2K22 Q1 Update

It took most of the first week of January for me to get the computer issues sorted enough to finish up with 2021, but once I did, January started off with a roar, with a SOTY candidate shortly after I resumed review posting. This is not abnormal, as I usually spend most of December cycling through what open bottles of sauce I have in the fridge door to make way for new ones. This time, due to the computer issue, I had a number of reviews waiting and ready to go, to the point where I wound up shooting a few FOH videos prior to having a written review, which almost never happens and I take great pains to avoid. The furious pace continued and at the end of Q1, I’m already well over 1/3 of the total posts for 2021, which was the highest posting total for the blog ever. So far in 2022, I’ve also done a video segment for every written review, which I’m hoping can continue, though I can’t say they will all be posted in 2022 necessarily.

As mentioned in other updates, I’ve tried to make a very concentrated effort to reduce my backlog down to single digits before re-acquiring more sauces...in my usual big shopping hauls, that is. I’ve still ordered a sauce here or there if I needed to get to free shipping, or picked one up opportunistically on a grocer’s shelves, but the huge hauls I’ve held off on. I still have 3 sauces from 2020 to get to, so I need to keep much tighter reigns on my backlog, I think. With a new location of BYT much closer than before, I may be able to consider cutting out the huge hauls and just do more frequent smaller runs, which would be nice. As it’s looking, given how far ahead I am once again on filmed reviews, I might do a lot more catching up on The Hot Ones sauces than expected.

For non-show sauces, as of now, I have 1 non Hot Ones show Scorpion sauce and 2 non Hot Ones show Reaper sauces remaining and then I’m out of both of those peppers, though I will not be shying away from Reaper sauces in future. Outside of Hot Ones show sauces, the Scorpion peppers I have little interest in further pursuing, unless they happen to be in a sauce with a different featured superhot. There are a number of Hot Ones sauces using one or both of those peppers, though, so I won’t be done with them for a while. I will do a larger breakdown of what is left of The Hot Ones sauces in the Q2 update.

I did post up all of the FOH sauce videos from 2021 and started adding in a lot more cooking segments to some of the stuff from 2022. As to the non-sauce content, I don’t think I will finish out 2021 before Q3, if then. It’s really a lot of fun to shoot all that stuff, but I fear I may have an excessive backlog now. I have enough of that content in the can to take me all the way through Q4.  For all that, this still might be the last year of the non-sauce stuff, as even with the various products coming out the last couple of years, the same problem persists in that eventually I will run out of non-sauce product. If the sauce rate continues, though, I can definitely start replacing the non-sauce stuff with another hot sauce video. I may wind up plumbing through the archives a bit and have the current non-sauce FOH post day just become the archive sauce post day...for as long as that can last.  Regardless, even if the non-sauce content dwindles off, I will continue doing the quarterly Wing Things, as I always look forward to those videos and, despite coming the closest yet in Q1 of this year, I still haven’t had one yet where I’ve liked every sauce.

I do plan on trying to do the entire grill season (April - September) with spicy mustards again (debating another playlist just for this) and, as mentioned, am trying to have some special event postings for various “special” days, with another one coming up tomorrow.  I *think* I have found enough spicy mustards to do 2023 grilling season as well. COVID put the clamps on a lot of the fast food-based videos I had planned, including causing me to miss the Arby’s Diablo Dare thing entirely. While I did want to do that, I suppose it’s probably fine, as I’m really not in need of non-sauce content anyway, as mentioned...at least for now. Also, there is no food that will ever be worth me potentially catching a COVID I can’t throw back.

Season 17 of The Hot Ones came out and I posted it up. I will note that this is another season with a whopping 3 sauces total that do not have onions, one of which I’ve already done. So, another entire season, but one that does not add at all to my backlog for the show. The two sauces for Season 17 I have left are both only available from The Heatonist and are duplicated in other seasons, so it may be a bit before I get to them. The breakdown of the rough running order of priority for the remaining Hot Ones sauces is in the Recap of 2021 post, if interested.

I also did some long-coming clean-up of the TOC pages, including a new one just for Sauce Of The Year winners, as well as posting a work-in-progress list of my favorite hot sauce companies. I’ve also chucked my standby sauce notations, as I don’t really strictly keep those sauces on hand. The blog was ostensibly to build that list, but for some of those entries, it’s been years since I’ve had some of those sauces and I don’t really consume in that manner, keeping specific sauces at hand, save for the Mexican-style sauce. Specific styles, however...yes.

I also added another FOH playlist, just for chips (or crisps, depending on where you’re reading this), as the Everything Else list was getting a bit cluttered. It realistically should probably be one of the smaller lists. I then added yet another, just for the Wing Things. I will probably add the mustard one I mentioned earlier as well, next quarter. Links to all of them, as usual, can be found to the right...

...and earlier in the month, which has its own blog post, I also made it down to Albuquerque for my first ever industry show, the Fiery Foods Show of 2022...which got me to thinking...we’ll see if any of the ideas I have banging around in my skull actually make it out. I also made the trip to Roger’s newest location of the BYT shelves (need to do some road tripping for the other two, definitely have an eye on that for the future), which finally sees him happily coming a lot closer to Salt Lake City, not too far removed from Pirate O’s, though, naturally, with quite a lot more sauces.

Hot Ones Sauce(s) Mini-Reviews

Hot Ones Boneless Chicken Bites Sauces

This package, along with a bunch of particle chicken sponge balls, also had the Heatonist-exclusive Hot Ones sauces you see pictured. The Los Calientes will not be reviewed at all, since it contains onions. The other two did not contain enough sauce for a full review, so I'm getting them in here. The Double Take Scotch Bonnet Mustard hot sauce that I subbed in for the Los Calientes (see video link) will get its own full review, which can be found via the Table Of Contents link to the right.

Support video for the two sauces listed below available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fTAd-8Er2U

Hot Ones The Classic Hot Sauce

Note: This sauce appears on Seasons 7 - 11, 14, 15, 17 of The Hot Ones

The lowest heat level of the Hot Ones sauces to be on the show, this one pairs apple cider vinegar with more vinegar, which makes for a quite astringent and somewhat sour sauce. The apple cider vinegar flavor tends to be the dominant one here, with echoes of garlic and turmeric intermittently. It is also a very runny, watery sauce and not one I'm too inclined to chase after in the future.

Hot Ones The Last Dab Apollo Hot Sauce

Note: This sauce appears on Seasons 13 - 21 of The Hot Ones.

The latest and greatest of the final hot sauce entries on the Hot Ones show, at least to this point, this one contains the Apollo pepper, with vinegar, Apollo pepper powder, and Apollo pepper distillate, which I'm taking as a pepper reduction rather than extract, though I readily admit I could be wrong on that stance. It is definitely a superhot and many of the superhot attributes are there. This one is hot initially, but has a build before it gets quite to blazing. The taste is rather bitter and slightly flowery, perhaps reminiscent of the Fatalii. While very hot and best avoided if not an experienced chilehead, it is not hammering me like the Reaper or high doses of extract have done in the past. This was a lot less worse than I was expecting. Most of the superhots are not good just by themselves and this one is no exception, which makes it less than likely that I will be repeating this sauce, either, though as far as sauces in the 10 slot on the show, this is probably my favorite so far.

Z's Mustard Hot Sauce

Z's Original Mustard Hot Sauce

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn3KS1lnHTc

I was casting around for some mustards for grill season to make some FOH videos, as I did in 2021, and had this on the list, but once I got the bottle, I noticed it was labeled as a hot sauce. This renders it as unsuitable for that particular playlist I'm in process of building, but does work for the blog. I must admit to some confusion around Z's labels in that both this one and the TWANG (reviewed elsewhere here) both use the word "Original," as moniker, this one on the label (although the website refers to it as a mustard - it also states that are too many potential uses of this product to mention, which is a no-no), the other not on the actual bottle label, but on the website. I think it would be better to make everything consistent and drop the word for both sauces. This one, in fact, should probably be renamed.

I am unclear on the motivation of sauce companies, not just Z's, to refer to what are clearly hot mustards as hot sauces. To my mind, they are very separate and distinct things and pretty far from interchangeable. I also find that one precludes the other. If you are to use mustard in a hot sauce, it should be primarily a hot sauce, in other words, hot sauce first. Just making a mustard hotter than normal does not make it a hot sauce, but rather a spicier mustard. Mustards tend to have much narrower applications than do hot sauces. I mean, I get that they're trying for greater coverage, with the goal of selling more product, but it strikes me as a real world version of clickbait.

That aside, it also creates a bit of a dilemma specific to me. This is basically a spicier yellow mustard. However, with the words "hot sauce" on the label, I feel I have to accept the manufacturer's designation for their own product and view it in that light. To be frank, while I do enjoy this as a spicy yellow mustard, particularly with the addition of the Fresnos, a pepper I find myself enjoying more and more, it makes a poor-at-best hot sauce. This is a hot sauce blog, which means the things on it are going to be treated as hot sauces. Unfortunately, this is going to impact the rating of this somewhat. 

In terms of actual flavor, it more closely follows your standard yellow mustard, which I imagine everyone is familiar with. There are both Serrano and Habanero to compliment and accompany the Fresno, which add a splash of wonderful pepper flavor, along with a touch of heat, though this is pretty far from blazing. While it won't challenge any chileheads, it may be a bit surprising to non-chileheads. There is also garlic in the mix, though it does not appear particularly strongly in the profile. As a mustard, it's pretty enjoyable. 

Bottom line: Taken as a straight mustard, as long as you enjoy the yellow mustards, you will also probably enjoy this. The rating below reflects its manufacturer designation as a hot sauce.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 2
            Flexibility: 3
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 3

Sea Monster Danger Berry Hot Sauce Review

Sea Monster Danger Berry

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b38tQida6A

I must have looked at this every single time I wandered by the BYT shelves, which has certainly been plenty over the years, and each time I kept passing it up because I was interested in other things or because the main pepper here, Habanero, has been something I've gradually gotten to appreciate. At times, I think I was also afraid it would be like a strawberry syrup and have a lot of very fake strawberry flavor. That flavor is not of interest to me particularly, but having found that I really like the combination of berries and beef, when looking for a fruit-based sweet-hot the other day, and since I could not recall another hot sauce I'd done with strawberries that far forward in the profile, I figured it was finally time.

Calling this a hot sauce is a bit wrong, I think. It certainly does pack a noticeable punch, but it clearly is angling more at being a dessert sauce. Either Habanero powder or extract or both is the heat source here, rather than the peppers themselves, which is kind of a shame. It takes a lot of agitation or you get a blast of unpleasant bitterness along with the heat. As you might expect, this works better if you put it on something with a higher sugar content. So, ice cream, cheesecake, pie, all things where the bitterness is masked and it works wonderfully. On the aforementioned beef, such as burgers, and on chicken strips and Dove chocolate, that masking was not there. 

The strawberry flavor is quite nice, something between Torani and a higher end preserves, with a consistency more towards the former. It does not like to stay suspended, so must be agitated frequently. There is evidently some applesauce component as well, but it does not appear in the flavoring. This is a pretty interesting sauce, the only "hot sauce" in the Sea Monster stable (though there is also a BBQ and wing sauce as well), though, again much more of a dessert sauce than hot sauce. It would be interesting to see them make something more towards an actual hot sauce and just relabel this.

Bottom line: If you're needing something on the much sweeter side for desserts, this is a pretty good bet, though unless you really like strawberries, it is decidedly not great in a lot of other applications, even with plenty of agitation.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 2
            Flavor: 8
            Flexibility: 4
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 5

Overall: 5

Hot Ones Brain Burner Hot Sauce Review

Hot Ones Brian Burner 

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaGHkCSkL-Q

This was a sauce I got in a 2020 birthday gift pack (which seems no longer available on the Heatonist website, as this sauce nor Constrictor) and have been woefully errant in getting to, but the three sauces, this, Eye Of The Scorpion (reviewed elsewhere here), and Constrictor (coming soon...ish?), did not have an ingredient profile that looked to be exciting to me. All of them (both this and Constrictor heavily feature Reapers) seemed of the type of sauce that was "hot just for the sake of heat," and since I'm flavor first above all, that was not a super appealing prospect. However, Eye Of The Scorpion was on the Hot Ones show (the others, as I understand, were intended for the Hot Ones Game Show), so that went first. That was not a sauce I was probably ever going to like, so no real surprise when I didn't. The other two then sat on the shelf and got passed over time and again in favor of other sauces. So, yes, still trying to finish out sauces I acquired in 2020, which is why I've really tried to put the clamps on further sauce hauls until I get the backlog down to something more manageable. 

Anyway, I wasn't expecting a lot out of this sauce and was shocked by a number of aspects. The first of which is the flavor. The ingredients, Reapers, Scotch Bonnets, vinegar, lime, and salt, did not give me a whole ton of clues, other than, with the superhots that far forward, that it would probably be hot. It definitely is that, but it is not the roaring blast fire I half expected. Often with superhots, you have a mere scintilla of flavor before the overwhelming heat overpowers everything, but here, the flavor (and sweetness) of the Reapers is on full display, which is quite a neat trick to pull off. The colors of both these peppers is mixed through the sauce, creating a wonderful hue, notably appealing. Back to flavor, you get the bitterness of the superhots, with a touch of the sweetness, combined with the deliciousness of Scotch Bonnets, without a mouthful of infernal combustion. On the backend is the lime, which I don't love and could definitely do without, but if you're making mixed drinks, for instance, this might be useful there. The lime is not obtrusive and just comes in the finish, which is interesting in that you wind up with flavor after the fact, not always the case in using superhots.

I understand this sauce was developed by Smokin' Ed Currie, generator of the Carolina Reaper, which stands to reason that if anyone knows that pepper and what it can do, it would be him. There are some minor facets I don't like, such as the tendency for this to clog in the neck a bit and the consistency is both runny and chunky, but I think this is meant to be small batch and some of that stuff comes a bit with the territory. One of the stranger aspects of this sauce is that it has solid, but not overwhelming mouth heat, and doesn't create a lot of the internal associated Reaper elements I've mentioned elsewhere, but it does, oddly, cause my head instantly to sweat whenever I eat it, something only the hotter sauces, which comes with an oral solar flare, tend to do. It's an aspect I find curious, I suppose, if not a bit mystifying. Still, the flavor works very nicely with a number of dishes, something I also wasn't wholly expecting, enough that I will happily finish out the bottle.

Bottom line: Very unexpectedly excellent sauce under the Hot Ones banner, definitely hot enough for it to be chileheads only and for those, best for those who favor either vinegar forward or sauces with lime. 

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 4
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 7

Overall: 6

Hank's Honey Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Hank Sauce Honey Habanero

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ThCNF9-W68

I must admit to some confusion with this sauce. There is something wrong with it and I can't quite put my finger on it. As fantastic as the Hank's Heat (SOTY contender, reviewed elsewhere on this site) was, this should have been that much better, combining, as it was, Habanero and honey, two ingredients that go together magically...if done right. I suppose that goes with all excellent combinations...has to be done correctly. The ingredients between the Heat and this are also quite close. 

The start of both (and apparently all of their sauces) is the Hank's Base, a sauce which I wish they would sell by itself. It is a Louisiana-style, probably Cayenne-based sauce, which is a bold choice to use as a platform for some of the other variations. From there, both have wine and garlic, though for this one, honey and Habanero are moved up in the ingredient list before those other two. After that, the Heat has Basil, while this one has olive oil, butter, cilantro, and more salt rounding out things. This should have been a creamier, sweeter, perhaps slightly hotter version of the Heat, but it is not. 

The actual heat of both is fairly minimal. This one is slightly hotter, but not egregious in heat even remotely. It, despite having other ingredients come before it, is intensely garlic-heavy and there is an underlying bitterness to it that I find baffling, and unpleasant. Instead of an upgrade to a SOTY contender, we have a significant and quite surprising downgrade. Is it the olive oil, possibly? I'm not a fan of that solo, but I find the taste of it generally to be fairly mild and there are far stronger flavors present. The butter? The cilantro, a flavor aspect which is as absent as the sweetness? I can't quite put my finger on it, after working through a good half of the bottle, which involves plenty of agitation before usage. I had initially thought that I might be seeing a repeat of last year with Gindo's, in which two of their sauces are competing for SOTY, and that everything they do is a magical wonderland, but nope. This is a pronounced and substantial fall from the Heat that I'm at a loss to entirely understand. 

Bottom line: This is a sauce that works best if used in things, preferably things that already have or are consistent with the use of either a Cajun or Louisiana-style sauce. By itself, the flavor deficiencies become more pronounced, but for those who prefer intensely garlic-heavy sauces, definitely worth a look.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 3
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 2

Overall: 2

Burns & McCoy Mango Habanero Hot Sauce Review

Burns & McCoy Mango Habanero

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ80us2fhks

Although I was familiar with Burns & McCoy from their fascinating and showy labels and fancily named sauces, my interest was mainly due to the sauce they had on the Hot Ones show, which has been on my list for some time (and remains so). Thus, while I was aware of their line-up, I didn't venture into it until Roger mentioned he was re-adding the line and I looked across the portfolio to see what new goodies might be there. Cue up a burning need for me to get another fruit-based sweet hot and it was providence...or coincidence...one of the "ences" anyway.

Looking at the ingredient label, my first impression was that the sauce included pineapple, which seemed an interesting idea to me, namely to take things that were combined with Habanero in sauces, such as mango, pineapple, honey, and carrot, and combine them all into a sort of supersauce. That is not quite the reality here, as there is not pineapple, but there is sweet potato, which changes the sauce in a really unusual and intriguing way. It serves here as thickener, color agent, and adds a flavor tone that only root vegetables seem to do. Carrots add those notes also, but to a much lesser extent. Both have a slight inherent sweetness, but neither carries a great sweetness charge.

The texture reminds me a bit of using corn starch, just without the accompanying gloppy gelatin-y nature that that ingredient tends to provide to sauces, particularly when they're cold. This one is nicely smooth and creamy. The mango comes through well, again, not particularly sweet, but there is no mistaking they meant for this to be mango-flavored. For the sweet, there is orange juice and honey, but neither are in sufficient enough quantities for this to be quite all the way to the usual sticky sweetness of fruit-based sweet hots. It does stick very nicely to food, though, and the sort of heavier flow nature of it tends to keep it in place.

Despite the usage of Habanero, heat-wise, this is fairly minimal. Peppers come into play somewhat later in the ingredient list and don't really factor much into flavor. The heat is enough to let one know it is meant to be an actual hot sauce, but it is overall rather tame and mild. It is overall quite a fascinating sauce. I can't say it is my favorite mango Habanero or even a good example of that sauce type, but it covers a pretty broad spectrum of uses with those (for sauces) novel ingredients and I must say it's remarkable.

Bottom line: This is a sauce that has grown on me and my impression is steadily improving. Very nice introduction to the Burns & McCoy line, but not a great introduction to mango Habanero sauces. If you're familiar with those others, this is definitely one to get on the list to try, though.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 7
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 8

Overall: 6

Hellfire Gourmet Red Hot Sauce Review

Hellfire Gourmet Red

Note: This sauce was provided for purposes of review by Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue. Check him out on Facebook or, better yet, head on over to his new online outlet where you can shop the widest selection available anywhere, www.burnyourtongueonline.com.

Note: Support video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sVo5qnXWR0

Hellfire sauces have been kind of a mixed bag for me. For a number, they're fantastic, great, and wonderful, yet for others, I wind up being confused and would rather have something else. This one, after working my way through one of the most awful labels I've come across (foil and tiny text are..not so great), and finding there was no banned ingredients, struck me as possibly something akin to an everyday-style sauce. What I found once I got into it was anything but.

This is perhaps best considered a kitchen sink sauce, as there are at least a couple dozen ingredients in it, possibly more. At times, this can be good, as the sauce will nicely fit into many taste styles at once, but what happens here is that the various flavors of the sauce blend in nicely with various foods, leaving the remaining ingredients to hang out and clash. By itself, it is a pretty unique flavor, but that winds up putting it more in the category I've mentioned before of having "interesting" or "intriguing" working against usage of the sauce.

It starts with red Jalapenos, always a nice start for any everyday sauce, then goes to tomatillos, so an everyday sauce with perhaps a Mexican-flavor lean. Tomatoes, Cayenne, chili powder, cumin, cilantro, garlic, maybe now a much harder push towards a Mexican-style sauce...except then we have curry powder and coriander, which add some rather strong flavor notes that push off into different waters. 

I tested this extensively on Mexican-style foods, from tacos to carnitas, and the ingredients that blend well with that style did nicely, leaving the other ones hanging out that did not and bringing them more to the fore. I also tried this with eggs, chicken strips, and quite a few other foods, trying to find something that would click, but most of them wound up with a huge cumin read, a flavor I'm not a big fan of coming through prominently, particularly. It's a sauce without an identity (I did see a suggestion on Amazon to try it on stir-fry, but that is not an intended food purpose that I've been able to come across), so it's somewhat of a lost sauce, out there in nowhereland. Heat-wise, there are not any hot peppers in the mix, so it's quite tame, with most of the impact coming from the spices.

Bottom line: I really had high hopes for this one, but the sauce is out of sync with my tastes and is another that seems to me confused...which is the down side of kitchen sink sauces, I guess.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 0
            Flavor: 3
            Flexibility: 2
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 0

Overall: 1

Thoughts on The Fiery Show 2022

The show was from March 4 through March 6, at the Sandia Resort & Casino in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but our story begins before that, on Sunday, February 27, when, unable to contain my excitement over a road trip any longer, I started packing (I was not planning on actually leaving until March 2). I guess if I'm being technical, it's maybe even before that, when my former employer observed that he was no longer able to pay me and for the second January in the last 3 years, I found myself without employment. Cue up Roger's Burn Your Tongue Facebook feed, which had a mention of this show at the exact right time, and it seemed like a great opportunity for a number of things, not the least of which was to visit both Santa Fe and Albuquerque, as the area had been on my list for over a decade. The stars didn't align before, but seemed to be now...anyway, ready and rarin' to go way early and naturally, the day before I was set to leave, I broke a tooth. I almost didn't go, but had enough hobby implements (I dabble in modeling) for me to sand and file down the high point enough for me to manage around it and undaunted (mostly), I set off south-ish for the horizon.

I had intentions of perhaps filming some video content for the  FOH series, or maybe just picking up some items and doing a haul-type video of the show, but it was not as all made in the heavens as it seemed. I initially wrote to all of the contacts for the show, to ask what the policy was regarding cameras and filming. No response at all. Tickets were only $15.50 at the door, so I wasn't super worried about that, but I didn't want to get booted for having a camera and shooting footage. Since I had no response, I left the camera (and later kicked myself for not bringing the FOH get-up, as I found some items in restaurants that I would have liked to have shot) and went incognito, normally dressed, just behind my KN-95, as usual. Absent the handcam, I had intentions of taking some shots of the booths. The reason none of them appear in this post we will get to shortly.

If the drive down was wonderful (it mostly was, aside from the stretch along I-64, which was offensively stupid), then the return trip back was magnificent and glorious. It never fails to amaze me how stunning the same sites can be when approaching them from different directions (there is a section of I-15 that goes through the canyon south of St. George that never fails to get me also). Sometimes you can grow used to the beauty all around you, but road trips are great at refreshing your perspective. This one definitely did for me.That aside, there is no good route to Albuquerque from Salt Lake and it's a trip that turns 7 hours into easily 10. I also went through several snowstorms on the return trip, which points up another issue with the show itself.

I guess I probably won't have a better lead-in than that, but I found the show to be rather frustrating. It was cool to see so many industry titans milling around, but most of the vendors are there to sell stuff. That's fine, but the problem comes either with the organizers or the venues not allowing sufficient space to do that. I don't know which to blame, but the complete lack of signage was...incredible to me. That is probably the fault of the casino, which, incidentally, is the first time I have ever seen this lack for a major show, but it ties in somewhat to the folly tally. The narrow aisles create instant bottlenecks, with even a modicum of people, and just let someone bring in a stroller...or a wheelchair and it's instant magnification. The security was wanding everyone, which is fine, but then the cash ticket booths were right next to one of the larger booths, which means, again, bottleneck. This was less of a problem Friday night, as attendance was solid, but not pronounced. I went there Saturday, after a reasonable amount of time to let the line go down, and found a good 200 - 300 people in the queue to get wanded and that line was not moving. If you didn't have a ticket, then it was a longer wait to get to the booths and it was cash only. 

So, here's the problem for me. There was 120-ish booths, give or take. There were over 30 that were either non-food related at all or not relevant to either spicy food or BBQ, ostensibly what this show as about. That left 90 potential booths, total. I will say, to the good, that the show program was very nice and one of the better ones I've seen, so kudos there. Thanks to that excellent program, while I was hoping for a lot more snacky type stuff, of that total number of booths, I had narrowed it down to 10 that I wanted to revisit and maybe (probably) buy some stuff. Most of the sellers I had interest in were stuff that Roger was stocking (and where I would normally get it anyway). Those other 10 were either lines he was not carrying or were ones I guessed he was not likely to pick up in the near future or for products that didn't seem like they would fit into his lineup. Now, if I'm going to pay $15.50 to get inside and then have to elbow people around to spend more money AND there's already 2 or 3 persons per booth in what seems a lot like a very close-quarter superspreader event, this seems like a bad prospect, at best. I did not return to see it, but I understand they were turning folks away on Saturday, which is usually a bigtime no-no for a public event. This should not be what the vendors want and probably is not. 

I've been to a lot of trade shows, or conventions, most of which were larger than this, some of them far larger. I've even run a few myself (I'm available for consulting, if the show organizers want to reach out). It's easy to tell when a venue is accustomed to handling crowds and shows.  I understand this is a regular show, so how this could have happened is baffling to me. For shows in Vegas, for instance, there will either be metal detectors at the entrances with one gigantic ticket/lanyard will call area or several smaller ones. For this show, there was two wanding stations and two cash ticket windows. 

For a show like this, when you want people to loiter at the various booths, you have to give them room to do this. There needs to be room to maneuver and operate, not shoved in like sardines so you can sell more booth spaces. If you don't, people will skip booths rather than stand there. I've been to shows with 100K in attendance and have had less of a problem moving around. Ideally, there would have also been doors dedicated just to the show, and possibly a parking area, but maybe there are not regular shows at this casino. Whether there are or not, the timing of this show needs to be adjusted. Putting a show day on a Sunday, unless you're expecting largely local-only patronage, is also a huge mistake. While I had a lot of fun milling around the area and checking things out, choosing a time when you can have the driving vendors miss snowy weather would be a nice consideration. Ticketing absolutely has to change. Someone waits in line, finally gets wanded, asked if they have a ticket, and if no, then are directed to an ATM, where there may or may not be fees or a queue...not smart. 

Anyway, as for this show, maybe it's just me, but  as much as I want to support the industry, I've been to (and ran myself) so many shows that were well-run, that it takes a lot for me to deal with something like this, particularly on the heels of a pandemic that may  not be entirely over. It was nice to check Albuquerque and Santa Fe off the box and I don't regret the trip, but honestly, I don't see myself coming back for this again unless I can get a media pass. The lull when it's industry only, before the general public comes in seems to be the prime time and if that's in the cards, I'd make the drive (or maybe flight) again, but if not, then also not.

I expect (and hope) that all of the vendors had a good time and did well at the show and sold everything out, so as not to have to haul it back, and further hope that no one attending comes up sick as a result. For me, my first industry show (and first trip not only to the area, but through Moab, which I've always also had in the back of mind) was kind of a mixed bag, mostly positive for the trip overall, but less so for the show itself.