Month: November 2009

Here’s a quick update to the review of Danny Cash’s Mean Streak Habanero Mango Hot Sauce I wrote just a few weeks ago. Danny had told me that he recently re-formulated the recipes to all of his hot sauces and had sent me a bottle of Mean Streak to try since the re-tweaking. Messing around with a great sauce like Mean Streak is no casual thing. It had better be good.

I opened up the bottle of the new stuff and immediately noticed the different after drawing a whiff. Gone is the strong vinegar aroma and in its place is a much more mellow fruity sensation. I splashed a dash of sauce on my palm to taste it, and the distinction between old and new was confirmed. Mean Streak, as I described it previously, is no longer in “Louisiana hot sauce” territory that is flavored by heavy vinegar and salt. The newer formula is a sweeter blend, with the taste of mangos taking center stage. So much is the dominant fruity flavor that it’s almost like a mango/orange juice fusion accented by fresh habanero peppers…

John “CaJohn” Hard was one of my “musts” when I made my first mental list of who to interview for my website’s FireTalkers section. He’s a guy who I considered to be one of today’s foremost purveyors of heat, yet someone whom I didn’t see as the prime interview focus in material that originated in the chilehead world. Sure, CaJohn’s Fiery Foods has enjoyed enough attention from the hot sauce blogs to fill a battleship, in the form of product reviews, trade show coverage, and being featured in other chilehead events and discussions. CaJohn relishes interaction with fiery foods fans and they’ve respectfully returned the favor in spades. But it’s been a few years (an eternity in internet time) since CaJohn has had a proper interview or profile done on him and his company from online chilehead community.

What can I say about CaJohn’s Fiery Foods that most hardcore heat freaks don’t already know about? In the decade-plus time that the Columbus, Ohio company has existed, it has become the winning-est hot sauce manufacturer in America, racking up over 350 prestigious awards, which include dozens of Golden Chiles and Scovies. They have a dizzying array of products that are awesomely delicious (I haven’t tasted a weak one yet) and aren’t afraid to push the envelope in terms of both heat and flavor. Inside of Columbus’ North Market, a foodie paradise, CaJohn’s owns both a small hot sauce store and an eatery that serves chili, enchiladas, spicy smoked sausage and nachos. CaJohn and his employees are a fixture at hot sauces shows and open up their own business to chileheads every year after the Weekend of Fire event for an open house and barbecue. CaJohn and his wife Sue participate in an annual congregation of pepper fans (known as the “Fire Mountain Krewe”) at his own cabins in Gatlinburg, Tennessee for a weekend of fun and spicy eating.

CaJohn (pronounced “Kay-John”, NOT “Kuh-John” or “California John”) is a man instantly recognizable with his trademark trimmed Santa Claus beard and pepper print shirts. What’s also trademark of him is his enthusiasm about the spicy foods and his willingness to help out both fellow sauce makers and his fans. He was gracious enough to let me ask him a few questions on him and his business…

After looking at The ChileFoundry’s list of top 10 UK chilli web sites based on Alexa stats, it got me curious as to what were the most trafficked U.S. chile/hot sauce sites. Now, the UK list included shopping sites as well as blogs, fansites, etc. To call the act of compiling a list of American sites where products are sold “daunting” would be a gross understatement. There could be hundreds of potential e-commerce destinations that dabble in spicy foods, and even if I would spend days or weeks scouring the internet I would no doubt miss several good ones.

Instead, I gathered the stats for the top U.S. blogs and chilehead forums…

Here’s wishing all of the American readers of this blog a HOT, awesome and safe Thanksgiving! Today is a day to reflect on what’s important in life, including God and family (and maybe football), and to be grateful for all the blessings we enjoy. So oven-roast, smoke, or fry up (my least favorite method) some turkey and let’s all toast the day!

As the ball begins to be put into motion for the forthcoming Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show in March of next year (I just bought plane tickets a few days ago), my thoughts start to wander and meander to images of vendor booths, seemingly unlimited bottles of hot stuff and the Sandia Mountains bordering the outskirts of host town Albuquerque, New Mexico. What better way to satiate my thirst for the biggest hot sauce show of the year than to view this nice little recap created by former TV news anchor/reporter Rosa Linda Román for the New Mexicast. It features the goings-on at the 2009 FFS, and many friendly faces that are familiar to chileheads appear in the video:

You may have seen this sauce a few years back and wondered what the hubbub was about. Yes, the Burn, Baby, Burn Revolutionary Hot Sauce is the product released by the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, created by former Black Panther Party members. The Foundation’s Executive Director David Hilliard has stated as the reason for the sauce’s conception, “the hot sauce is another way to raise money and bring attention to the Huey Newton Foundation. We’re trying to turn the tide of violence and educate young people through our work.”

What I’m NOT going to in this review is cover the Black Panther Party history or discuss politics. You have the entire internet at your disposal if you wish to delve into this topic. What I want to focus on, however, is whether or not this is a good hot sauce.

Dan Houston of the Global Warming Salsa Co. has one of the most intriging tales of the spicy foods world in recent memory. He and his wife Cherie have been longtime fitness consultants with their own Michigan-based company, Houston Fitness Consultants, and have been using a “chile pepper approach to exercise” (what that is exactly is described by Dan below). Wanting to develop healthy foods and to help raise funds for an exercise and nutrition book for kids, they decided to create salsas to aide them in their quest. A portion of Global Warming’s profits also goes to help an organization that aims to help save muscle cars, as Dan is heavily into racing and classic American automobiles.

I think Global Warming has one of the cleverest themes I’ve seen in a while. Dan choose it as a play on the term heard so often today, but with much different meanings. One, the “Global” in the name is meant as flavors from around the world, as the company currently has a Japanese salsa for sale and will introduce other international flavors over the coming weeks. The “Warming” part is used to represent heat levels found in their products. A combination of these two concepts makes for one very interesting potential marketing angle.

It also doesn’t hurt that that Global Warming Salsa Co. has some really high quality and tasty products – so good, in fact, that their fire-roasted salsas have won in the Scovies and The Hot Pepper Awards…

Larry Noggle from Peppahead.com is an avid photograher and grower of chiles, and has put his excellent skills to work by creating an awesome 2010 Chile Pepper Calendar! It also includes great chile recipes and useful information about peppers. Please note that the link above is for U.S. orders only. For international orders, you can purchase the calendar at Calendars.com.

Oh, and while you’re on the Peppahead website linked above, be sure to take a look at other artwork by Larry Noggle and Mark Rutherford, plus Peppahead’s rubs, seasonings, and hot sauces.

Here is DEFCON Creator John Dilley giving a lengthy interview. Good stuff!

I just came upon some news about Dr. Paul Bosland of New Mexico State University Chile Pepper Institute – he is this year’s recipient of Governor’s New Mexico Distinguished Public Service Award. Congrats to Paul!

Here is the news release courtesy of KRQE News 13 of Albuquerque, NM:

Justin Bannister, NMSU News Bureau
LAS CRUCES (KRQE) – Even in New Mexico, it’s rare to find someone with a front license plate that reads “Chileman.”

Then again, it’s rare to find anyone who knows more about chile and whose research has done more to help the state’s chile industry than Paul Bosland, a professor in Plant and Environmental Sciences at New Mexico State University. Bosland is the recipient of one of this year’s Governor’s New Mexico Distinguished Public Service Awards.

“Service is an important component of my appointment at NMSU, and I have tried to reach out to the community through…

It’s been a while since I’ve done an edition of the Burn Buzz, where I list hot n’ interesting links about spicy food and BBQ that have been floating around on the intertubes lately…

High-Dose Capsaicin Patch Approved – Link 2

Mike Cates of Hot Shots Has Brain Aneurysm – Wishing him and his family well. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Maine-Made Rubs and BBQ Sauces Win International “Fiery Foods” Competition – Link 2

Cocaine and Pepper Spray – A Lethal Mix?

Chili Cook-Off Brews Up Heated Competition

Hot Rods in Smokin’ Hot Sauce – Malaysian KFC loocations sell chicken pieces stacked on a skewer with a smokey hot sauce dip.

Capsaicin Skin Sprays Repel Bed Bugs with the Power of Hot Peppers

FDA Approves New Drug Treatment for Long-Term Pain Relief after Shingles Attacks

Hot Sauce and a Comb……Security Threats Inside And Out For 9/11 Trial

Fatality Hot Sauce is another sauce devised by Jim Campbell and the Mild to Wild Pepper & Herb Company. This one, as you might have guessed by the name, features the mighty fatalii chile pepper. Fataliis are in the chinense species of chiles – the same one that includes habaneros and jolokias -and are absolute scorchers. Despite the fact that they only rate on the high end of what an orange habanero would be heat-wise (somewhere around 350,000 SHU), their special mix of the capsaicinoids – with dihydrocapsaicin being the dominant one – is speculated to be the reason that fataliis taste hotter than 570,000 SHU red savinas to most people that I’ve talked to.

Jim knows his peppers and knows how to balance ingredients very well within his sauces. Fatality is a good effort and is a terrific choice if you’re on the prowl for a nice extract-free condiment to splash on your food, especially one that will really take things to the next fiery level…

Certain peppers lend themselves wonderfully to concoctions with fruit and sugar and I happen to think that sometime in the next ten or twenty years spicy sweets will explode into the mainstream. What exactly will be the cornerstone of this trend – candy, syrups and ice cream toppers, a jam or jelly, or maybe even a fruit and chile pepper based salsa – I do not know. It may be a little of everything. Nowadays they may be viewed as novelty items, but something will really catch on with your next door neighbors Plain Jane and Bob, you know, the ones who wince at the thought of putting a drop of Tabasco on their oysters.

That’s just my prediction. I could be wrong. What I can say accurately is that specialty food manufacturers are making nearly everything under the sun both old and new with peppers of all heat levels. One such type of sub-niche items I’m seeing more of are variations of tried and true pepper jelly.

A great many pepperheads have confided in me that they’re just not into pepper jelly. I may only be an occasional jelly or jam user but they have a certain appeal to me. You can spread, smear or mix this stuff on a vast assortment of things you would never even consider putting a vinegar n’ chiles mix on. One such is the subject of this review, Historic Lynchburg Tennessee Whiskey Chocolate Cherry Pepper Jelly made by Porky’s Gourmet Foods…