The Hot Sauce industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and there are a lot of different hot sauce options out there. When I was younger I would find myself buying a bottle of Franks Red Hot or Tabasco to put on my meals, but then..... I discovered craft small batch hot sauces and sooo much more flavor!! Each year craft hot sauces are chipping away at the market share of the largest and most established hot sauce companies. Here are some reasons to look local and small batch instead of grabbing the more traditional sauces.  Lack of artificial additives and huge amoun ..read more

Paul reached out to me and wanted to share this Naam prikh noum with Carolina reaper recipe with the hot sauce community. Thanks Paul!   The idea first sprung from a gift of six Carolina reapers pods, of which I've saved three pods for growing later on, and so I decided to use three in a recipe. The chili recipe is for a northern Thai chili dip called “Naam prikh noum”, a fresh chili pepper dip eaten with fresh vegetables or even simply with sticky rice. Traditionally, this recipe is mainly made with Thai green chilies, however, I’ve had other equally authentic recipes which were red and ..read more

Our Hot Sauce Philosophy Here at Craft Hot Sauce, our philosophy is simple: hot sauce can and should be used with every single meal! That said, don’t limit yourself to one hot sauce. My favorite part of having a hot sauce collection is the variation of uses and flavors when hot sauce and food come together! For those who are building up their hot sauce shelf in their fridge, we have some thoughts on optimizing your collection for flavor, enjoyment and variety. Our collection formula consists of three hot sauce categories: everyday hot sauces, unique hot sauces, and then the heat spectrum hot s ..read more

The fermented foods industry is active and growing, and if you take a close look into craft hot sauce, you’ll likely notice a number of hot sauce makers creating fermented hot sauces. Most of us know about fermented foods, but a lot of us may be less familiar with what exactly fermentation is, what the benefits are, and how fermentation brings out an incredible flavor that can’t be achieved with other cooking methods. While the science behind fermentation is a chemical process, it’s a process in practice that is very accessible and delicious. The long history behind fermented foods and hot sau ..read more

Welcome to World Calendar for Hot Sauce and Chili Festivals complied by CraftHotSauce.com With the COVID pandemic settling down, some of these events are still pending a date. We will do our best to update these as soon as we get more information. CraftHotSauce.com does not run or organize any of these events, so use the attached link to find out more information, buy tickets, or ask questions to the organizers. Feel free to comment below with other events and updates. June 2022 Berks Pepper Jam - June 4th-5th - Strausstown, Pennsylvania Exhibit 'A' Brewing Co's 1st Annual Hot Sauce Showcase ..read more

This locally foraged experimental hot sauce went all out, consisting of fiddleheads, ramp and stinging nettle. Here's how it turned out... When I asked Justin from North of Boston Farm in March, when the fiddleheads would be coming in, he said it’s really hard to tell, and sometimes they can only be harvested for a one or two week window. But they’d be coming soon! On the Craft Hot Sauce Podcast, I’ve interviewed other hot sauce makers like Tim Paulman, of Paulman Acre, who shared his experience foraging and cooking morel mushrooms in a special limited edition hot sauce. So naturally, whenever ..read more

It was a rough go for brick and mortar hot sauce shops around the world in 2020. But when I enter a hot sauce shop, my pupils dilate and move into a trance looking to expand my collection of craft hot sauces. These are 32 special hot sauce stores around the world that have been a hot sauce shrine to their locals and travelers. Hop Burns & Black Peckham and Deptford, South London, England Hop Burns & Black was founded by Jen Ferguson and Glenn Williams in Peckham, South London, in 2014, specializing in craft beer (the Hop), hot sauce (the Burns) and a small selection of vinyl records (t ..read more

I wrote this blog knowing that these best hot sauce and food combinations could start some heated debates. However, lets put our flavor differences aside and embrace the wide range of unique and amazing hot sauce and food combinations out there. I asked our biggest chilihead fans that subscribe to our newsletter (sign up at the footer), "If you have to pick the best hot sauce and food combination, what would it be?" Here are some of the most popular answers: Pepperoni Pizza and Captain Mowatt hot sauce  "Because pizza is enlivened by many types of hot sauce, and it's great fun matching di ..read more

For some people like me, whenever oysters are fresh its oyster time... but for most people, the arrival of warm weather means oyster time has arrived. Whether it's an oceanside restaurant on a warm summer day and a bar in New Orleans at 10, there's nothing quite like a plate of oysters, with a hot sauce that compliments that addicting flavorful experience from shootin an oyster. I mess with a little lemon, horseradish and occasionally cocktail sauce, but a twangy hot sauce is always my go to when adding a lil sumthing. Here are a few different types of craft hot sauces that pair really well wi ..read more

If you’re outside of St. John’s County in Florida, you’ve likely never heard of the Datil Pepper. If you’re a lover of hot sauce though, we want the opportunity to change that!  In order for you to fully appreciate the little yellow lanterns, you’ll need to know their unique history. St. Augustine in Florida is the nation’s oldest city.  Originally inhabited by the Timucuan Indian and colonized by the Spanish in 1565, the city will celebrate its 455th birthday in 2020.  Rich in history with much of the original architecture still standing, the historical landmarks and artifacts ..read more