U.S. fast food chain McDonald started distributing 20 million packets of limited Szechuan sauce on Monday, as it tried to make up for the mess it caused last year.
Last October, people across the United States lined up when several locations around the country participated in a one-day limited release of the sauce and people became so rowdy in many restaurants that police had to intervene. At the time, McDonald's released a statement saying that it had underestimated the demand.
The version 1.0 of the fast food chain's "Szechuan Teriyaki Dipping Sauce" was introduced in 1998 to promote the film Mulan. After being supplied for a limited period of time, the sauce disappeared from consumers' sight.
Last year, fans lobbied to bring the sauce back after it appeared in a recent episode of the animated series Rick and Morty, in which a character became obsessed with finding the discontinued chicken dipping sauce.
"Last October, we truly meant well when we brought back a super-limited batch of Szechuan Sauce, but it quickly became apparent we did not make enough to meet the expectations of our fans," according to a statement of the company.
"We disappointed fans and we are sorry," the statement continued.
The company said this time, the sauce will be given out with a qualifying purchase, and it hopes the supplies will last for a while this time.
The condiment is so popular among fans that someone last year on eBay placed a bid worth 14,700 U.S. dollars for a pair of 19-year-old sauces that the seller claimed it was found in "an old car."
On eBay, the original version of the sauce is sold at a price as high as 800 U.S. dollars a packet, with some sellers offering receipt together with the sauce. The prices of second-generation sauces that came out last year are less than 10 dollars.
Although named Szechuan sauce, and was introduced alongside with the film Mulan, which features the legendary Chinese woman warrior, the sauce never came onto the menu of McDonald's stores in China.
