U.S. fast food chain McDonald’s announced Thursday it will distribute 20 million packets of limited Szechuan sauce this week and apologized for last year’s promotion that incited fans to riot.

McDonald’s said its much ballyhooed condiment will be available starting today at all U.S. restaurants — but only for patrons who make a “qualifying purchase.”

Last October, fans lined up when several locations in the U.S. 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 demand.

As for this release, McDonald’s said it would be given out “with a qualifying purchase, while supplies last (which this time around, we hope is a while).”

“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,” the statement said, “We disappointed fans and we are sorry.”

Die-hard fans of McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce have already had an inkling that their favorite condiment would be returning. Twitter users claiming to have inside knowledge have already posted photographs of what appear to be shipments of Szechuan Sauce, as well as documentation that the item would return today.

McDonald’s created “Szechuan Teriyaki Dipping Sauce” to promote the 1998 film “Mulan.” It hasn’t been available since the film came out in 1998. 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 nugget dipping sauce.

McDonald’s later announced that the cult-favorite dipping sauce would be available for one day only — Oct. 7, 2017 — at participating locations. However, McDonald’s neglected to mention that each location would only have a very limited number of sauce packets, and quickly ran out. In some cases, the patrons became rowdy after learning of the shortage, and police were called to the restaurants to disperse crowds.

The condiment is so popular among fans that a 17-year-old packet of Szechuan sauce sold for US$99,000 on eBay last April. The sauce saga only got more ridiculous in August when DJ Deadmau5 purchased a half-gallon jug of it for US$15,000.

(SD-Xinhua)