TSAAF At 10 Years

10 Years Of TSAAF

Let’s start with an announcement. In celebration of the decade anniversary of this blog, for the next 10 Sundays, starting today, it will be double hot sauce FOH video postings

It’s pretty crazy to me to think that 10 years have gone by since I launched this blog. It definitely doesn’t seem that long. The first posting, and what I’m calling the official launch date was 09/11/12. 09/11, of course, is an infamous calendar date in the US since 2001. In hindsight, I probably should have moved the date, but I guess it is a measure of our success at returning to normalcy in the wake of that tragedy that it did not occur to me until well after the blog was up and running.

I originally meant this mainly, like the now defunct Happy Sippin’ Companion blog, to be a list to remind me of which sauces I liked and which I didn’t, especially so I didn’t re-buy sauces I didn’t like, and along the way also serve as a reference for anyone else who might be interested. The entire thing was fueled by getting a Ghost Pepper burger at Red Robin and wanting and needing an outlet to commentate on spicy things, or stabs at spicy things, which prompted me to poke around online and find there was a community of other writers, Scott Roberts being foremost. A few others, but not a ton, were doing something similar, but not exactly what I wanted. So, I did like many others before and after me; I set about to create something that catered more to me directly and specifically.

The first 1/4-ish year was a lot of fun. I was still trying to feel my way into the thing and really get a handle on what I wanted it to be. Again, in retrospect, I should have more properly dedicated myself to take a photo of each sauce, but I didn’t meant the blog to be entirely for public consumption...at first. I DID have clarity that I wanted it to be for hot sauces only, which it has remained throughout the entirety of its history.

That first year, partial though it was, saw a flurry of activity. I was actively going out and seeking new sauce avenues, beyond the only one I knew of at the time, which was Grove Market. Big Lots, for quite a while, did a great job of serving me up the two things I craved most then, namely variety and low prices. Over the years, this has changed a lot, from online to elsewhere, with it mostly resolving now to Burn Your Tongue first, then Pirate O’s more infrequently, then, if I can’t find what I’m after at either of those, I move it things online.

I didn’t have in mind any kind of posting regularity, just whenever I had a new sauce and had something to say about it, but there wound up being enough other stuff that I eventually added the quarterly updates. Things stayed pretty solid through 2015, aside from a brief dip in 2014, where I had cleaned out everything I could find locally and was struggling for a new source. Then, I hit the period of 2016 - 2018, where things really conspired against me. I was depressed thanks to a certain election, traveling a lot for work, and my then-wife going through yet another diet change and me perhaps being a bit burnt out got things to the point where this blog was flailing in a big way.

2018 was the lowest total of all, including the partial year, at 15 posts total, and 2019 looked like it was going to come in even lower. During 2019, I was feeling a lot like there was probably not much point in continuing on, as my motivation was at an all-time low and it just didn’t feel worth it. This is not an inexpensive hobby and with the prices of hot sauces on the rise, even though I enjoyed being a chilehead greatly, I was starting to think the blog had run its course. I was close to cashing it in then, putting it on hiatus as I did with the HSC, but then Roger Damptz of Burn Your Tongue stepped in with a timely intervention.

Ever in support of the local chilehead scene, he offered some comped sauces for review. The blog has never been a great draw, so I initially declined, as I didn’t think it was a fair exchange. After thinking a bit longer, and doing a bit of research, I coalesced around a concept I’d been considering for a while, namely adding videos. I had a structure in mind, which is almost always the first part of any project for me, and so I gratefully accepted his gracious offer, to launch the FOH series, which meant a video AND a written review on those sauces. It is not an understatement to say that Roger probably saved this blog.

Because of that, in 2019, at the very brink of TSAAF, the FOH video series was born. I meant that series to both be in support of the blog, as well as to branch out a bit on its own and finally cover all the spicy food that I didn’t on the blog, apart from asides on the quarterly update, and it has been an absolute joy to do those, as well as injecting new life into the blog (as of the end of August, the highest year in terms of posting).

One of my favorite things here has been playing around with numbers (as I do in every year end recap), so let’s take a look at some of those (all numbers from this point current to this posting) for the life of the blog:

Postings by year:

2012 - 21 (12 sauce reviews)
2013 - 52 (47 sauce reviews)
2014 - 23 (17 sauce reviews)
2015 - 32 (26 sauce reviews)
2016 - 19 (15 sauce reviews)
2017 - 23 (18 sauce reviews)
2018 - 15 (12 sauce reviews)
2019 - 20 (17 sauce reviews)
2020 - 50 (45 sauce reviews)
2021 - 60 (56 sauce reviews)
2022 - 66 (61 sauce reviews)

This is the 381st posting for the blog. There are 326 sauces with full reviews, 38 mini-reviews, for 364 total, with 55% of the full reviews having FOH support videos (180 up on YouTube, link to playlist at right) posted.

Though it has changed somewhat since inception, as far as my own internal criteria vis-a-vis the scaling, here is the breakdown by final rating (percentages are rounded):

0 - 21 (6%)
1 - 22 (7%)
2 - 28 (8.5%)
3 - 39 (12%)
4 - 43 (13%)
4.5 - Average rating across all sauces (only full sauce reviews have ratings)
5 - 50 (15%)
6 - 53 (16%)
7 - 35 (11%)
8 - 28 (8.5%)
9 - 7 (2%)
10 - N/A

As we can see, overall, this more or less follows a very similar bell curve pattern, slightly skewed a bit in the middle, with 6 as the median point, a slight change to the last time I commented on this (quite some time ago now). There is no sauce with a perfect 10 rating, as the system in place was one I devised for that to be exceedingly difficult.

The overall highest rated year so far has been 2014 and the lowest 2021. Of course, 2022 is still incomplete, so that may change sometime after this post. The most represented sauce company, far and away, is CaJohn’s with 15, even with me doing zero of those sauces so far in 2022 (depending on if you’re counting the Alice Cooper sauce, which I am not here). Next closest is Silk City with 8 and Hellfire at 7, though those totals will also probably change before the end of the year.

Here is how the full list of years shook out, as far as final ratings:

2012 - 5.25
2013 - 4.29
2014 - 5.29
2015 - 4.31
2016 - 4.27
2017 - 4.58
2018 - 4.58
2019 - 4.75
2020 - 4.51
2021 - 4.09
2022 - 4.57

I’m also debating adding a new TOC based on overall rating for the sauces, so you can search by what is the highest or lowest rated. That undertaking is not a small amount of work, though, so it is staying a debate until I can assess demand for it. Honestly, views for the blog are, and have ever been, a bit streaky. So, if this is something you would like to see, please leave me a comment here, to this very post, and let me know to the affirmative.

As I mentioned in some of the FOH videos, I think we’re in the midst of another chilehead surge, which started in 2021, partially fueled by the continued roaring success of The Hot Ones show, which has really breathed a lot of new life into the industry. The breakdown of where I’m at on those sauces will be in the year end recap, but I’ve done quite a few of them and it definitely has made being a chilehead a lot more exciting. I’m still pretty pumped to be doing this, still having fun, and greatly enjoying branching out a bit more with the FOH series. I hope to keep doing this another 10 years...or even longer. Thanks again to Roger Damptz especially, but also to everyone else who’s ever stopped by and checked it out. I do appreciate it.