Best Hot Sauce 2025 + Recap

Best Hot Sauce 2025  + Recap

Before we kick this off proper, I just wanted to mention that I would like to rectify something that has been remiss in prior years. This blog is dedicated to hot sauces, exclusively, yet I have not really ever done anything to celebrate National Hot Sauce Day here. That changes in 2026 on January 22, which is the next one. Mark your calendars, as I have something special in the works...

Also, I know there are not a whole lot of people still blogging in the chilehead space, definitely not like it was when I started closer to the beginning of the 2010s, so it gives my heart a little flutter when I run across one that is new to me, especially if it is any good. It came to my attention in fall of this year that someone has made one called Heckin’ Hot (http://heckinhot.com) wherein there are reviews of hot sauces and other such things. The approach there is somewhat different, but more thorough than these pages, and it was very nice to check out and compare notes on some of the various sauces that we’ve both covered, something I rather enjoy doing. If you’re looking for more commentary to round out things for the sauces or you want to support another blog in this space, definitely check out that site. 

I also revised my favorite hot sauce brands list (which can be found via the SOTY page – linky at right) to add Butterfly Bakery, as they continue to astound and generally blow me away. 

Also, for Q4 related FOH news, I added another playlist I’d been contemplating for a while to the FOH series (link at right) for the “other” condiments, those things like ketchups and BBQ sauces and so on, that were not covered in the mustards or the hot sauce playlists. I also humbly request that if you are interested in extended content from me and have not already, that you go check out the YouTube channel page (you can get there by clicking any of the YouTube links at the right), as I do a lot of posting of various dishes and so on, in the Posts section, as it were, that I make during the testing phase that often do not make it into the videos. 

By the end of November, I had wrapped all of the FOH content for 2025. I will get into it a bit later in the blog, but I had exactly 2 non-sauce items for content left to do. Being that unusually low meant a couple things. First, the Black Friday/Cyber Monday thing overall, despite so-called “record sales” this year, appears to be about as dead as can be imaginable. In years past, I would formerly have pretty decent hauls over that weekend, but this year was one of the worst since that 4 day swing has been a thing. Second, this was at least a glimmer of hope that I might finally be able to get things caught up a bit, but additionally, and perhaps moreso, that I was running out of stuff to do. This wasn’t terribly surprising, given the torrent of output.

Anyway...well...2025 was quite a year...at the end of March 2025, after it had pushed my patience considerably, I left work for a company of which I was increasingly finding untrustworthy. The job itself was fine, but the company awful and the proposal for 2025 was offensively bad. Rather than continue any longer, since one cannot put a price on happiness and the company was making me decidedly the opposite, I left. While I do not regret that decision for a single, solitary second, I did not foresee the awful chaos that a certain person decided to initiate and it took me longer than anticipated to replace it.

In fresher news, for the last few winter seasons, I’ve had a general sort of project in mind for those years. One or two of those was doing challenges for the FOH series, last year was developing the recipe that eventually culminated in the Fire Brownies FOH video, and I’m doing a couple this year as well. I have been keeping notes in that in the Posts section on the YouTube page. I refer to this as the ETK, my experimental test kitchen, and last year I decided I should really start utilizing my oven more, as baking has been something I’ve left relatively untouched. I still have a number of things I want to try, but this year is kind of springboarding off of what I learned last year during the brownie procession. I also have some one-off stuff here and there, since I have a lot of different ingredients I want to play with. Sometimes I even remember to take pictures of those and post in the aforementioned space on YouTube. 

In relation to the blog, I really liked the scheduling of reviews and will probably continue that so long as I’m doing sufficient quantities to justify it. The blog again outran the YouTube channel in terms of views, in another one of the best-ever years. Thank you to everyone who checked it out. Along the way, I went well past both 600 posts and 600 sauces covered on the blog. The full numbers will be in a bit, as per usual for this post. The FOH YouTube series, meanwhile, surpassed 1000 videos. As I have habitually started writing the year end post for the next year fairly close to the posting of the previous year’s end post, out of curiousity, I decided to keep track of every time I updated this post throughout the year, which is below (and which I’m unlikely to repeat).

Updates: 01/18/25 (update to Hot Ones list for Season 26 and added in first SOTY candidate), 03/21/25 (began work on intro section), 04/02/25 (added second SOTY candidate), 04/08/25 (added third SOTY candidate, 05/02/25 (added more to introduction), 05/16/25 (updated Hot Ones list with Season 27), 07/03/25 (updated Hot Ones remaining section), 07/15/25 (added fourth SOTY candidate), 07/31/25 (slight editing pass, added archive sauce section), 08/15/25 (general editing), 08/27/25 (updated Hot Ones remaining section), 09/03/25 (another revision/editing pass), 09/12/25 (update to Hot Ones list for Season 28), 09/19/25 (major revision edit), 09/26/25 (massive revision edit), 09/27/25 (more editing stuff I forgot the day before), 10/05/25 (even more edits), 10/24/25 (added fifth SOTY candidate and more editing), 10/31/25 (added some final numbers to the statistics section after finishing FOH uploads for December 2025), 11/12/25 (more editing), 11/14/25 (even more editing), 11/28/25 (added another section), 12/05/25 (more updating and editing), 12/10/25 (updating), 12/12/25 (added another section and much heavier editing), 12/23/25 (more editing), 12/31/25 (final numbers, final review & upload).

I spent some time during the year waxing philosophical, to which I’ve always been somewhat prone and am apparently more inclined as I age. I shall do so again here now. I think it’s important to be able to take a view of yourself, a sort of honest appraisal, and self-reflect into things that are bad dumb and should probably not be repeated as well as things that silly dumb and are more on the entertaining side. Looking back, for the last 4 End Of Year posts, including this one, I’ve been saying that the next coming year I would likely be producing less content, mostly relative to the FOH series. I never did wind up actually producing less content because I kept finding new and interesting items that I wanted to make content on and, secondarily, had it in mind to build out the playlists and body of work more, for greater coverage. Building a library is no small project.

If there is one constant, it is that things change, and for at least two of those years, we had a pretty substantial and sustained chilehead product surge. Something changed in 2025, a couple somethings, actually, beyond the ebb of the last chilehead product surge. The first something else, which was not present prior, is that I’ve gone past 1000 FOH videos. I did that in November and then ran past one of the other channels, which was also already past 1000 itself, meaning that the FOH series now has the most videos of any of the YT channels I make content for...though potentially, at its current rate, the gaming channel will overrun that in 2026.

After a thousand of anything, a sort of funny thing happens. One looks back on that body of work, at the magnitude of planning and effort it takes to get to that number, and one begins to assess whether that kind of effort should continue without change. If the rewards are commensurate, then it is a pretty easy equation and, for much of the time, this project has run parallel to my interests, has been largely enjoyable, and involves stuff I would have engaged with whether or not there was attendant content. 

I thought a lot about Bill Moore, who created over 2500 videos before deciding he had enough of YouTube and departed, I thought to do his own website. However, in trying to find that website, it appears the domain is not working any longer, so maybe he’s resigned more to Facebook and Instagram, two entities which I steadfastly refuse to ever be part of. I think about how, in my highest year of videos, which I think was this year, I started to approach 200, maybe gone over slightly, which I feel is quite a lot of content. I remember watching one of Bill’s year end videos and he’d done well over 250 in that year alone. Burnout can turn you away from things you love and while I do love planning, filming, and producing content, and have a lifetime of tending towards spicy foods generally, I kind of felt like this year got away from me a bit...similar to some other years. 

What I mean by that is that I lost count of the times I wound up bumping video scheduling, for one reason or another. It wasn’t until December that I finally finished posting up content I’d filmed in 2024, which meant a very healthy 12 month gap for some of those, give or take, or the idea that most of the written blog reviews from October on in 2025 did not have FOH videos going live in 2025. I found that kind of frustrating, as I really want things to be posted in a much more timely fashion. I could have always posted even more (and did consider that), but my observations have led me to conclude that a video flood is not the good move, that allowing videos at least some space to breathe is better. While that has not always been how it’s worked out, that is what I’ve had in mind. Even if this whole thing, the blog and related videos, is a vanity project, I would like it to also be successful, so I want to give it every chance I can. I do think it is a pretty fantastic resource, and that, more than anything, has been what I’ve really been trying to point this at being. I think there is value, even if it is perhaps largely documentarian in nature. I’ve tried to cover the many facets of the chilehead world, at least in terms of consumables, and from as many angles as possible, from the foodie to the chile-curious, to the novice, to the more experienced, with only the hardcore heat-seeking sort of “stunt-Tubers” angle being excluded, aside from very minor dabbles here and there. 

Around May of this year, I started to get a bit worn.  That’s the good thing with a nice backlog and scheduling stuff, one can take extended breaks, go on vacation, etc. But there were so many things still on the shelf, waiting, all of them with a shelf life and expiration dates and some waiting for a year-ish already, and here I was, already tentatively scheduling content for October. After a brief spate of fun filming the stuff I picked up on vacation, by July, I was right back to being worn. I fully realize I don’t have to do this at all, that any pressure is mine and self-imposed, and perhaps it’s part of the struggle for the driven. More likely, it is a function of being prolific in that I can currently produce content at a much faster rate than it can be posted and reasonably digested. 

The pacing I have wanted is weekly hot sauce videos on Sundays, maybe some stuff here and there for holidays, one of the Hot Ones specific videos on some Friday in a given month, and the rest of the time open for impromptu stuff like fast food or snack promotions or whatever, so I could keep it at least somewhat timely. With the rate I have, that is probably not realistic, so maybe twice weekly posting, add Wednesday for additional (probably sauce) posts, and then the rest of the days free, except sauces don’t draw anywhere near as well, as a group, as non-sauce stuff does, so... Then again, towards the end of September, I got the itch again, found some more stuff, got inspired, interested, and re-engaged, so maybe it has to do with appetite and I should just account for it in my ponderous deliberations, or I could possibly just get it through my thick skull that creation tends to be cyclical a bit with me. I do note that when I go through the video uploads to put in chapters and end screens and tags, how excited I am to do that seems to reflect my general mood and it was pretty low for those other months I mentioned, whereas at the end of September, it was a breeze…before going back to being worn to close out the year. As it stands right now, the FOH video series is running at least a quarter behind the blog, which is running roughly a month ahead. 

I mentioned a couple of somethings a couple paragraphs ago and the second of those is that it has finally gotten through my thick, thick skull, finally sunk in and been internalized, that I need not be so agonized about video spacing. This is perhaps hand-in-hand with the 1000 FOH videos thing, as I have a very significant pool of data from which to draw, but I knew before that performance was pretty strictly relative to the product in the video. I’ve tinkered with posting times, cadence and so on, and while I like the timing I mentioned in the previous paragraph, as I can more readily time blog content around it and not have much, if any, overlap, I have by far enough data to conclude that it doesn’t matter. So, I’m much less aggrieved about having back to back video postings, something I studiously tried to avoid whenever possible in the past, and in this way, I can cover new stuff that crops up, when it crops up, without feeling (my own) pressure about moving another video or overlap. Progress!

There is also a larger factor looming, which must also be taken into consideration and that is YouTube itself. I have been on that platform since nearly its inception and its current state is by far the worst it has ever been and degrading daily. Its usage of incredibly poor and inane AI is getting entire channels deleted and of the 3 channels I make content for, the two others the AI cannot determine whether or not I’m a teen. I don’t find that YT values me either as a viewer or creator, which is the sobering reality that must be faced. If they do elect to tank my channel, for whatever AI fever dream reason, I may try to find another outlet, actually, part of my winter project is to research potential other destinations for the YT videos, since YouTube is pretty awful currently and with their adoration of AI, not likely to get better...or I may just stick to blogging...unless Google fucks that up also. 

Anyway, as things stand now, I have finally covered a lot of the backburnered content I wanted to cover and even some I wasn’t planning on getting to at all, like powders and flakes. The jellies and BBQ sauces I did this year, for example, were really long range. The vast majority of the playlists (link(s) at right) are pretty well padded out and there is no shortage of content for people to check out, if they’re caught up with the current stuff and additionally interested. More happily, there is not a lot of carryover from 2025 to 2026, so by the end of Q2, I should be able to finally get to that more serene, sedate pace...perhaps.

The archive project is nearly done entirely, with some very lone exceptions for sauces that are still around that I don’t have photos for, which are largely confined between 2013 - 2015, and a few others that do have photos but do not have accompanying FOH video content for them. I have been really slow-walking that project and probably realistically need to make a(nother) list for just that, but it, like the Hot Ones project, which I will talk about next, got backburnered for 2025, though the archive thing was already kind of backburnered, so deeper backburnered, I guess?

Let’s turn now to that The Hot Ones sauce coverage project. All of this, as always, is updated on the Hot Ones Sauces page (link at right) as to which sauces are still under consideration and which are not, along with the reasons why not.

To break it down a bit, there are 4 seasons within the first 20 wherein I’m missing a single sauce. However, none of those currently seem available, so I’ve updated the full list accordingly. The only other sort of outlier is the Zombie Apocalypse from Torchbearer, a sauce I didn’t find enjoyable, but which I will film a video on, both to see if my feelings have changed, more in the name of completion than anything, but only if I find it on (a heavily discounted) sale, which, heretofore, I have not.

This project is highly subject to the same factors surrounding the FOH discussion I head earlier and at the moment, given that I’ve had to re-arrange how I section my fridge space for the Wing Thing sauces, which are generally exclusively Hot Ones, I can only keep so many. So, until the backlog mentioned earlier eases a bit and I also clear more space in the Wing Thing sauce storage area, I will continue the trend for the second half of 2025, which was one Hot Ones sauce per quarter, rather than one a month. 

Current to now, the seasons with sauces outstanding are:

Season 21 - 1 remaining 
Season 23 - 2 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 24 - 2 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 25 - 2 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 26 - 4 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 27 - 6 remaining 
Season 28 - 4 remaining

These are the individual sauces remaining, by slot position on the show:

#1 - 3 remaining
#2 - 1 remaining (1 at hand)
#3 - 1 remaining            
#4 - 1 remaining 
#5 - 1 remaining 
#6 - fully covered
#7 - 3 remaining (1 at hand)
#8 - fully covered
#9 - 3 remaining (2 at hand)
#10 - 2 remaining

We will get into the SOTY discussion more, but first, as we usually do, some stats for the blog:

Total posts (including this post): 662
Total views (as of this writing): ~136,718
Total sauces full-reviewed: 592
Total full review sauces with FOH video content: 480
Average rating, all full review sauces: 4.64
Total min-review sauces: 63
Total sauces reviewed, combined: 655
Highest viewed individual blog review: ~2.19K - Private Selection Mango Scotch Bonnet

Briefly, before we get into the winner for this year, a recap of the contenders for this year. Some years it is slightly intentional, but others, like this year, it is mere coincidence that saw January once again being the month where the first contender was discovered. For this year, it was my introduction to Butterfly Bakery and their wonderful Vienna Mustard Lager, which fortunately did not feature distinctive notes of either of those named ingredients in the product name, but instead came together into a fantastic cohesive whole that I enjoyed immensely...while the bottle lasted. Like many of the previous winners, I was sad to see the bottle finally go. 

This facet was also the case in late March, when I broke the seal on the bottle of Walkerswood Fire Stick. Whereas I felt I had wrapped my mind fully around the previous contender, not so with the 100ml of the Fire Stick I initially got. Unlike that one, however,  I bought another bottle of the Fire Stick and discovered that it was such a great tasting sauce, I was struggling to find a setting where I didn’t like it. Of the factors in my rating consideration, Flavor and Flexibility have by far the most prominence for me and are sometimes intertwined, such as here. It also has the specialness of being my 600th posted review, but overall, while the BBVML echoed one of my favorite pepper-related foods, namely pickled cherry peppers, this sauce took one of my favorite styles and spun it, with a new and fresh dynamic. 

Then, along came Adoboloco...Adoboloco was a company that I only know because of The Hot Ones show and only had interest in it for the same reason. Most of their sauces were a bit underwhelming and it took me a while for them to leave the Wing Thing rotation because the sauces were not stuff I generally wanted to eat elsewhere but they weren’t bad enough to bail on entirely. Even the entry I’m referring to now I was a bit blase about getting, as the name struck me as kind of odd. However, once I opened the bottle, I fell instantly in love and had to hold back to as to have enough to both film the FOH video to accompany the written review and make it to the nearest available Wing Thing. As it was, by the time it got to the Wing Thing for Q2, easily half the bottle was gone and I put this on my list to get it again during the next Heatonist sale, a circumstance so rare it almost never happens. Competition, as they say, had definitely heated up and it was only early April at this point.

That list stayed gelled until the middle of July, when a new competitor thrust itself into the mix, that of Volcanic Peppers. I was already familiar with them from one of Roger having them on the BYT shelves some years ago, but they were gone for a time and so it was taking me a bit to slowly work my way through the sauces I found interesting. They had quite a few sauces that were very novel, some I found favorable and generally liked, but none I outright loved, per se, though perhaps the IO: Thor’s Hammer came closest. Then along came the Autumn Blaze and, like most of the other SOTY candidates, I fell in love all over again. The lovely mix of the best Chipotle flavor I’ve probably ever experienced, along with the lilting strains of honey and pumpkin providing some depth and rounding off the harsh vinegar edges, made this an absolutely treat…

I have had other years where there have been up to 4 candidates before, so this wasn’t wholly unusual and I thought I would have to pick from those, but then in October, along came Barnacle Foods with their Habanero hot sauce to make 5 on the year. It is a sauce that ticks a lot of boxes. Not only does it feature an ingredient unique to them, but it also results in a very intensely umami-heavy sauce that is so well-rounded and designed, that it sort of transcends categories. It was not only delicious, but easily one of the more flexible I’ve had, ever, and is yet another entry for me in the “kick me” food category. I also found it to be another one of the potential gateway sauces, to perhaps bring more normies into the chilehead fold. 

The SOTY is my own award, specific to me and often comes down to favoritism for a tie breaker. Despite so many entrants into an especially competitive year, none of them were ultimately quite enough to knock off a sauce that just struck me right in the palate in the best and perhaps unforgettable way, the aforementioned Adoboloco, which is 2025's Sauce Of The Year...this also marks the first time ever that a Hot Ones show sauce has won. 

Previous TSAAF Sauce Of The Year winners (links to reviews in SOTY Table Of Contents link to the right):

2012: CaJohn’s Happy Beaver
2013: Blair’s Pure Death
2014: Born To Hula’s Ghost Of Ancho
2015: Voodoo Chile’s Voo Dew Honey Doo
2016: Pirate O’s Surface Of The Sun Hot Sauce
2017: Z’s Shield Maiden Hot Sauce
2018: Taco Jesus Cayenne Pepper Sauce
2019: Torchbearer Ultimate Annihilation
2020: Mikey V’s Sweet Ghost Pepper
2021: Gindo’s Original
2022: Hellfire Hellboy Legendary AF
2023: Retsuko Rage
2024: Karma Ashes 2 Ashes

If you want to read more from me, check out the YouTube Posts section to span the gap between the quarterly postings here. The ETK (Experimental Test Kitchen) pictures, for instance, all reside there, wherein I play around with stuff before I decide whether or not I should film it.

I also have another blog, where I type about wine, the Happy Sippin’ Companion (HSC). It has been put on inactive status as of 2019, with maybe a handful of posts since then with no plans to actively  resurrect it, but still remains up for viewing (link also on right).

I also still slug away on Yelp, which you can click to from my widget. I’m finally resuming posts from my earlier layoff, but it’s still way off the pace from pre-pandy years. My distribution of ratings and further metrics are available on my Yelp profile page....I think. Maybe. 

As always, I appreciate you dropping by. If there are any spicy products or sauces you’d like to see me get to or any video ideas you may have, please drop me a line in the comment section here or in any of the videos.