2K21 Q2 Update

 2K21 Q2 Update

Continuing on with the idea this is going to be another strong year for posting, both on the blog and with the FOH video series. I’m at 285 posts total, including this one, for the blog (likely will hit 300 some time in Q3). On the FOH video side, in addition to Friday postings of any sauces that appeared on The Hot Ones and any holidays that seem fitting, I’ve also decided to do Friday posting, at least through grilling season, of mustards. So, keep your eye on Friday, if you like the FOH videos, as if there is a video on a Friday, it will be either a mustard or a sauce from The Hot Ones. If I keep up with the current pace of video posting, I will overtake the number of full reviews of sauces by the end of the year, with full review sauce video postings hitting 100 around August. It also means that the video posting overall could conceivably overtake the posts of the entire blog in 2022...

Speaking of The Hot Ones, the sauces for Season 15 are up. I don’t have a ton of commentary, other than Sean Evans is back on his bullshit with the return of Beyond Insanity, which also makes that season, by default, one in which I’ve already done one of the sauces. That leaves Season 14 as the only season I haven’t hit yet, so I’m going to move that one up for this year, I think, which will be touches in all of them. Of the 10 sauces, there are only 4 that I will be doing for Season 15, as the preponderance of onions is quite pronounced. Three of those 4 sauces I will be doing also appear in other seasons, so this one will be fairly easy to cover.

I finally got around to posting all the hot sauce support videos I shot in 2020. Still working on the non-sauce FOH content from last year, but that should be done by end of Q3...I think. Part of the challenge there is that there has been a lot of stuff in that market segment out this year and YouTube is often a very topical medium, meaning that there is a certain predilection towards current, latest-and-greatest product content. This has really pushed back a lot of those non-sauce content videos, given how far ahead I am (I have enough in the can (filmed & completed) right now to go past the end of 2021 on the non-hot sauce side). I’m trying to really taper down filming in that regard, but I probably will run out of non-hot sauce products entirely before the end of Q3. For sauces, they run behind the non-sauce stuff a bit, but I’m either through or very close to through Q3 right now.

In that light, I have filmed/posted what I expect to be the last previously reviewed (archive) sauce I do for 2021, as I just have far too much of a backlog at hand to keep playing around with those. I may or may not do any at all next year, depending on how consumption goes this year. My main priority was finishing videos for SOTY and the top-drawing reviews and both are done (with the exception in the latter category of the Zatarain’s, which I still haven’t found for an acceptable price). I have also changed up the old diet (again), but am still trying to find a way to keep incorporating hot sauces. I probably have around 3 dozen unopened bottles waiting, as I type this...

When it comes time to post the videos (I usually only post a month ahead), my process is generally to look at what is done and available and then choose either the best of those (in terms of video, not in terms of sauces) or the ones with the most commercial appeal. Sometimes, there is some other mitigating circumstance, such as if I have a support video for a sauce that Roger kicked my way, or if I have a SOTY candidate, etc. Sauces appearing on The Hot Ones are posted outside of the normal times and if I have any of those, I will just fill them in on the earliest available Friday, trying to pick a sauce that will probably breathe on its own, even with a potentially competing sauce posted normally (on Sunday) that close to it.

The Head To Head Battle of the Hot Nuts is concluded at Round 9. That series covers 38 different products. If I find other spicy nut products, they will probably be standalone reviews. Both sauces (overall, not strictly support videos) and non-sauce products are over 100 videos each. I will still continue filming the end-of-quarter Wing Things indefinitely, even after I conclude The Hot Ones sauces (I should have enough of those to make a separate playlist at some point this year, maybe Q3). I’m already looking ahead to 2022 to see what else I might be able to wrangle up. My guess is that non-sauce content will be either every other week or maybe once monthly, but that also depends on the various manufacturers. If they keep kicking out stuff that fits, it will have my interest. A few people have suggested I do some challenges (or fresh pods), but, again, that is not really what I’m about. I honestly have zero interest in fresh pods, but challenges, if they can fit into what I’m doing generally, are ones I would at least consider attempting. The challenges I have done have either been opportunistically (like I ran across it in a store) or by accident and that trend will continue. I’m about flavor first, which is throughout the blog, but also reflected very strongly in my various Yelp reviews, which you can click too off the widget on the right, if interested. Most, if not all, of the challenge stuff I’ve had has been poor-tasting, at best.

As far as 2021 being this sort of “year of the [Carolina] Reaper” that I mentioned last year, I’ve definitely added a lot more products with Reapers into the mix for this year. My frustration with those is that it kind of forces me to keep tolerance somewhat high, if I do not want to pay the price with stomach cramps. I think it’s an ok pepper overall, so far, but that part is annoying. I don’t need to do that with any other pepper and indeed, not much else, other than products with a fairly high extract content. I honestly right now don’t see that Reaper sauces or products generally are going to have much of a place in my regular rotation once I’m done with the current crop that I have and any Hot Ones sauces containing it that I have still remaining.