There are loads of cult-favorite buys from Costco, from its beloved peanut butter pretzel bites to its famous rotisserie chicken. But alas, not everything can be a winner. Tasting Table has called out a few items from the mega-retailer that are best to be avoided, including the worst frozen seafood dish and the canned foods you should definitely leave out of your cart. But if you ask shoppers on Reddit, there’s yet another Costco product that just simply isn’t worth the purchase: the Global Gourmet hot sauce variety pack.
The set consists of 12 bottles of various hot sauces, ostensibly offering different global flavors and levels of heat. They all come presented in a pretty fancy-looking wooden box. Now, while that may seem like the perfect gift for the spice lover in your life (even if that spice lover is you), this variety pack has unfortunately come up on Reddit time and time again as one of the worst things you can pick up at Costco. In one thread in r/Costco, u/PaintingFresh8724 shared a photo of the hot sauce display with the subject line, “If you want to try 12 hot sauces that all taste the same, Costco has a perfect package for you. Very mid.” The post garnered more than 700 upvotes and over 150 comments, many of them from folks who couldn’t agree more. “They all have a cheap Tabasco taste. Definitely a little variance between, but they all have a low-quality taste to them,” one user responded.
Buyers were let down by the quality of the Global Gourmet hot sauce variety pack
In another post on the r/Costco subreddit, in which u/Richard_Fist_MD shared that they had purchased the Global Gourmet variety pack for just $15, other Redditors were quick to dismiss it in response. “None are spicy, actually hot, hot. Super disappointed, returned the second one I bought … Easily the worst product I’ve bought from Costco in years,” one wrote. The general consensus among Costco’s hot sauce connoisseurs is that the condiments in these variety packs are often cheaply made and flavorless. As another self-proclaimed “hot sauce nerd” elaborated in a comment, “For the uninitiated, these are extremely low-quality, vinegar-based, watered-down condiments. If you have a family member who is really into hot sauces, do not buy this.”
It’s not just the Global Gourmet version shoppers complain about, either. Another hot sauce sampler pack from Costco, dubbed The Hot Sauce Challenge pack, has received similar backlash on the forum, with users bemoaning that they taste the same, and are heavy on the salt and vinegar. All that’s to say, you probably want to skip any hot sauce variety pack you come across at the supermarket. If you are looking to stock up on a hot sauce from Costco that won’t leave you (or your taste buds) disappointed, you cannot go wrong with staples like Cholula and Frank’s Red Hot since they’re classics for a reason. However, we’re also partial to Underwood Ranches’ Premium Chili Sriracha, which, unlike those aforementioned variety packs, has earned largely positive reviews across the internet.
