2024 Q2 Update

2K24 Q2 Update

Not going to be chit-chatting too much about the blog this time around, as most of the comments are to the YouTube FOH video series, including one major change that will be taking place hopefully by August sometime, but might be into September. Don’t worry about missing it; if you’re watching, you’ll see it when it happens.

Speaking of the series, here’s an update to the list of forthcoming FOH special event postings:

July 4 - Independence Day
July 5 - National Jam Day
July 11 - You'll see
July 27 - Cowboy Day
August 6 - National Mustard Day
Aug 17 - National Honey Bee Day
Sept 2 - Labor Day
Sept 3 - National Rice Month
Sept 18 - National Cheeseburger Day
Sept 23 - National Snack (Meat) Stick Day
Oct 21 - National Worm Day
Oct 28  - National Chocolate Day
Oct 31 - Diablo Trick Or Treat Double Feature
Nov 14 - National Pickle Day
Dec 4 - National Cookie Day
Dec 17 - National Maple Syrup Day

When I got COVID-19 in January of this year, I figured it might spike my blog posting a bit, but at the end of Q1, I was at 25 posts, which would put me on pace for 100 posts for the year, which would be the highest ever for the blog. I talk a lot of about dialing back, but I suppose that bears raising the question of do I actually know what that means. By the end of this quarter, Q2, I was at a slightly more reasonable 45 posts overall, including this one, which is pacing for 90, which would be the 2nd highest year, so I guess we will see...

That aside, this is one of my few remaining sources of great joy and I have a lot of fun doing both the blog and the FOH content and have a pretty good rhythm going between those two behind the scenes. Also, tying it in with food and delicious sauces allows me to explore the culinary world in a way I didn’t expect, but am overall quite enjoying, by which I mean more specifically me attempting various dishes I might otherwise not (and some of these wind up appearing in the FOH video series, so do check it out, if you’re interested). I suppose you could say that the enshittificaiton of fast food and restaurants and gouging of various corporations is forcing the issue and I wouldn’t argue a bit. In that case, it’s maybe more lemons into lemonada.

Turning from the state of “hot” commercial offerings, for this update, I thought it might be interesting to take a look, since I haven’t done this for a bit, at which sauce companies show up most on the blog. The last time I did this was in September of 2022, when I did my TSAAF At 10 Years post. At current posting, there are 476 full reviews on the blog, so the quantities below are out of that total number. I’m going to expand on the commentary in that September 2022 post and make a proper top 10 of the most represented sauce companies on the blog, which will probably fairly closely mirror, in terms of count, the breakdown of videos posted on the FOH YT series. All of these are linked together and you can go to the super-handy TOC, where the sauces are sorted alphabetically (mostly) by sauce maker/brand name. For this list, this is for full reviews only (if I included Mini-Reviews, this would change the count somewhat - maybe I will make a list including those someday), wherein I rate them. I’m not going to get into the whims and whys of these, at least not this time, so this is more a reflection of data compilation. The structure will go as follows: Rank #, Sauce Maker, [# of written full reviews] (FOH YT videos posted currently)

1. CaJohn’s* [21] (19 videos posted)
2. Angry Goat [19] (all videos posted)
3. Hellfire [15] (12 videos posted)
4. Silk City [14] (all videos posted)
5. Pex [8] (7 videos posted)
6 - 10 (tie) Bravado [7] (4 videos posted)
Karma* [7] (all videos posted)
Puckerbutt* [7] (all videos posted)
Torchbearer [7] (5 videos posted)

* = number is not reflective of any sub-lines, such as vanity sauces, co-packed sauces, etc.

As far as this list goes, I’ll probably return to it once I “finish,” as in review all of the sauces I have interest in from the various companies, but I currently only have 1 more sauce each from CaJohn’s, Angry Goat, and Karma that I have in mind to get to. Hellfire, Silk City (for now), Bravado, Pex, and Torchbearer are all caught up entirely, while Puckerbutt has a few more forthcoming, so there will be shuffling of this list somewhat. I can’t think of any sauce companies on the list wherein I’ve reviewed the totality of their lineup, but with sauces coming and going a lot, even if there was, it would likely only be temporary.

Turning now to The Hot Ones project, the juggernaut rolls on. Season 23 was posted last quarter and Season 24 this quarter. I wrapped up a couple seasons in there, narrowing the list somewhat. I’m having trouble finding sauces out in the wild that I’m missing for a couple of the earlier seasons, so if that continues, I will probably  move those sauces to the discontinued setting for the end of year update. As it is now, I mostly just have the later seasons with sauces outstanding...which will always be the case so long as the show stays in production. Once it concludes, I will do a separate post with way too much detail and cross reference into show position ranking everything, but for now, you can check out a cool Top 10 list from a dude by name of Chris Whitehair at Flower City, who has a fuckton of other Top 10 lists on his site. Anyway, here’s the breakdown of the Hot Ones show sauces as it stands now:

The seasons with sauces outstanding are:


Season 5 - 1 remaining
Season 9 - 1 remaining
Season 11 - 1 remaining
Season 12 - 1 remaining
Season 13 - 1 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 18 - 1 remaining
Season 19 - 2 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 20 - 2 remaining
Season 21 - 1 remaining
Season 22 - 3 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 23 - 3 remaining (1 at hand)
Season 24 - 2 remaining

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

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