Dare Connoisseur--Lava Lips

After a long long hibernation, I finally came back my dear friends!!!

How about starting with a "hot" stuff right in this hotter and hotter season?

So I firstly went across this place in Groupon's website. Indy's first Hot Sauce BAR? That's fancy! Marked and here I came!

Let's begin with the basics:

Website

Address: 
4915 N College Ave, Indianapolis, IN 46205

Opening hour: 

Monday           Closed Tuesday         1:00 – 8:00 pm Wednesday    1:00 – 8:00 pm Thursday        1:00 – 8:00 pm Friday             1:00 – 8:00 pm Saturday         11:00 am – 8:00 pm Sunday           1:00 – 6:00 pm

This little shop is located in broad ripple area with a pretty ease parking option. The Board is not that catchy and bold enough in my opinion. If people just passed by, they probably won't pop in without former looking up. But I am OK with that and I will just consider it as a "nerdy place" for "nerdy foodies" like me. LOL.

Actually it is quite spacious inside. Except a private party room back inside, there is a "bar"-like area in the center, shelves full of hot sauce with different levels of spiciness are around the wall.
 

A special show table for some commonly seen categories like jalapeño , tropical and garlic that provide the newbies a chance to get start. 

















There are also some other food with spicy theme like XXX hot salsa, special hot BBQ sauce, rubs, chipotle caramel, spicy popcorn et. al. (take a look at the following pictures!)

The "rubs" corner.

The spicy popcorn!

Extra strong coffee!

Here is how it works. You can bring your own food like chips, fruits and drinks or start with a mini size tortilla chips purchased there ($0.5). You can either talk to the really nice "bar tender" Alex to start with some recommendations or browse around to find your own "zing". Then, Alex will open that bottle for you to have a taste. Of course, if it is already being picked before, the opened one will be waiting for you. All the tasting is for FREE!

I really went out and tried a lot...There is literally a 3-inch-tall piled-up testing mini-cups in front of me!





































I also tried some salsa which is also pretty good!
   

I am the kind of person who can actually tolerate quite high level of spicy but would rather not go too far and numb my taste. If you just want the "excitement" and "pain", what's the point to have a "recipe"? So I particularly try to search the finesse and deep wisdom of the people who create the sauce if there is any…And I was glad that I finally found one. (picture comes last)

Actually I did ask for some "funky" flavors and Alex suggested me a banana rum one (picture below) and a brand specifically used cane vinegar rather than white vinegar called amazon. They are not bad but also not quite worth "collecting".

Ahh, I also tried the ghost pepper which is supposed to be really really hot but still in a normal range. (You will know why I said "normal range" later). They are not that bad and I do want to say. Poor Americans' tolerance to spiciness...I am very sorry you missed gigantic amount of delicious food... 

OK, here comes the real craziness. There is a shelf full of hot sauce that made with extract of the pepper--the capsaicine.  I didn't tried myself but there was another guy sitting there tasted probably the 2nd or 3rd hottest sauce in the whole store. It took probably 2-3 bottles of water and 2-3 small cups of caramel sauce to quench it only a little bit down. 
Honestly I really didn't see the point to make or eat something that just "bite" you. Anyway, I do appreciate that the designers indeed spend some time designing the bottles which are eye catching.

The price of the hot sauce there usually range from $7-12. Those with extra capsaicine might be pricier. In the end, I got a mango habanero (this is so far the best and has a really good balance between hot and sweet with a hint of tartness. Also, I just love the design of the bottle) and some other random stuff like a Tellicherry pepper chocolate (a gourmet black pepper) which is not that impressive actually.


Other random thoughts that came cross when I tasted the wide range of hot sauce:
 I do like fruit in hot sauce a lot especially tropical fruits. My old impression was like that nearly all of them like mango, pineapple, peach and passion fruit should be pretty match with the spicy aspect. BUT! I was wrong! Actually I would conclude after tasting more than 10 different "fruity" hot sauce. MANGO is still the best across the board! No wonder Southeastern Asian cuisine or those Hot Wing store usually carry far more Mango hot sauce flavor than other fruity ones. There is a reason! 

Summary at a glance:

All in all, this is really a unique place to try. They can host private party especially if you got a group of "funky" friends. (In a good way.)

And here is my rating:

Environment: 5 stars
Selection: 4.5 stars (They don't have that much supermarket brands like Tabasco and Cholula, but they do have Shiracha! I guess it makes sense that you can totally purchase them in the supermarket, then why bother. But the reason I didn't give them full stars is because the overall quality of the hot sauce is not that great based on my taste test. But I have to say the choices are enormous!)
Service: 5 stars
Highlight: the free end-less tasting is indeed awesome!

Worth of the money: 4 stars (considering about the average quality of the hot sauce, the price shouldn't be that high. But maybe it was rather difficult to do all of those collection)
Overall: 4.5 stars
Bottom line: I would probably go back but maybe not that often