Capsicum annuum var. glabrisculum, also known as Chiletepin, Tepin peppers or “bird’s eye” peppers are supposedly one of the hottest peppers in the world. Some chile enthusiasts argue that the Tepin is hotter than the habanero or Red Savina. These tiny peppers are about 3/8″ round to slightly oval, and are found in the deserts of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Northern Mexico. The word “Tepin” comes from the Nahuatl Mexican word meaning “flea”. In 1995, Texans named the Jalapeno pepper the official pepper of Texas, but two years later, the Tepin was named the official native pepper of Texas.

Tepins are extremely hot, measuring between 50,000 and 100,000 Scoville Units. In Mexico, the heat of the Chiltepin is called arrebatado (“rapid” or “violent”), which implies that although the heat is great, it diminishes quickly.

You probably have never heard of the Tepin pepper, and probably would disagree that these tiny peppers could rival the heat of the Habanero or Scotch Bonnet. You may be asking why I’m bringing all this up. This is why:

A few months ago, my mother-in-law brought me a bag of tiny green pellets and said, “This guy at the office grows these and says they are hotter than habaneros. When he makes a batch of chili, he only puts on pepper in, and that’s all he needs.”

I couldn’t believe it. One tiny pepper? Hotter than a Habanero? How come I had never heard of this micro-monstrosity? Who’s been keeping this information from me? Is it terrorism? What’s our terror alert level!? Just look at the size of this thing:

Not one to be intimidated by such a small terror, I had to see for myself if the violent arrabatado was, in truth, a hotter burn than the infamous Habanero. I made plans for how I would test the peppers. To the Men in Aprons Laboratory! I devised three tests: 1.) the tongue touch, 2.) the beef taco test, and 3.) the eat whole thing and pray to Itzpzpaltol that I would live, or at least not crumple over in pain.

First up was the tongue touch. I cut one pepper in half and touched a half to the tip of my tongue. It was instantly lit afire. But, as suspected, the fire was abated in under a minute with no external milk interference. Judging by this lack of hellfire and brimstone, I decided to put four of the Tepin peppers (show above) in withe my taco meat. I made some quick smoky chili con carne tacos with 4 of the peppers chopped and thrown into the mix. The result: Nothing. Not a hint of heat whatsoever. In fact, I had to break out more Chipotle Tabasco just to bump it up a bit.

Finally, I did the eat-the-whole-pepper thing. Saying a quick Hail Mary, I popped the pepper in and chewed my way to glory. The heat was briefly intense, much like a serrano pepper. But there was a curious phenomenon. I only felt the heat on the places in my mouth where the pepper had physically touched. It was not like a Habanero, where your saliva helps the fire spread all over the inside of your mouth and throat. I figured that maybe since I had them in the freezer, the heat must have subsided somehow.

My other thought is this: since the Tepin peppers are so tiny, they actually have less capsaicin. A smaller size means smaller membranes which means smaller amounts of capsaicin.

In conclusion, I think the idea that the Tepin is hotter than a Habanero may be true in terms of pure Scoville Units. But in overall heat, mouth and butt-burning capability, and the amount of time the heat lasts, I still give Habaneros the award.

Sources: SGH Resources, Cornell Plantations: A Plethora of Peppers, Ecoseeds

Literally translated, Green River Sauce, this Salsa Rio Verde does actually make me think of a green river in which there sits a Mexican food restaurant serving roasted chicken marinated in a spicy, five-pepper green sauce. OK, that may be a stretch to the visual imagination, but I do like this verde sauce, and I do believe that it is served well with roasted or grilled chicken breasts.

Longbranch Trading Company is a Californian sauce maker. I don’t really know too much about the golden state and its hot sauce heritage, but when I smell the Salsa Rio Verde, I do get the sense that it is a very Southern California product. You can smell that smell – the one of tangy tomatillos, cilantro, and pumpkin seeds. Leave it to California to put pumpkin seeds into a hot sauce. I’m surprised they didn’t throw in avocado.

But enough California bashing. Let’s talk sauce.

Salsa Rio Verde is a blend of five different peppers with an addition of the tangy tomatillos and other spices and nuts. The thing that interests me the most is the tomatillos. Whereas other hot sauces are going for carrots, Longbranch goes for the oft-overlooked tomatillo. The use of this tangy fruit really helps balance the flavor and the heat of the peppers.

This sauce has a sweet and sour smell with a hint of smokiness. Though it’s not touted as a smoked or chipotle sauce, I definitely get the feeling that at least one of the ingredients has been grilled or smoked. I suppose it could be the combination of smells in the tomatillos and nuts, but the scent is just too strong to consider it a coincidence. Of course with me, I don’t mind since I love most things that are smoked.

When you taste this sauce, the bright zip of the tomatillos hits you straight away on the sides of the tongue, which is followed immediately by the heat. Rio Verde may be a green sauce, but most of the green does come from very potent jalepenos, serranos, and roasted green peppers. Oh wait, that answers the smoky question from above. I’d have to assume the green peppers referred to in the ingredient list are bell peppers. And that would explain a slight bitter flavor to the sauce.

The first ingredient on the list is apple cider vinegar, a fact that pleases me greatly. This says that Longbranch Trading Company is concerned with quality and the final outcome of the blend of ingredients. Any sauce maker can start out with plain old white vinegar and end up with a good sauce. But when I see apple cider on the label, I can tell that the company is going for a specific flavor, a specific quality of the sauce that no plain vinegar could achieve.

This sauce may have all sorts of nifty ingredients, but make no mistake, it does bring the heat. This tasty blend of jalapenos, habaneros, and serranos packs a punch, but leaves you craving more.

I wouldn’t consider Salsa Rio Verde a slathering sauce, as the bitterness might taint whatever food you would slather it onto. The label calls is a gourmet sauce, and for once I may agree with the label. Not that a gourmand would really want anything on his or her food that may scorch their throat, but I could certainly see this sauce used in a gourmet way. I tried it on all sorts of foods, from macaroni to scrambled eggs to grilled chicken and chicken burgers.

Where it fared the best was on chicken. I think that verde sauces and chicken are made for each other. Like chocolate and peanut butter, but with sinus clearing power.

I think that Longbranch has a good thing going in this Salsa Rio Verde. It’s a tangy, unique sauce that goes well with many different foods. If they could cut down on the bitter flavor, I could see this sauce winning awards.

Rating: 6 out of 10 chiles
Two thumbs up.

“Gosh, Wally, I’ve never had pepper relish before. Did Mom say it was alright?”

“Go on and try some, Beav.”

“Mmmm, not bad. But what’s that bitter taste?”

I was wondering the same thing myself, Beav. After trying the contents of this brilliantly-designed jar, I find myself lacking in two areas: spice and knowledge. Knowledge of what in the heck was that bitter aftertaste. To make sure I’m clear here, this relish definitely was tangy. It was so tangy, it bordered on sweet, rather than sour. But that’s fine with me. It was quite a nice change from the bumhole-burning sauces I’ve been consuming as of late.

When one opens a jar of Sparky and Spike’s, one has to take in the aroma. If the word tangy could ever be described in smell-o-vision, this relish is it. I really don’t know how else to describe the smell other than tangy. The relish is rather wet; there’s loads of juices that the peppers are brining in. I expected something more like pickle relish when I received the jar. But Sparky and Spike’s is full of big pieces of peppers swimming in a gold-colored liquid.

I tried a bit and was pleased. I am still very impressed by the initial burst of tangy flavor. Next, I bit right into a few of the peppers, so I could get a full range of tastes in my mouth. After a few seconds, this weird bitter flavor hit my tongue, which reminded me of that taste you get in your mouth when you accidentallyl eat the little husks inside of a pecan shell.

YACK!

Not letting that deter me from my Sparky experience, I carried on to make the tuna salad that I had been craving all week. I added a liberal two to three heaping spoonfuls of the relish into my tuna salad mixture. I can say without a doubt this was only enough to whet my appetite for more relish. The salad could have used double the amount.

Interesting note about the tuna salad creation. When I mixed it up, I tried a bite and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t even near hot enough. This is hot sauce blog afterall; it needed to be burning my mouth. So I went to the hot sauce armaments of the inside door of the fridge and pulled out some Yucatan Sunshine Habanero.

Adding a good tablespoon of the hot sauce, I quickly stirred it up and tasted. Still not hot enough. My mind wandered. I don’t want anymore of this habanero sauce. That would make it too sour from the vinegar. Hmmm …. all I need to do here is make the salad hot. What product do I know that makes things incredibly hot?

TORCHBEARER #23!

So I added a tablespoon of the fever sauce and completed my tuna sandwich. It was awesome. The relish really had a great tangy effect on the salad even if the peppers were a tad bitter, and the torchbearer added the right amount of heat. The effect was so good, I had made myself an extra sandwich.

Sparky and Spike’s website is a tad bit limited. Not much to do except email them a request for more relish. But this relish is really good. I could really see this product catching on in the condiment world if they could just take care of that bitter issue, and spice it up a bit more.

Chile rating: 2 out of 10 chiles
Two thumbs way up!

This review has been forthcoming for quite a long time now, due to the fact that I’ve been trying my best to find the good qualities in this sauce. Torchbearer Sauces #23 Fever Sauce is in the upper eschelon of the Torchbearer sauces in terms of heat. The taste, smell, and appearance is just the same as all the rest of them; the only difference being the amount of spice.

The smell hits the olfactory senses pretty hard when you waft it under your nose. It has a slight vinegar tang, and the habaneros vaporize and zing the old sinuses. The primary ingredient is carrots, which explains why the consistency of fever sauce is much like purreed carrots. Why hot sauces are using carrots, I’ll really never understand.

This sauce is called Fever for a reason. It’s stronger and the burn lasts twice as long as our Sultry sauce. The sauce is not for the weak of heart. Even though it is promised to burn, it has the same TorchBearer flavor that everyone will know and love. So love yourself today, and then pick up a jar.

I’ve had a few choice words in the past for these hotter than hell torchbearer sauces. Mainly, I just don’t like them because they’re way too hot. I think I can handle my heat pretty well; better than most, I’d say. But when a company makes a sauce that could burn the skin right out of my sphincter, then claim that it’s the same torchbearer flavor I know and love, I just can’t respect it. I’m sorry.

In fact, I’m not sure the company even believes in the hotter sauces themselves. If you look at the list of recipes here, you’ll notices that none of the recipes listed use anything hotter than the sultry sauce, which is only the 3rd in line for heat and it’s number is 7. Compared the the 23 for the fever sauce here, the sultry sauce is mild.

A little dab will do a whole lot with this one right here.

I’m really confused. If all I need is a little dab, the implication is that the only purpose for this sauce is to make things hot. If I just wanted to make things hot, I could sprinkle on some ground cayenne and save myself some money.

I did use this sauce to make some compound butters. This was one respect where I thought the Fever Sauce shined. The flavor came though pretty strong in the butter as well as the heat, and it tastes great melted over steak. You can see my recipe for the compound butters right here.

I wouldn’t mind trying the sultry sauce or the sugar fire sauce just to see if I’m being too hard on the Torchbearers.

Rating: 10 out of 10 chiles, but two thumbs way down.

Not just another excuse to curse like a sailor

[WARNING: This post uses the S-word many many times. But I couldn't help it. It's the name of the product.]

This wonderfully tasty concoction is produced by a Dan Martin, a friend of my coworker, Terry. Special Shit is its name, and rightly so. Terry put a bottle on my desk sometime around 7:45 in the morning, and I spent the rest of the day caressing it. I just couldn’t wait to toss some of this shit on a couple of steaks and bring them to the holy fires of my grill.

The ingredients list is very incomplete, but that’s the way Martin wants it. The full list is a secret that he will take the that great big grill in the sky. Special Shit does taste of salt, garlic, and pepper, but there is a slight hint of smoky flavor that just begs for it to be thrown onto some chops or chickens and roasted over the holy fires. It’s smell is pungent and almost wants to be categorized as a spicy seasoning, but the flavor doesn’t pack much punch in the capsaicin corner.

Special Shit all-purpose seasoning was born in the humble kitchen of Big Cock Ranch in Lexington, Texas. Dan Martin, cattle-baron and owner of Big Cock Ranch, has been using this special blend of seasonings for years on steak, chicken, barbeque, vegetables, and other culinary delights.

One day, Dan’s stockbroker, Randy, watched as Dan sprinkled something from very non-descript jar onto some juicy rib eye steaks. Randy wanted to know the origin of the spice and Dan informed him that it was his own concoction. A few days later Randy asked if he could have some of the spice. Dan didn’t know what he was talking about until Randy said “you know…your Special Shit.”

It should be noted here that Special Shit is not a rub. It is packaged and marketed as a seasoning or seasoned salt to be used in a myriad different applications. I should also mention that Special Shit is not very spicy, so it may not have an official place on the hot sauce blog. But with such an interesting (and downright bitchin’) name, I could help but tell the world about this great product.

I had been told that this shit is great on vegetables as well as meats. I tried some in a pot of green beans on Sunday, and I would have to agree. Also, I grilled about 8 tenderloins on the holy fire, all of which were seasoned with Special Shit. Add my roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and you have a very tasty meal.

Special Shit is only available online and out of the back of Dan Martin’s car. Each bottle is $7.99 a piece, but comes in a huge 14 oz. container, so you get your money’s worth. I highly recommend this shit, as it was a very tasty compliment to many different foods.

Rating: 1 out of 10 chiles, but 2 thumbs way up!

Ah marketing … ever pulling the wool over people’s eyes. So when is a rub not a rub? When it’s a marinade. But really, if a rub was not dry would it really be a rub? Or would it be a slather, or perhaps a drench? Lots of stuff to ponder on my morning commute.

Red Lion Spicy Foods has a product called Dry Rub. How clever. They call it “original,” but according to their web site, no other version exists. I suppose if they ever created “New” Dry Rub, they could call the subsequent product Dry Rub Classic. But I’m digressing here.

Dry Rub is a mixture of chile peppers, chili powder, salt, pepper, garlic, and all manner of other spices that you might expect to find in a rub or seasoned salt. Contrary to its packaging and list of ingredients, this product is not spicy. However, it was an average seasoning on my pork chops and onions tonight.

The flavor is strong with garlic and salt. This is nothing new to most packaged rubs and seasonings. In fact, salt is usually the main ingredient. In “Dry Rub’s” case, the main ingredient was ground chile pepper, none of which were named. In these cases, you can usually expect that it is some low grade of dried, ground cayenne pepper. Combine that with the next ingredient, chili powder, and you get a very red rub:

Rubs tend to work really well on pork chops and steaks, so I did the natural thing: rub it heavily on some 1-inch thick pork chops. It gave the chops this nice red color, which eventually turned a golden caramel color when applied to the grill. Notice the lovely grill marks:

The rub did add some flavor to the pork chops, which was a good thing. But there was no heat involved whatsoever. It just wasn’t there. TheWife even remarked that the rub added a nice taste to the pork and onions, but proffered no spice to the tongue. It was disappointing.

For the recipe of my onions and shrooms topping, see here. It’s a wonderful compliment to most grilled pork and steak. I have included the Red Lion Dry Rub in the recipe just to try it out. Not a bad addition.

Rating: 1 out of 10 chilies

Reviewer’s note: I think that store-bought rubs are scam and a waste of money. If you look at the ingredient list of these things, you’ll see things that can easily be found in the spice aisle of your local grocery store. And then you might even notice that the main ingredient is salt … way too much salt.

You’ll get better sense of satisfaction from making your own, you’ll save money, and you’ll probably end up with a better product that isn’t so salty.

I opened the bag with hesitation. My mind played out the words, “Oh God, Oh God, Please let me live.” I knew the bag said “medium,” but I wasn’t going to let that fool me in a false sense of security. This is after all, Blair’s, the company that makes the hottest product on the planet. But, they’re just chips, right? Just chips.

Placing the open bag to my nose, I inhaled. It was pleasant, chippy aroma. The smell had nothing to indicate a bane to my taste buds lurking inside. I fished one out, said a Hail Mary, and popped it into my mouth.

The taste was nothing but chip with a slight hint of what might be described as Parmesan, but tasted more like a diluted sour cream and onion flavor. At that moment, I detected only a slight hint of spice, so I proceeded to devour the bag.

I like these kinds of chips … these kettle style chips. The crunch and flavor are very similar the old Kettle brand chips you used to find in the stores.

Blair’s Death Rain chips are the exact opposite of what you might find in a yellow bag of Lay’s. These have a palatable substance; they have crunch and bite, the kind of crunch where you can’t hear anyone talking in the room. And let’s not forget the flavor, well more flavor than just salt and peanut oil.

Not until the end of the bag, did TheWife and I start to feel any sort of heat coming from the chips. Of course, the bag did say Medium, so I can’t really fault Blair for not bringing the pain. But let’s be real here. The title has the word Habanero in it. One would expect the have one’s tongue scorching red-hot by the end of the bag. But no. Heck, even jelly did more damage to my alimentary canal than these chips.

It would seem that Blair wants to draw in the less hardcore crowd by marketing certain chips as being medium, and I could respect that notion if the bag didn’t say Death Rain and Habanero on it. Ah well, I just chalk the whole thing to Blair’s wicked sense of humor. Mostly dead is slightly alive – right?

In the end, I would say that Blair has a good all-around chip on his hands with the Death Rain brand. They’re tasty and crunchy, and I would really like to see if hot truly is hot.

How many bites does it take to make Adam run, screaming, to the fridge for milk? And the answer is one. Admittedly, this is a mixed review for the Big Daddy Jake’s Mango Habanero Jelly, one which may be due to my ignorance or intolerance. I’m not sure which. I have been debating which way to run the review for the past week or so, and it still is just not crystalized in my head.

Mango Habanero Jelly is made by Big Daddy Jake’s, the manufacturers of one of my new favorite hot sauces, the Texas Pit Smoked Hot Sauce. The ingredients list is what you might expect for a jelly: mango juice and pulp, gelatin, and fresh habanero peppers. The color is a light orange, and the texture is similar to that of orange marmalade.

“Hmm, the habaneros are last on the list of ingredients. This shouldn’t be bad at all,” I quipped

I really do love spicy jellies, jams, and sweets, and I was really looking forward to trying BDJ’s Jelly. My first application of this jelly was on a piece of toast. It sounded logical. Jelly … toast … breakfast, right?

I spread a thin layer of jelly on the toast, sat down, and took a bite. The flavor of the mango hit me first. It was bright and tart, very exhilirating. Two seconds later, the habaneros hit me in the face with a Mike Tyson knockout punch. I did the whole “breathing-through-the-mouth” thing, as if that would ever help, and I started making those horking sounds we make when something is burning the tonsils right out of our throats. Yes, it was milk time.

Said TheWife, “Weren’t you the same guy that just said ‘this should’t be bad at all.’” She mocked my pain.

“Why don’t you try a bite, pumpkin?” I said, gulping milk and horking.

“Hell no, I’m not stupid.”

I’m sad to say that I could not finish my toast. I just couldn’t taste the flavor of the mangos and the toast through the fire of the habaneros.

I was stumped. This just couldn’t be the end of my Mango Habanero experience; I had come to far to give up. Not yet defeated, I went to the drawing board for some inspiration for some other application of this jelly.

Glaze … YES! Glaze! I’ll glaze some pork chops with the jelly and grill ‘em. So the other night I fired up the grill and made a nice brush-on glaze for some boneless pork loin chops.

- 1/4 Cup Green Bell Pepper
- 1/4 Cup White Onion
- 1/2 Cup Big Daddy Jake’s Mango Habanero Jelly
- 1/2 Cup Peach Jam or Jelly
- Olive oil

Mince the onion and bell pepper, and sautee them in olive oil until very very soft. Mix in the jellies and simmer until the sauce is thick enough to be brushed onto meat. When the meat is almost done, liberally brush the glaze on each side of the chop. Remove and plate up.

A strange thing ocurred when I served this to my Mother-in-Law and TheWife. They said, “I thought this was supposed to be spicy. I don’t taste the heat at all.”

WHAT? I nearly burned my face off of a piece of jellied-up toast, and you’re getting cocky on me? But it was true. The glaze had nearly zero spice whatsoever. This must be some sort of magic jelly, able to kick ass only when it wants to.

So I went back to the toast test. Made the toast, spreaded on the toast, and took a bite. Then came the heat. Everyone laughed.

I suppose the addition of the peach jam in the glaze really mellowed things out for the mango habanero. But I’m still not one-hundred percent happy here.

Big Daddy Jake’s Mango Habanero Jelly is a wonderfully tart jelly that kicks butt with the addition of habaneros. On plain toast or bagels and such I think the heat is a little too much. I want my breakfast toast to be soothing and energizing not something to be retarded with asbestos. I will say that there are probably a myriad of other uses for this jelly, one of which is glazes and sauces. If you are making a nice glaze for ham, this would be a perfect addtion. Or possibly this would go well for making General Tso’s chicken or Sesame Chicken.

So my verdict is this. By itself? No. Mixed with other foods? Yes, and how.

Rating: 5 out of 10 chiles.

The bad news is that Aztexan has only one product it can be proud of. The good news is that they have only one product. Their Habanero Supreme is a flavorful sauce that also packs a punch on the taste buds. The folks at Aztexan have brilliantly crafted a habanero pepper sauce with just the right amount of heat: a lot. It very well could be a standard by which all other habanero sauces should be measured. Sure, we’ve all heard the tales of balancing heat and flavor, yada, yada, yada. But I suppose that’s what the Aztexan bottlers have done here. They’ve made tremendously spicy product that tastes good, too.

Upon opening the bottle, I was greeted with the familiar scent of vinegar, which was not totally unexpected. It’s in a small conical bottle; it’s a hot sauce. It’s going to have vinegar. What was not expected was the incredibly strong smell of vinegar, a fact that did not please my senses. Since I did sample this sauce a number of times at Hot Sauce Fest, I knew in advance that the harsh vinegar smell did not directly reflect on the flavor.

The ingredients were simple and natural, as they should be. Sun-ripened Habaneros, garlic, onions, carrots, vinegar, lime juice, and salt. No complaints here.

I laid out a few tortilla chips and began to shake the sauce out. Nothing happened. Aztexan is a thick sauce, definitely thicker than most pepper sauces that we know and love. I would almost tend to term the Habanero Supreme as a very thin and concentrated salsa. Maybe not that far, but the stuff doesn’t slide out of the bottle like Tabasco. Backing up to the previous paragraph, vinegar was five places down on the ingredients list, a fact that speaks to its thickness.

The heat struck me fast and furious right on the tip of the tongue. It was there that the Habanero Supreme did the most damage. Unlike Big Daddy Jake’s, this pepper sauce stuck around for a long time, and the more I ate, the more the heat piled on. Just the way it should be. I mixed some of the pepper sauce in with a couple of dollops of sour cream for dipping chips into. Amazingly, the sour cream didn’t do much to dilute the heat. TheWife came in and started dipping right along with me.

Woo! That is SPICY! she shouted with glee. This is the perfect dip right here. Don’t need anything else. Sour cream and Aztexan.

That pretty much sums up my views as well.

The flavor of Habanero Supreme is very strong; it’s very garlicky and pepper-y. I tried putting this sauce on my eggs this evening, and it just didn’t work out. I could hardly taste the eggs behind the furnace of the pepper sauce. It was the same with macaroni and cheese.

Aztexan would go very well as an accompaniment to other flavors. As said before it went well as a dip kicker-upper. It would do extremely well in barbeque sauces, rubbed on meats for grilling, and added to tomato-based sauces. And dishes like barbeque beans, tortilla soups, and Menudo would do well to have some of this whupass added.

Aside from its intense flavor, I consider Aztexan’s Habanero Supreme to be one of the best pepper sauces I’ve ever sampled. It’s potent; it tastes good, and will go well accompanying other foods.

Rating: 9 out of 10 chiles

Under the moderate shade of the live oak trees on Waller Creek, thousands of Austinintes came together at Waterloo park for the 15th Annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival. Now that the extremely cumbersome name is out of the way, from henceforth we will call it Hot Sauce Fest.

And why would so many people willingly choose to brave the humid, 100+ degree heat to stand in line for a single tortilla chip smeared with a dollup of some orange-red goo? The simple answer: pain. And to do it over and over again.

At Hot Sauce Fest, the true spirit of the city of Austin comes shining through. A city known for it’s laid back and relaxed attitude, it’s vibrant music scene, and a quirky resident who is running for Governor of Texas, does not dissappoint in the weirdness category at this annual festival of all things spicy and hot. For I have never seen a longer line to get a taste of salsa than to get barbeque, nor have I seen more people lay down in the grass with no shade to watch a band play than people standing in line for beer.

Not that drinking beer would be a good thing when trying to quench the fire brough on by bottled whupass. In fact, drinking beer at an event like this just seemed wrong, out of place. This writer did not partake of the beer as I know what can happen to a person who drinks too much in the heat. And I consider it a big “screw you” to the unscrupulous beer vendors for charging $4.00 per 8 oz. cup of Bud Light.

Plenty of local bottlers, restaurants, and individuals were represented at this years festival, inlcuding Austin Slow Burn, Aztexan, Cactus Lace, Texapenos, and Spiceburst Gourmet Spices.

I did manage to try the HOT CRAP! (as shown at top) Great name, terrible hot sauce. People were standing IN LINE for this red swill that tasted like the business end of a hog. Yeah, it had a kick, as did almost everything here, but the flavor was kind of skunky.

One of the most popular booths was the Cactus Lace Jellies, Jams, and Salsa stand. Granted, it was the most popular because it had stuff that wouldn’t singe your nosehairs. I tried the tropical habanero jelly. A wonderful flavor of pineapple came on strong followed by a blast of habanero at the back of the throat. I could definitely put some of that on my toast in the morning. Sure, Cactus Lace had a few salsas, but that was trivial compared to the large selection of jams.

One of my personal favorites (and I did purchase a bottle) was the 5-time pepper sauce champion, Aztexan. These guys have one product only, a habanero supreme pepper sauce. I never had to wait in line at the Aztexan booth to get a chip. Most people steered clear of them, as the habanero supreme packed a major wallop. Though the booth wasn’t popular, their pepper sauce was because they took home the first place trophy for best pepper sauce.

Oh and let’s not forget the most attractive display in the entire festival. 10 dollars a bunch was the price for what were probably the hottest thing on the park grounds. Not much for a show. Just a bunch of Mexicans standing there.

One of the most unique vendors was Spiceburst Gourmet Spices. I regret not getting a picture of their wares, but the web site is pretty good. You should check it out. They make custom spiced salts in attractive corked glass jars. The owner was handing out small pieces of cucumber* dipped in the chipotle salt. It was pretty good … for a cucumber. By far, their best product was their much-balleyhooed Rocket Sauce.This is a wonderfully hot blend of scotch bonnet peppers, onions, lime juice, and spices.

The entertainment of the day was from The Gourds and South Austin Jug Band. That’s typical of an Austin Event these days. But the piece de resistance was the sampling tent and balloting. You could wait in line for an hour just to walk underneath a giant tent and sample all the local and individual salsas. Then the voting computers were just beyond that. Me? Well, I didn’t take the time to sample and vote because I like the skin of my neck to be white .. not red and crispy.

Personally, I would have voted Aztexan number one. And it looks as though that would have been the popular opinion, too. The list of winners can be found here.

* After all the salsa and pepper sauce I consumed, it was the cucumber that I kept burping up the rest of the day.