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McDonald's bringing back Szechuan sauce starting Monday

Nationwide there will be 20 million McDonald's Szechuan Sauce packets available in this latest limited time revival.
A limited-edition Szechuan sauce was released by McDonald's on Oct. 7, 2017 on a first-come, first-serve basis. The Detroit location on Woodward Avenue near Canfield had a supply of 40 sauce packets.

Attention "Rick and Morty" fans. McDonald's is bringing back its famously discontinued Szechuan sauce — again.

The Oak Brook, Ill.-based fast-food chain has been teasing on Twitter about the return of the sauce, which became a bit of a pop-culture sensation thanks to being mentioned on "Rick and Morty," a popular adult-oriented cartoon.

Drumroll, please.

According to the company website, the sauce will be available at locations starting at lunchtime Monday, February 26 — hundreds of packets at each store. Nationwide, 20 million packets will be available. To get the sauce, customers will need to make a qualifying purchase, which will be determined by individual stores.

The sauce was first introduced in 1998 as part of a promotion for the Disney film "Mulan." Then, after a nearly 20-year hiatus, interest got a big uptick when the sauce was mentioned on a 2017 episode of “Rick and Morty” — an edgy, adult-oriented animated series on Cartoon Network. On the show, Rick made it known he was on a quest to find the long-discontinued sauce.

Fans are no doubt hoping that Monday's release goes smoother than what happened in October, when a small number of packets was made available at a select number of McDonald's locations. During that release, a store in Detroit had only 40 packets; only 200 packets were given out statewide. Customers lined up and many left angry or disappointed, according to a Free Press report. There were reports of riot-like conditions at some stores.

Now McDonald's is looking to make things right.

“We know that fans across southeastern Michigan have been waiting patiently, and we’re proud to bring a limited supply of Szechuan Sauce back to all of our restaurants to enjoy with a qualifying purchase ..." wrote Laura Percival, a Detroit-area McDonald’s owner/operator in an e-mail. “We have hundreds of packets per restaurant to satisfy that sauce craving, so we encourage customers to get ‘em while we’ve got ‘em. ... "

McDonald's is even going to have some fun with the sauce's return, including hosting a three-part podcast series called "The Sauce" sharing stories from the previous release.

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