Last week, I came across a Facebook update from a friend with a photo that made my heart skip a beat. It was a small photo of a bag of Doritos, on the front a familiar and revered image: The smiling man in the sombrero from the label of the Tapatío hot sauce bottle.
Her message:
OMFG!!! I have been waiting a long time for this.
Ditto, sister. L.A.’s own Tapatío hot sauce, the closely-guarded secret of a local Mexican American family business, is a regional obsession. Before it became available nationwide, I remember smuggling it in my carry-on bag to California expats on the east coast, even to a friend who had moved to Europe.
Photo by Jeremy Brooks/Flickr (Creative Commons)
And wisely, after years of creating bizarre flavors that range from the very un-taco-like “Original Taco” and even faux pizza, Frito-Lay recently got wise, apparently, to the fact that many people like to douse the company’s chips in Tapatío sauce. Sure, there are flavors like “Flamas,” blazing-hot Doritos the deep red color of imaginary hellfire with a lemony tang, but it’s no Tapatío sauce. The Tapatío-flavored Doritos – along with Tapatío-flavored Fritos – have only been available recently.
Now, as I follow the Tapatío Doritos thread on my Facebook page that has nearly 30 comments by now, the burning question seems to be where to find them.
One man wrote in response to my friend’s update:
I gotta find some of those. Are they hard to find, or are they everywhere? We go through a huge, cost-co sized bottle of Tapatio in about 1 1/2 months. Crazy.
Another update:
My friend found them in Hollywood others have spotted them in the So. Bay. I have yet to find them myself. The ruffles with limon and tapatio have not been spotted.
