Best Hot Sauce 2022 + Recap

Best Hot Sauce 2022  + Recap

Before we get into the year in review proper, a little light housekeeping. My favorite sauce maker list has been revised (see Sauce Of The Year List link at right). I also added another YouTube FOH video playlist strictly for fast food and other restaurant spicy offerings I’ve done content on (link to that also on the right). YouTube has opened up the community tab, so I can (and do) make posts there. I’m on no other social media, so it makes it nice to be able to have another avenue to communicate. Please feel free to check those out, as I will be using it more in the future, but have already posted to promote the various upcoming themes and “events” for the FOH video series, as well as random commenting and even some pics here and there.

Sticking with YouTube for a moment, for the first theme in 2023, I will be kicking off some FOH YouTube videos more or less with the idea of “road to the Superbowl.” The videos for this will be posted on Saturdays in January and February leading up to the big game day, taking a look at some things (mostly hot wing-oriented) that might be of interest for chileheads or otherwise, and culminating with a very special cooking video the day before the event.

Additionally, starting January 2023, I will be posting a monthly archive sauce on one of the monthly Saturdays until I run out of archive sauces I want to cover. The more recent sauces from the blog will continue to be on Sundays.

I will also be releasing a new type of video, exclusive to the FOH series, that will be launching on Valentine’s Day 2023. Plans, right now, are for that series to be quarterly, but if there’s enough interest, I may expand that to higher frequency. The first video was very intensive in terms of planning and time, but I’m very excited about the series and think it will be a lot of fun.

Once the “road to the Super Bowl” related videos conclude, starting March 1, 2023, I will be making a significant change to the posting of content in the FOH series. I will comment on that more in the Q1 2023 update, but if you’re not subscribed to my YouTube channel (linkys on right) or watching my Community tab there, I invite you to do so, as I will be posting commentary on that update there as well.

Returning to the blog, for this year, by the end of Q2, 2022 was already in the top 3 years as far as posting, by the end of August, it was past everything else, with more sauce reviews alone than any other year had posts total and more than some of the years combined. In fact, August 2022 itself was the highest ever month in terms of post count. In November, it went skating past 400 posts total, to finish with, as of this post, 410 total. I also wound up hitting 300 sauces with full reviews in Q2. There was some internal thought by me that I might wind up closing in on 100 posts for the year, which I never dreamed would happen, as that’s 90+ sauces minimum, which means cycling through an entire bottle of sauce every 3 - 4 days. I don’t use hot sauce every single meal, so that would be flying through it at a pretty crazy level. As nutty as that is to me, it pales a bit when I consider that the FOH video series, in slightly over 3 years, has nearly as many postings as the blog does in slightly over 10 years. 2023, in fact, if it hasn’t already, will see the FOH series overtake TSAAF in terms of postings.

I also finally managed to finally achieved my stated goal from years past of having a FOH support video for every single sauce that got a full review in the blog for this calendar year. My new soft goal is to have no more than a calendar quarter in terms of backlog in the can for the FOH series, in both sauce and non-sauce content...it sounds odd to have a goal being to make less content, but I’ve been trying to dial back for all of this year, with moderate success. As fun as it is for me to make video content, with both an impetus for posting twice weekly, as well as the crazy big backlog, it cuts down on the spontaneity and being able to nimbly react to things like cross promotions in the chilehead food sphere, at least with also keeping consistency intact. I’ll get into this more later, but 2023 is definitely going to be seeing some changes to posting on the FOH side. The blog will continue more or less as it has all along.

I like to take a look back at the year, in terms of my ideas vs. actuality. As it turned out, by the end of Q1 2022 (and this is with me also deliberately trying to slow the pace), I was already producing non-sauce FOH video content well into 2023. I was running at least 2 months ahead for the start of the year, which wound up being closer to 6+ months ahead by the end of Q2. I was producing content way faster than the (self-imposed) demands of posting, which kind of ruins the immediacy a bit, but is kind of sort of a good problem to have, since I could just sprinkle in newer stuff as needed, and do holiday-oriented special postings. So, some of the plans I made in 2021 for 2022 are still there, largely untouched for 2023. Hopefully that will go more smoothly then.

I did, happily, get in a lot more cooking for 2022, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but the running ahead on the non-sauce side was such that I did not post all of the 2021 content in 2022, let alone the 2022 content. The rest of the non-sauce 2021 content will be posted through January 2023, which is a bit too far out. Right now, I still have enough content, at the current rate of posting, to cover roughly half of 2023, both sauce and non-sauce varities.

On the sauce side, I wiped out my entire current backload in September for the tenth anniversary double-Sunday postings I did, took it all the way to zero, and now...am still running way ahead...again. As mentioned, stay tuned to the YouTube Community posts I do, as any announcement to that point will show up there first, probably, and one will be coming at the conclusion of the Super Bowl event-related stuff.

With the data I have from the 3 years and change of the YouTube FOH series, everything, views, watch time, interest, etc., seems largely contingent on the subject of the video. This means a few things. Frequency (and/or day) of posting matters less and there is no indication that I have a lot of viewers tuned in to see what I post next. Further, there does not seem to be a great deal of corresponding pull-through to other videos. I’m still considering what to do with that info, but there will almost certainly be changes in store.

My agonizing over when I would not be able to continue the non-sauce content I’ve been doing  for most of the FOH series has been alleviated. I keep banging on about the non-sauce content, but of the top 10 FOH videos, only two(!) are for hot sauces. So, there is a lot of incentive to keep producing non-sauce content as long as I can. The wave of spicy-oriented food in both 2021 and 2022 struck pretty hard and products are a lot more prodigious than previously. I do expect to be caught up with that in 2023, though, one way or the other, as there are still way more hot sauces than other types of non-sauce stuff that I find interesting enough to film.

I will also be doing mustards again next year (I  have 4 of the entire 6 month grill season already covered, and have 1 of the remaining 2 months ready and waiting), but right now, don’t plan to continue timing the posts around the season for 2024. I may pick up on BBQ sauces then, but we’re still a ways out, obviously. I also have tentative plans for a limited run FOH series that may also launch next year. This is in addition to the quarterly one I mentioned earlier. It is not particularly close to launch, however, and may not happen.

There is also another big, major change for the FOH videos I have currently as a soft goal, but want to move towards as soon as practicable, and about which I will say no more until I get a lot closer...let’s just leave it at keep your eyes on both the quarterly updates here and the YouTube community posts for the channel, as it will definitely need (and get) a lead-in, well before it happens.

I really turned the dial over on sauces from The Hot Ones in 2022 as well, covering a lot more ground than I had anticipated. I also modified the page a bit to make it easier to track my progress through the seasons. I’m definitely in good shape to get much closer to caught up in 2023.

Once again, here is the priority order for the remaining sauces, updated to reflect what’s left:

1) Sauces I’m interested in, that I have not done a written full review on, that I can get locally, via one of the Burn Your Tongue locations or Pirate O’s or Grove.
2) Sauces I’m interested in, that I have not done a written full review on, that I can get reasonably easily online.
3) Sauces I’m interested in, that I have not done a written full review on, that I can only get via The Heatonist.
4) Torchbearer Zombie Apocalypse
5) Sauces I have done a written mini-review on.

Category 4 has been changed to reflect what is left, which is a single sauce. Categories 1 is very low. I think I’ve nearly exhausted those various sources, though sauces on shelves rotate a lot, so I don’t have a fix on the exact number. 2 is also fairly low, given how Heatonist likes to keep things close to the vest, unless I feel like overpaying on Amazon. Heatonist also does a really nice job of not having everything in stock all the time, so I may run them out before sources elsewhere online. That leaves Category 5, which is a low enough priority that I’m still not sure I will be doing it at all. Part of this has to do with the changeover of those sauces from a Mini-Review into a full review, a prospect of which I’m not sure I have interest.   

I did a more intensive breakdown for the 2022 Q2 Update, and then re-updated the availability section when I went back through and added Season 19, so let’s take a look at some refreshed numbers there, to account for the new season, as well as which sauces are available:

There were 18 seasons the last time I took a look at remaining hot ones sauces. Season 19 was added in the interim and Heatonist also brought back a sauce, which unfinished Season 5. From this point, I think I’m just going to refer to what’s left as far as individual sauces and you can check out the Hot Ones Sauces TOC (link at right) for what’s already been done. I have fully covered 8 seasons of 19.

The seasons with sauces outstanding are as follows:

Season 5 - 1 remaining
Season 6 - 1 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 9 - 3 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 10 - 2 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 11 - 3 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 12 - 4 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 13 - 4 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 14 - 2 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 16 - 1 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 18 - 3 remaining (2 at hand)
Season 19 - 5 remaining (2 at hand)

I should talk about the slots a bit. These are the sauces remaining, by slot position on the show:

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

Rather interesting how that broke out, but to be also expected, as the earlier sauces tend to also be the less expensive and some of the others are frankly wildly out of hand as far as pricing. #8 and #10 being so low is due mainly to repetition on the show with the same sauce filling those respective slots over several seasons.

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

Total posts (including this post): 410
Total views (as of this writing): ~35,150
Total sauces full reviewed: 354
Average rating, all full review sauces: 4.55
Total mini-sauce reviews: 44
Total sauces reviewed, combined: 398
Total full review sauces with FOH video content: 211
Highest viewed review: 1,763 - Private Selection Mango Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce
Highest viewed article, any type: 1,763 - Private Selection Mango Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce

This brings us to the SOTY deliberations for this year. Since an overall score of 10 is, by design, virtually impossible for any sauce to achieve, a 9 is usually as high as these go. For a span in there, it wound up being 8s, due to me doing fewer sauces overall, hence the absence of 9s. This year, right out of the gate, it started strong with a couple of 8s, but their hold proved to be short-lived as the eventual winner of this year emerged in April with a strong 9 and became the immediate front runner, a position it never relinquished.

The list of 8s in 2023 was pretty considerable. We had the Tonguespank Rye Whisky Reaper, the Hank’s Heat, the Hank Linger, Burns & McCoy’s Exhorresco, Silk City’s Erotic Fever and their Pull Over, and the Hatari Acid Rain Ghost, all of which would have been duking it out in an otherwise highly competitive year, but its combination of heat and deliciousness, which was both great and unexpected, proved too much to overcome as this year’s winner, the Hellboy Legendary AF sauce from Hellfire cruised to Sauce Of The Year 2022.

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

If you want to read more from me, check out my wine about blog, the Happy Sippin’ Companion (HSC). It has been put on inactive status as of 2019, with no plans to resurrect it, but still remains up for viewing (link also on right).

I also slug away on Yelp, which you can click to from my widget. I’m, as might be expected, still off the pace for 2022, though I do not realistically expect it to change anytime soon. My distribution of ratings and further metrics are available on my Yelp profile page.

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 of any of the reviews or videos.