Author: Scott Roberts

Although some of the 2010 Scovie Award winners had already been contacted days ago, and their placings had been made public knowledge, the full, official list of winners have been unknown until now. The list has finally been announced and was posted up on the Fiery-Foods.com website just minutes ago. If you’re unfamiliar with them, the Scovie Awards are considered by many to be the most prestigious awards in the hot sauce and spicy food industry.

Charles Vergos’ Rendezvous Famous Seasoning suffers from the fact that it’s not a highly versatile product. I wouldn’t expect food lovers to be able to sprinkle this stuff on salads, veggies, sandwiches, deviled eggs, or even regular grilled burgers and steaks. It started as one thing: a dry rub for Rendezvous’ delicious barbecue smoked meats, in particular pork ribs, and by God that’s what it’s good for.

It’s highly recommended that you use this on foods that you cook over low heat and do it slowly all day, with plenty of wood smoke. You know, real barbecuing. Pork shoulders, ribs, chicken and beef briskets are outstanding with Charles Vergos’ Rendezvous Famous Seasoning coated on thick. If you’re merely “grilling” (cooking fast with high heat) without smoking the meat, it’s just missing something even if this dry rub is applied. It just ain’t the same.

I picked up a bottle of Rendezvous Famous Seasoning during my trip to Memphis earlier this year to see if I could replicate the BBQ joint’s fantastic dry rub ribs at home. The following is a review of the seasoning and my efforts to achieve rib sucking nirvana…

There’s a brand spankin’ new episode of Hot Sauce Weekly, the first podcast dedicated to hot sauce, fiery foods, and BBQ. This episode features a great interview with Joe and Robin Leicht of Flaming Joe’s. Also, I provide my weekly sauce review, this time featuring the fabulous Ott’s Wing Sauce.

So if you’re craving great hot sauce industry coverage, be sure to download and listen to the audio podcast every week by subscribing today! You may ask, “how can I do so?” Well, you click on the RSS Feed link to download it to your feed reader or podcast catcher, or subscribe via the iTunes Feed.

Love what you hear? Please tell all your chilehead friends and family about Hot Sauce Weekly! And please vote for Hot Sauce Weekly both on Podcast Alley and iTunes – it’s super simple and it will only take you 30 seconds.

Extreme Hot Sauce Creator Joins Forces With Greater Boston BBQ Hot Spot For A Night Of Intense Food

Extreme hot sauce company, Ashley Foods teams up with Jake’s Dixie Roadhouse for a Mad, Mad, Mad Dog Hot Food Feast.

Waltham, Massachusetts (PRWEB) October 26, 2009 – David Ashley, creator of the Mad Dog 357 Extreme Hot Sauces, is teaming up with Jake’s Dixie Roadhouse on Thursday, October 29, 2009 for a night of intense flavor, burn, and challenge to those who dare. Booked as the “Mad, Mad, Mad Dog Hot Party,” the event that starts at 7:00 pm will include a specially created menu complete with such plates as Final Rights Chicken, Hell Fire Habanero Sausage, and Grilled Liquid Fire Shrimp Skewers.

Topping the night’s bill of fare will be extreme wings made with Ashley’s Mad Dog 357 hot sauces. For all the brave souls who feel they’re up for the challenge, the night of fiery foods will also…

If you haven’t seen the low-brow, park-your-brain-at-the-door comedy “Paul Blart: Mall Cop”, you’re not missing much. It’s actually a pretty harmless little flick, but don’t go out of your way to view it. I happened to catch it with the family on cable last night, and despite the predictable, formulaic plot, there were a few memorable scenes involving spicy foods.

The first one involves our hero, mall security guard Paul Blart (played by Kevin James), in a nacho-eating contest at a bar.

As we learn a bit later in the movie, his opponent Leon (Jamal Mixon) runs a hot sauce kiosk in the mall and has a panache for turning up the heat. The more Blart eats of the hot pepper-covered nachos, the worse the burn gets for him.

When it becomes unbearable, Blart has to imbibe large quantities of…

Not too long along I reviewed Datil Sensation’s Datilicious Salsa – a salsa I felt that, if you can tolerate a slight burn from the highly underrated datil chiles, is a good change of pace from your commonplace salsas, especially if most of what you purchase are large, nationally-known brands. Here comes more from the Datilicious brand: a spicy mustard called Mania X-Hot Mustard and a pair of fiery ketchups called Indian Summer Hot Kecthup and Tears X-Hot Ketchup…

New Ghost Pepper Sauce Gives Consumers True Taste of World’s Hottest Pepper

Creator of the world’s hottest sauces introduces Mad Dog 357 Pure Ghost edition, celebrating the world’s hottest pepper – The Bhut Jolokia.

Sudbury, MA (PRWEB) October 21, 2009 – Ashley Food Company, known for its world famous Mad Dog 357 Hot Sauces, has created yet another reason for extreme hot sauce lovers and collectors to make new room on their shelves. Called Mad Dog 357 Pure Ghost Hot Sauce, this new extreme hot sauce features the world-record setting Bhut Jolokia pepper from Northeastern India, also known as the “Ghost Pepper”.

“The Ghost is truly one of the most unique peppers in the world, not only for its record-setting heat but also for its unique earthy flavor,” says David Ashley, master sauce crafter and president of Ashley Foods. “The goal was to create a sauce that would bring out the Ghost Pepper’s unique qualities of extreme heat and signature flavor, without the need for additional pepper extracts…

Put some spice in your next trip by seeing the forest preserve where the multi-plumed Tabasco bird romps and plays. Okay, that’s not really how Tabasco sauce is made, but if you never visit its Louisiana factory, how will you know for sure? No wonder it made Travel and Leisure’s list of the coolest factory tours in the world.

The free hour-long tour of this family-owned company includes a video about the special peppers that are used to make Tabasco sauce—Louisiana seedlings were shipped to Latin America to ensure brand continuity—and a glimpse inside the bottling and packaging process. You don’t get to see the barrels where the sauce is…

For over 15 years, the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces has done some of the most advanced work on scientific breeding and genetics of chile peppers in the world. I’ve recently asked Danise Coon and Dr. Paul Bosland of the CPI some questions on a plethora of topics. If you’re unfamiliar with them, Danise Coon is the Program Coordinator and Assistant Director at the Institute. Dr. Paul Bosland is the co-founder and Director of the Institute, a Regents Professor in horticulture, one of the world’s foremost authorities on chile peppers, a book author (his latest tome is The Complete Chile Pepper Book, which he co-penned with Dave DeWitt), and famously was the one who discovered the Bhut Jolokia, which was named the world’s hottest chile pepper by Guinness World Records.

Danise and Paul gave answers on a variety of matters such as the Chile Pepper Institute itself, the world of chile peppers, their Holy Jolokia Hot Sauce co-created by CaJohn’s Fiery Foods, Dr. Bosland’s new book and if the Trinidad Scorpion pepper has any chance of surpassing the Bhut Jolokia in terms of heat…

Unless you’re a Twitter veteran, you may or may not know that for the longest time the chilehead community has been slow to adopt the social networking service. There has been a large contingent of both the BBQ world and foodies in general populating Twitter, but they’re not specifically hot sauce and chile pepper fanatics. Thankfully, that’s beginning to change.

Below are what I consider to be the most interesting fiery foods people to follow on Twitter. They’re manufacturers, bloggers, spicy foods fans, and chile experts. Some may post or tweet a lot (perhaps a bit too much in a few cases!) and some hardly post at all, but I think they’re all worth a look.

Please keep in mind that these are only hot sauce/chile related folks listed. If you’re interested in BBQ Twitterers, a good “starter” list can be found here…

Earlier this year I listed what I thought were essential hot sauce and hot pepper sites from which you could get solid information and weren’t necessarily shopping websites. In a never-ending quest for more and more worthwhile chile-centric content, I present to you a few more additions that are worth bookmarking and paying regular visits…

Better news than from nearly one year ago, when New Mexico’s chile yield was down due to disease:

Chile peppers are a hot, spicy subject among growers and researchers in the Southwest and West.

Cheaper foreign competition has robbed the market for U.S.-grown chiles. U.S. planted acreage fell from 35,100 acres in 2000 in New Mexico, Texas, California, and Arizona to 27,900 acres in 2008. Chile production in the Southwest alone totaled about 35,000 acres in the 1990s….

Jake Melnick’s Corner Tap in Chicago, Illinois wants to know – can you handle the heat? Jake’s signature XXX Hot Wings are made with two of the hottest peppers in the world, the Red Savina Habanero and the Bhut Jolokia, the later of which currently holds the title of hottest chile pepper in the Guinness Book of World Records. Jake’s is opening up the playing field with their first-ever “Battle of the Bhut,” XXX Hot Wing Eating Contest, Thursday, November 5 at 6 p.m.

Jake’s is currently seeking contestants for the “Battle of the Bhut,” which is open to wing fans and heat-seeking enthusiasts alike. The winner will walk away with…

If you haven’t already, check out the Hot Sauce Weekly podcast, hosted by Brian Meagher of HotSauceDaily.comand Randy Combs. The show, which focuses on the world of spicy foods with interviews and news coverage, already has three episodes under its belt and is getting better and better with each new one.

I’m very pleased to say that I’ve joined the podcast as a guest reviewer, and my first audio review on Crazy Uncle Jester’s Blazing Hot Mustard can be heard in Episode 3!

The HotSauceWeekly podcasts can be played on any computer or any MP3 player or MP3-compatible phone, and are perfect for listening to while you’re surfing the web, driving to and from work, washing the dishes, eating chiles or sucking down hot sauce.

You can subscribe to the podcast RSS feed here, or subscribe via iTunes
here.