What’s the hottest-selling hot sauce on Amazon?
Tal cooperman and friend Aaron Levant wanted to create a hot sauce.
But how could they distinguish theirs from the thousands of choices available to hot-stuff aficionados?
They joined forces with four of Levant’s friends and inspiration hit: truffles.
“We thought, no one’s doing it, truffles are expensive,” said Cooperman, whose day job is creative director at the Palms.
The rare, highly desired fungus even inspired the packaging design.
In hot-sauce stores, “none of them stand out,” Cooperman said. “Our bottle looks very expensive. The cap is in the shape of a truffle. It stands out.”
The team launched Truff in 2017 and now has three sauces: white truffle oil, black truffle oil, and extra-hot with black truffle oil. The white variety is the most pronounced of the trio, the essence encountered initially in the aroma, then at first taste, before the heat moves in.
Made in California, the sauces work well on a variety of foods. Cooperman prefers them on pizza and tacos, but he’s heard of someone who puts them on ice cream.
The sauces really took off when Oprah picked them for her Favorite Things list two years in a row. Miss O even gives the sauces as gifts, and Truff is the No. 1 hot sauce on Amazon. $17.98 for 5.6 ounces, truffhotsauce.com