Many hot sauce collectors will not keep their sauces in the refrigerator.  I suggest to customers that if the sauce is pepper based, and has no fruit or vegetables in it, will keep for a long time on the table.  It should keep almost forever in a refrigerator.  However, if the sauce has fruit or vegetables or ingredients beyond vinegar, garlic and peppers, once opened should be refrigerated.  If taken care of, these sauces should last several months if not a year once opened.

You probably won’t be surprised to hear, that if you came to my house and opened my refrigerator, you would be met with a door full of hot sauces.  And many of them are several years old (hey, a girl can only eat so much hot sauce a week!)…..and I wouldn’t think of throwing any of them out!