Years ago, my mother used to get HP Sauce at the old Younkers gourmet food shop at their flagship store in downtown Des Moines. I loved the stuff - it had a malt and vinegary taste to it that was great on pork (almost too overpowering for beef, however). Growing up, it was a staple among the condiments in the Veber household.
As I got older and moved out of the house, I didn't have access to HP Sauce as I didn't go to Des Moines to the Younkers store downtown. I remember, however, one year for Christmas, my mom did give me a couple bottles as a gift. How sweet!
HP Sauce became harder and harder to find as time went on. Whenever I'd find some, I'd always get a couple three bottles just to tide me over until I found more.
One time, Cindy and I were on vacation in upper Michigan and into southwestern Ontario and we stopped at a grocery store in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and they had HP Sauce in there. But not just ANY HP Sauce - they had HP BOLD! Oh, my God! I was hooked! HP Bold had a little more spicy bite to it than regular HP Sauce - not enough to burn, but enough to have the taste sensation kicked up a couple notches.
So now, I'm on a mission to find HP Bold. It turns out that it's not available any where but in Canada. In the states you could find HP regular and HP Fruity (which kind of sucks - the fruit flavor doesn't go well with the vinegar and the malt).
When I was hired by a company from Canada, I thought I'd be able to have someone from the office in Montreal to find HP Bold sauce for me and ship it to me. No dice. Obviously the Francophiles in Quebec didn't care for HP Sauce as much as the Anglos did.
I did find *a* bottle of HP Bold when I was in Montreal a couple years ago. Except I didn't buy it. The reason? I wanted THREE bottles of HP Bold. I should have taken what I had found - I couldn't find any other HP Bold while I was there.
Thankfully, one of the guys in our office, Simon - bless his heart - went out on a weekend long scavenger hunt for HP Bold for me earlier this year and found four bottles. I'm on my third bottle in less than six months.
But I won't turn down HP Sauce either - I found an 850 gram bottle (30 oz.) of HP Sauce at Jungle Jim's outside of Cincinnati earlier this year. They actually had a 64 oz bottle there that Cindy wouldn't let me buy.
All I can say is that HP Sauce is the nector of the Gods when you throw it on some pork.
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