Month: October 2009

Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry was recently interviewed, and he talked about the future of his Boneyard Hot Sauce line:

Here is more great footage for the Ol’ Man Stillmanz Fiery Wing Challenge held this past August at the Seaview in Brisbane, Australia. After the last video I posted on the competition, here is round two, and there’s never a dull moment!

A native of New Jersey, special education teacher Benito Maniscalco got bitten by the hot sauce bug while working as a waiter during his grad school days. He later started producing homemade sauces for another restaurant, and as word got out he expanded his offerings to include his current hot sauce lineup of five different products. He’s since relocated to Vermont and is working to grow his presence in the New England area, and thanks in part to reviews on blogs such as Hot Sauce Blog, The Hot Zone Online and my own, he’s gaining a national audience.

One thing that sets Benito’s Hot Sauces apart from a lot of other newer manufacturers is the usage of all-natural (and often organic) ingredients in the sauce production and the mind-boggling fresh garden taste in each of his bottles. Do yourself a favor and try out some habanero and carrot-laden Benito’s Original Naranja on some tacos, or one Benito’s other sauces on a double-cheese pepperoni pizza and see what I mean. They’re wicked good. Benito’s upcoming products include a new habanero & picked bhut jolokia sauce and maple chipotle dry rub, and if he creates them with the same care and attention to quality as his other sauces, they have the potential to be must-haves in every chilehead’s kitchen. Which brings me to ask of Ol’ Benito…

Scott: When did you first become a chilehead?

Benito: I was working at Mexicali Rose Restaurant in Montclair, New Jersey as a waiter while in grad school in 2002. I found myself really appreciating the different spicy sauces made by the Costa Rican gentlemen who worked in the kitchen. They made a bangin’ mole, pico de gallo and salsa verde to name a few. The house sauce was that Iguana one that is actually made in Costa Rica, I can’t think of the name now. Anyway in high school and college I always loved a straight up generic hot wing sauce, from having worked at another spot in North Jersey called the Chicken and Rib Crib. Eventually, I just got more and more…

I’ve been an avid listener to podcasts for going on five years now, and I’m thrilled that someone has finally jumped into the fray with a podcast focusing primarily on hot sauces. It’s doubly good that there’s a familiar face behind the very first hot sauce podcast – none other than my friend Brian Meagher of HotSauceDaily.com!

Brian debuted the HotSauceDaily Podcast last night with show co-host Randy Combs by interviewing Steve Burnham of BluesBBQ.net. It turned relatively well for a pilot show (with just a few audio hiccups), and promises to get only better in the future with other interviews of hot sauce and BBQ makers, retailers, industry pros, writers and bloggers. Brian is also planning to add different segments to the podcast such as fiery foods news and hot sauce reviews. Yours truly might even make an guest appearance sometime soon.;-)

You can listen as the show is recorded live on TalkShoe at 8:00 PM Eastern/7:00 PM Central on Tuesday nights, and also follow along in the chat room. Or, if you’re busy on Tuesday nights, you can download the podcast to listen to it anytime day or night on your computer, iPod, iPhone, or any type of MP3 player. There’s all kinds of subscribing and listening options, so go to the TalkShoe HSD page for all the info. Update: Brian has announced that the next episode of his podcast will be pre-recorded and not “live”. His updated details are here: http://hotsaucedaily.com/2009/09/30/episode01-bluesbbq-hotsaucedaily-podcast.

I’m glad I was able to catch this in time. This very post is, in fact, my 500th post here on ScottRobertsWeb.com! Ever since I first converted my web design portfolio site into a full-fledged blog back in 2007, I