eggs.
-Hot Mama Salsa. This might be tough to find outside Portland, but they always have a booth at my farmers market and their habanero sauce is my favorite that I’ve found
–Hamajang Smoked Ghost Pepper sauce. Basically incredible. Can’t use too much, but it is so deliciously smokey and brings that good heat. I put it in mac n cheese once and basically had a religious experience.
If you read this blog post and your taste more or less seems to align with mine, please give me your hot sauce recommendations.
Hot take: Vick should get in the Hall of Fame before Eli.
You must not be a Falcons fan. Eli has 2 Super Bowl wins, which should merit consideration. Vick has a wasted career. When he was a Falcon, by his own admission he was too lazy to study the playbook or defenses. He just thought he could “free style” and get it done. On his second go-round he did want to study and be a good QB, but he had lost a step and didn’t have the explosive speed any more, so he wasn’t as elusive, which just made him average.
Vick’s entire argument for the Hall is basically “He did some cool shit we hadn’t really seen a QB do before”. He was influential in his scrambling style and that is the height of his argument. It’s an important piece to NFL lore no doubt, but I think he needs a little more than his running to get in. He never won anything outside a few playoff games and he missed two years of his prime for crime. He was also kind of a shit QB in terms of accuracy and game management. He was really really fun to watch because he was really good at one thing, but all his highlight reels kinda leave out all the busted plays and failures.
His resurgence in philly was good but didn’t last long enough to matter.
You’re not telling me anything I don’t know, I watched every one of his Falcons games. He was not an accurate passer, and he couldn’t read defenses because he couldn’t be bothered to study tape. Not to mention his immaturity (flipping off fans anyone?). Sadly, I feel like he really wanted to be a great quarterback post jail, but by then he no longer had the tools.
It’s the Hall of FAME, not the Hall of “WOW LOOK AT THAT” for a handful of plays a game.
I was basically just agreeing with you, sorry if it came off as an argument
@Nusm, I hate it when people say that Vick is a HOF QB if he didn’t go to jail. I seriously also hate it when they say that he is a Top 10 QB of all time if he didn’t go to jail. He was special, but didn’t execute properly. He was practically on and off.
In the end Eli solves the crime and gets his rocket popsicle
For the “Big Boy” hot sauces, you can at least put down some broad strokes by going through the makers. Anything from the people behind Dave’s Insanity Sauce is mostly just hot, while I usually trust Volcanic Spice and Bravado Spice Co. to actually have decent flavor behind their liquid magma.
It’s worth pointing out, Eli isn’t just “shilling.” He’s raising money for a variety of charities he works with (https://twitter.com/EliManning/status/1264711518362443776), and the golf match ITSELF was raising money for virus relief.
I’m going on a limb here, but maybe read more than one tweet before yikesing the guy and accusing him of handing over his account to a corporation? Or do you think he let Frank’s hot sauce start going back and forth with Tuck, Strahan, O’Hara, and Booth? Wait, that’s actually totally something he would do for laughs. =/
Please explain how “extremely apparent” it is that this isn’t’ Eli, cuz it sounds exactly like Eli:
https://twitter.com/EliManning/status/1264663325595570177
https://twitter.com/EliManning/status/1264642278968172547
https://twitter.com/EliManning/status/1264699211083395074
I know I criticize you a lot, but in this case, you totally deserve a smack in the head. You’ve just led anybody who doesn’t know differently to believe that Eli made a twitter account and handed it over to a hot sauce company for his own personal financial gain. You deserve another slap. Or at least a few drops of hot sauce in your eyes. =P
My dude, you sweet summer child. If you spend more time on twitter it will become very obvious how calculated and false his account reads.
Eli Manning, a man who kept a low public profile for his entire NFL career, a guy so enigmatic that even his own father admits doesn’t really know what he’s thinking at any time, suddenly joins twitter 10 years later than everyone else, perfectly timed to be the day before a charity golf tournament with his brother. “Tom Brady” (who randomly appeared not long before with the exact same social media “tone” to his tweets and is likely also run by a SM manager) immediately tweets at him, building the profile up. After a few into tweets, suddenly his account is immediately talking about FranksRedHot and using perfect branding hashtag usage. He was immediately and instantly verified, which means his appearance isn’t random but expected and calculated.
You really think that because he zinged Shaun O’Hara that it couldn’t be a dedicated social media employee? You sweet innocent child. I am a social media person at my day job. It is literally my day job to be this kind of account, to tweet and post things as if I am actually the account and not a proxy hired to do it. I can spot this shit from a mile away. I’d be floored if Eli wrote more than two of his tweets completely on his own. He’s very likely got someone in his ear basically editing him at the minimum, or someone is just handling it for him (either hired by him or Franks).
I’m not saying it *can’t* be someone else either under his direction or taking a tone from his brand of humor, but I’m not following how you come to the “very obvious” conclusion. You’ve given me some patronizing pats on the head, and your evidence appears to be – “It sounds EXACTLY like Eli! That’s how *I* know it’s NOT Eli!” Which, well… that’s just not a very strong argument. =/
Eli openly acknowledged that he struck a deal with Frank’s to join twitter, it’s not like the timing here was some sort of mystery. He seems like a smart enough person to pick up on the SUPER complicated world of hashtagging. He’s on the board of directors of Guiding Eyes for the Blind, he has a lot of other causes he cares about… maybe he decided he could do some good work on twitter. The timing alone isn’t proof that he’s not running it. Every post his account has made has been completely on-brand with his sense of humor, down to the one guy who was bragging that he was Eli’s first like… and then his post was immediately unliked.
Again, I’m not saying your take is impossible, and I certainly believe the tweets with Tom were coordinated in advance to gain some traction for the charity golfing. But it’s very much out of character for him to just turn the keys over, given how much care he has always put into the crafting of his public persona. If it were me, I’d gather more evidence before peddling an opinion like that as fact… my dude. 😉
At no point did I claim it is a fact that Eli isn’t behind it, so don’t put that in my mouth. You saying it is Eli doing the tweets is just as much speculation as me saying he isn’t, so don’t go telling folks to use facts when you have just as few at your disposal. I’m just using my years of literal professional experience to make a fairly educated guess. Everything you claim is very Eli about his account is also something a hired social media manager would be hired to do, down to the extremely safe yet well placed PG zingers that help cultivate and maintain the exact brand image he already has. It could be Eli behind that account, but it is probably a lot less likely than you believe it is. A few on brand jokes don’t prove anything.
“But it’s very much out of character for him to just turn the keys over, given how much care he has always put into the crafting of his public persona.”
Is it? How would you know that? He’s actually been one of the least ego-driven (at least publicly) QBs in recent memory with how easily he handed the keys over to Jones without a fuss. He didn’t even cause a fight over the Geno benching, he even willingly stepped down and ended the streak when McAdoo offered him to start each game to keep the streak intact. When he did his Reddit AMA, he used reddit’s proxy AMA admin to help him, but he’s instantly perfect at using twitter by himself. I just don’t buy it.
I’ll readily concede that you did not explicitly claim it to be a fact, but the phrases you’re using are absolutely implying it, which is my main qualm here. You’ve said it’s “extremely apparent,” “very likely,” and “very obvious” that Eli isn’t driving the account. These are MUCH stronger phrases than, “I’m just spitballin’ here, y’all!”
Eli said he’s behind the account, you think it’s “extremely apparent” that he isn’t. In this case, I’d put the burden of proof on you. If you have nothing beyond your gut to move this past wild speculation, then you should consider being more responsible with your words, and either caveat it upfront and/or not use phrases like “extremely apparent.” Otherwise, you’re just pooping in the dude’s cereal. Don’t poop in the dude’s cereal.
Being protective of his public persona is different than not being ego-driven. There are many reasons he could be interested in ensuring his public image is always in a positive light that aren’t driven by an ego – wanting to be a good role model for kids, upholding the family name, not embarrassing his wife/kids, etc. Aaron Rodgers is a good example here of the polar opposite; he’s both ego-driven AND relatively reckless with his public persona.
Anyway, I don’t want to hammer you to death, but I’m glad to at least see you’re at least stepping an inch or two back from him not making the tweets to him possibly not being able to master the utterly complicated world of Twitter and leaning on a proxy admin.
But seriously, no hard feelings. It’s ‘extremely apparent’ that I feel bad for implying earlier that you should be slapped in the head. X’D
Jamaican style hot sauces are usually a good balance of sweetness and heat while still getting a good kick. They’re usually going to be hotter than something like Crystal, but not overpowering. Melinda’s is a good habanero sauce in that style, especially the XXX. Pickapeppa is a periperi pepper sauce, so it’s kind of unique in that way.
try valentina again. it’s my everyday go-to. def a damn sight better than cholula. tiger tamarind sauce is mad good too, if you’re looking for spicy-tangy-sweet (kinda like the pickapeppa mentioned by mr dreyfuss above, but thicker). if you can find kim-kim out there, JUST GET IT. it’s korean-influenced and it’s lovely. like a perkier gojuchang. not for everything, but great on eggs especially.
i always keep sambal oelek (thai-style spicy chili paste, red with the green top) around, but i use it more as an ingredient (mix into scrambled eggs, for example) than as condiment. they make a version with garlic called simply “garlic chili paste”, they’re more or less interchangeable, depending on how you feel about garlic. i am pro.
also, it may interest you to know that it’s really not difficult to make your own. you can make it just the way you like it, and it keeps well, so make lots. good presents. you WILL essentially mace your own house tho, so be warned.
I didn’t mention Sambal Oelek in the post but I indeed have some in my house and it is great, but I left it off for the same reason you did: it’s more of an ingredient. I am also very pro garlic
Here to add to the Valentina ranking. The regular one is all well and good, but try the X-tra hot (comes with the black label instead of yellow). It’s not actually that hot, but it’s got more of a kick
I second all this. I actually went and checked to see which one is in my kitchen, and it’s the xtra hot. which really aint all that hot. it aint tastemace.
melinda’s is mentioned elsewhere, and that shit is good too, tho pricy and it goes fast. i cloned that one. lotsa carrot in the recipe iirc.
I like Sriracha the best mostly because I don’t enjoy heavy vinegar tastes. I avoid standard hot sauces unless the food is unbearably bland. With that said I once had a homemade ghost pepper sauce that used coconut oil as the base and it was delicious. If you find something like that I recommend giving it a try. In terms of hot sauces you see on a restaurant table (Sriracha is not common where I live) Franks is my preferred option.
Tiny Tobassco bottles are/were included in military MRE’s and while it was an appreciated flavor at the time I never want to use it again. As a general rule screw anything related to Louisiana.
I used to have tastes like yours, Dave.
Then I married a girl who’s allergic to capsaicin. Now I have tiny pansy tastebuds that can’t take any kind of heat. RIP
My heartburn goes out to you
Try Melindas, especially the naga jolokia. It’s made with the ghost pepper but they cut it with all sorts of great fruits so that it’s a flavor more than just pain. I agree that Crystal is king.
Try Texas Pete, and if you can get your hands on it, La Vic’s Orange Sauce (you’ll probably have to be in SF for this)
screw Eli, I wish he would just screw off into retirement and I would not have to hear from him again. I really don’t enjoy his interviews or videos he’s in where he passively aggressively sounds off on the giants for finally moving on from him. He’s really tarnishing his overall legacy with his childish attitude
Dave, hate to tell you but uh, you’re spelling Tabasco wrong. Every time.
It’s tAbasco. Not tObasco. With an A. Not an O. TAB. Not TOB.
Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco Tabasco
I’d spell it right if I had more respect for it
Understood sir.
nice save
Datil sauce, made from a pepper grown extensively in the St. Augustine, FL area, is magically delicious but hard to find outside of northeast Florida. (Firehouse Subs, a Jacksonville-based chain, carries it but their version is relatively dull.) A datil is about the same scovill level as a habanero but has a sweet and smoky quality. If you can find it in a gourmet shop or mail order it, it’s terrific on eggs and seafood especially and plays well with pizza.
Ketchup is okay, but it’s a little too spicey for me
Frank’s Buffalo Sauce > pretty much everything
el yucateco and crystal are my god tier hot sauces…yummm
Can’t believe you are the first person to mention el Yucateco. Their sauces are just straight the best, and any western style super market carries the verde and rojo sauces.
They were making hot sauces for Mexicans, a much more discerning palate (at least when it comes to hot sauces)than the average American, for 50 years before they were available stateside.
I’ve found a pretty good off-the-shelf sauce in Zatarain’s Cajun hot sauce. It’s got a little heat (I wish it had more) and it’s made with garlic, so it has a really good flavor.
I actually have some of this right now, it isn’t bad. I’m not sure i’d go and buy more but it works pretty well.
You shut your dirty mouth about Wendy’s and their fresh never frozen beef, and fresh never frozen Alaskan cod.
Joking aside Wendy’s is probably #2 on traditional fast food hamburgers in terms of quality behind Hardee’s / Carl Jr, but yes their fries do suck. There is a special place in hell for people who dip their fries into their frosty.
Barbeque sauce, or as my two year old daughter refers to it “black ketchup”.
My grandpa in Louisiana makes his own hot sauce – pretty legit stuff.
It’s not super spicy per sey, but I love Pickapeppa sauce on steak, eggs and other things. It’s a delicious fruity/spicy sauce.
I give out bottles of ‘Texas Champagne’ at Christmas. It has almost no heat to speak of, but holy balls you have never actually tasted cayenne in all its glory until you gloop a little Texas Champagne on your scrambled eggs.
Secret Aardvark is overrated. Yellowbird Habenero sauce has similar heat with much, much more flavor.
I worked in a place where we prepared our ‘so hot you have to sign a waiver’ insanity wings with a product called Million Scoville Unit. It was not a hot sauce, it was just straight extracted capsicum. I saw people vomit, I saw people openly weeping, I saw one guy call an ambulance because his entire face had gone numb.
Yellowbird is on top of my list to try next, I haven’t been able to get a hold of a bottle yet
I hate the extract sauce stuff, it’s just pain for the sake of it. Hot sauce needs to have flavor first.
Seconding Yellowbird, and REI of all places has it if you have one near you.
Then again camping food usually needs it.
Just got Yellowbird and it’s not great. Way too much carrot. There’s a site that does a 5 pack of their most requested sauces (not naming so I don’t get accused of shilling.)
In order of preference and reordering likelihood:
1. Secret Aardvaark – Still the standard
2. Big Fat’s 708 7 pot Citrus – delicious. hotter than aardvaark
3/4. Palo Alto Firefighters Habanero – good, almost steak sauce like in it’s consistency and usage, in a good way. least hot of the pack. (got their ghost pepper as a sample and it seemed less hot, interestingly)
3/4. Char Man Caribbean – hottest in the pack, enough to get your nose running, but flavorful. really tied with Palo Alto just completely different usages.
5. Yellowbird Habanero – hipster Aardvark, for people who can’t stand admitting popular things can be good. is not actually good.
I pretty much exactly agree with your rankings except I’d swap Crystal and Tabasco, so that’s pretty weird. I absolutely love Tabasco.
One thing I do recommend though is Fuego Box, they send you a couple hot sauces a month, you get a nice variety, and they’re crafted really well. The temperature level is generally in my perfect heat range, like you’ll never get the kind that are unbearably hot for no reason, and there is a fantastic balance between heat and taste.
Some of my favs are:
Culley’s Louisiana Habanero #6 (This is like the perfect Louisiana style hot sauce, and my favorite. The initial burst of flavor is just fantastic, and it doesn’t linger super long so you’re ready for the next burst really soon. Perfect spice level also.) https://hotsaucefever.com/hotsauce/culleys-louisiana-habanero/
Char Man Verde (A little more mild/green, goes great on everything, especially day old pizza. It’s a green sauce so you know kind of what you’re getting there- this one tastes very fresh and crisp. This one is great with chips or mexican food too.)
https://www.iburn.com/Char-Man-Verde-p/char-man-verde-hot-sauce.htm
Zana Sauce (This one also runs a little more mild, but is just god damn tasty) https://www.fuegobox.com/products/zana-organic-hot-sauce
Heartbreaking Dawns 1542 Southwest Habanero (This one runs a little hotter, and is a great temperature. The taste runs a little darker and more BBQ-y, and a little sweeter with the spice.)
http://heartbreakingdawns.com/1542-southwestern-habanero-reg-7-99/
Dave’s Ultimate Insanity Hot Sauce (I assume you know about these cuz they’re more common, and this sauce is really damn hot, but it’s one of the very few ultra spicy hot sauces that I think tastes really good. I like putting just a tiny drop on a chip or wafer, or mixing a little more than I should into into chili. It’s nice and pasty and delightful and will clear out your sinuses)
https://store.davesgourmet.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DAUI
Fat Cat Purry Purry Sauce (Or, if you want something on the not really spicy at all side but savory and garlicky, with a small kick, this is a good sauce. As a fellow guy who lived in Baltimore a long time, if you like Nando’s you’ll like this one)
https://www.hotsauce.com/fat-cat-purry-purry-hot-sauce/
I’ve thought about getting Fuego box, but I’m not sure if it’s worth they money. I’m guessing you do? Anyone else in these comments have experience with Fuego box or something similar?
I did the 3 a month thing for like 3 months and got overwhelmed with hot sauce, so I cancelled it after that, and now I’m just slowly going through all of them. Almost all of them I recommended here I found through fuegobox though! I’m pretty satisfied with the purchase because otherwise I would have basically nothing to go on other than label when trying to find nicer hot sauce than the common brand stuff.
(Also I’m being a little dramatic, I don’t hate Crystal- I just think it’s inferior to Tabasco and the rest of the similar Louisianas, it’s fine lol. I don’t like Sriracha though)
I prefer Sontavia Habanero extra hot and Melinda’s EXXXXtra Reserve, both hot, tasty Habanero-based hot sauces.
Ghost pepper sauce? Count me in!
Cholula will go to the HoF before Eli.
Though I agree that the green Tabasco is better than the regular, especially for breakfast….
I like Tabasco.
If you decide to give Valentina’s another shot, go with the extra hot version. Way more flavor and spice than the normal version and can go a long way.
Regular Tabasco is meh, but the chipotle Tabasco is worth a try.
Sweet Baby Ray’s has a new hot sauce out and I’d rank it just ever so slightly above Louisiana hot sauce. It’s fuckin’ good, yo.
At first glance, I thought you said “I drank it,” and I was like, “DUDE! I drink those, too!” X’D
-Cholula. We have this hot sauce in the fridge at work, and I’ve used it many times to make my reheated leftovers less bland. But I couldn’t tell you anything about it. It’s like the hot sauce equivalent of FRIENDS. It just doesn’t matter.
DUDE. Try the GREEN Cholula. Life changingly wonderful; as someone that enjoys spice, this fucker is useful for a variety of Mexican type things. You won’t be disappointed.
Horsetooth is pretty awesome stuff if you can find it. I especially like their Smokestack Lightning one, which is garlic and chipolte flavored. Their Mango Habanero is great too.
Speaking of Tri-state area associated former athletes with a connection to a hot sauce, I remember my Dad once bought a bottle of Ron Guidry’s Louisiana Lightning sauce and it was surprisingly solid.
There’s probably a two-thirds empty bottle of it that’s been hiding at the back of my Mom’s kitchen cabinet since 1992.
Endorphin Rush. You won’t be disappointed.
Coming here rereading the archives for context and I will die on the hill that Wendy’s fries are better than McDonald’s fries. Because fuck you, they’re consistently the same… Consistency. McDonald’s goes crisp to limp in 5 minutes and they aren’t shit if they aren’t fresh outta the fryers.
Wendy’s fries at least *feel* like you’re biting into a piece of potato, old or not.