Author: Scott Roberts

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

If you frequent other hot sauce websites, you may have already read the story of how saucemaker Ed Rome used all of the peppers from his harvest to create only one hot sauce this year. That lone sauce is Inner Bhutty, a tribute to the Inner Beauty Hot Sauce. I’ve never tried Inner Beauty – it’s no longer in production and from what I’ve read, it was a fruity and mustard-heavy Caribbean-style elixir. Ed’s new Inner Bhutty (take note of the spelling) is supposedly strikingly similar with the presence of other chile peppers, including the bhut jolokia (but I bet you already figured that out, didn’t you?).

Because of prior buzz about the original Inner Beauty, I just had to get my hands on Ed’s variation and test it out for myself, to see if this was truly a “bhutty-ful” sauce or not.

There’s one thing I have to mention before a jump into this review. I am NOT a fan of Indian food, and when “Island style” offerings get too close to approximating eastern cuisine with an overabundance of curry and sweet ingredients such as honey, they can (to put it diplomatically) be a VERY acquired taste for me. But I’m open for trying just about anything, especially this Inner Bhutty…

Randy, one of the moderators from one of my other sites, lives in South Korea and recently had a mouth-watering Korean delicacy called “chicken ribs”. Here are his words and photos:

…So here you have Chicken Ribs. Yes – I wrote “CHICKEN RIBS.” You’re probably wondering…who the hell would eat chicken ribs? What are chicken ribs? Is there really such a thing as a chicken rib?

The only answer that I can give you is that there are no bones in this dish. Why do Koreans call it “chicken ribs?” I have no idea – I need to ask though. My wife and I drove up to the city of Chun Chon last night (roughly 100 kilometers northeast of Seoul) – it’s famous for chicken ribs and there are literally dozens upon dozens of chicken rib restaurants there…

For those of you who missed the segment on Travel Channel’s Extreme Conventions, the whole thing is posted below. This footage was taken from the Fiery Foods and BBQ Show held last February 27 – March 1, 2009:

Many of our hot sauce manufacturer friends are featured, including John “DEFCON Creator” Dilley, Firefighter Jim Campbell, Sue Hard of Cajohn’s, Chip Hearn of Peppers.com, Joe Leicht of Flaming Joe’s, Danny Cash, Sam McCanless and Co. of Zane and Zacks World Famous Honey, The German Chili Police, Cayenne Caramels from Lillie Belle Farms, and FFS producer Dave DeWitt. Thanks to James Beck of EatMoreHeat.com for providing the full list of featured folks.

Being both a chilehead and a fan of the Travel Channel’s Man v. Food, I always take great interest when host Adam Richman attempts to tackle spicy food-related eating challenges. For some reason, his recent battle against a four chile pepper hamburger really piqued my interest. He’s previously taken on super hot wings and scorching Indian curry, but I guess what got me intrigued was the fact that this particular challenge could be duplicated at home with relative ease. Instead of trying to figure out a secret formula, mystery recipe, or unknown ingredients that were essential puzzle pieces in other Man v. Food-featured dishes, the Four Horsemen Burger was something somebody like me would have been able to get all the parts necessary for in-home trial.

Okay, let’s get some background on the “real” burger. The Four Horsemen is the ultimate sandwich offered by Chunky’s Burgers in San Antonio, Texas. The “four” in its name represent the four chile peppers present on the burger: jalapeno, serrano, habanero, and the ghost chile, better known as the bhut jolokia. Those supposedly “brave enough to eat it” must put on rubber gloves to avoid “spice burns” and are given 25 minutes on the clock to wolf down the entire thing. After taking the last bite, the challenger must wait an additional 5 minutes to let the pain from the peppers set in, and cannot wipe his or her face or drink or eat anything to alleviate the burning, such as milk or ice cream.

Here’s a quick video snapshot story of how the Four Horsemen Burger is shown the episode…

In the early 1990s, the husband and wife chef team of Mike and Diane Greening went on vacation in Arizona and stumbled upon a hot sauce store boasting supposedly great sauces and bought some to try out. Unimpressed with their lackluster purchases,the couple went on a mission to create a much better product. After a bit of trial and error, one of my personal favorite line of sauces, Ring of Fire, was born, and Mike and Diane’s Gourmet Kitchen, their namesake company, has remained one of the pre-eminent manufacturers in the fiery food industry ever since.

Mike was kind enough to give me the opportunity to ask him a few questions about himself and his passion in this inaugural “FireTalkers” interview feature….

When I first tasted Mad Anthony’s Hot Sauce however many years ago, I was incredibly relieved. For one, if it was a sub-par sauce, there have might have been people who accused me of using it and liking it just because Michael Anthony was the bassist for Van Halen, my favorite band of all-time (he was since let go from the group and is now rockin’ it up with Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, and Chad Smith in Chickenfoot, but I digress). Two, celebrities and their ilk are quite adapt at releasing and promoting crappy products with their name on it, whether it be food, colounge, shoes, or trash bags (okay, maybe not trash bags). Anthony had actually come up with a quality condiment with the help of Mike and Diane’s Gourmet Kitchen, makers of Ring of Fire hot sauces, and it was something worth shouting about. Anthony has subsequently released a milder version of his hot sauce, a pair of BBQ sauces, and a spicy mustard, all of which are above average. Does his latest creation, the Mad Anthony’s XXXTra Hot Private Reserve, live up to the same high standards as the others?