2026 Q3 Update

2026 Q3 Update

Last quarter, I hit 700 posts for this blog and this quarter, 700 overall hot sauce reviews. I got a couple of backburner projects progressed and more or less caught up for 2026 and it was kind of nice to just relax and take in the moment, while also being able to focus a bit more on keeping my fridge door shelf that holds the open sauces in much better rotation. In early September, I also decided to add another playlist for the FOH series on YouTube, no, not the long-awaited ETK, though my thoughts are coalescing a bit more on that, but one I've been considering for a while, that of Spicy Popcorn. I try not to let the "Everything Else Spicy" playlist get too big and every time it starts to hover near 100, I try to break stuff out of it, which is how the last probably 2 or 3 playlists came about. It has been added to the right >>, as usual. 

Grill season was a very mixed bag this year. It started later than normal and at the end of August and into early September, we got both a chilly and windy streak that curtailed those activities considerably. As noted earlier, replacement of a part meant I had to sort of re-learn the eccentricities of my grill, but it coincided nicely with being on a bit of a burger streak. Given the idiocy with beef, mostly it was the bork, which is a combination of beef and pork the grocery store I frequent sells. I also had cole slaw a good fair bit, much more than usual. I usually have potato salad several times, but this year, by the time Labor Day rolled around, I was making it for only the second time on the year...

The plan that I left off with at the end of last year was working in full swing. The non-sauce FOH video backlog by July only extended into November, without the usual 4 day Thanksgiving swing I’ve done in years past, and more significantly did not include December. Now, both of those months were quite a while away, of course, and there might be more stuff popping up on the horizon, but in years past, my backlog of non-sauce FOH videos ran into 20+, even with running a four day Thanksgiving swing as well as the 12 Days Of Christmas I planned to run once and then ran again in prior years so as to try to keep it more manageable. While I will be doing the Thanskgiving run this year, the 12 Days thing, is not going to be happening. In fact, as it stands as I write this, I'm going to run out of non-sauce FOH content early 2027.

I would like to always have a backlog, as having a little cushion helps when I run across health issues or something else that might interfere with a regular schedule, but too much of a backlog for the FOH non-video stuff then created a backlog for the FOH hot sauce videos and rather compounded things. It very much was like a switch went off in my head at 1K videos, though, and I no longer feverishly scour to find new stuff. I still keep an eye, of course, given that I’m creating in that space, but it’s a lot more casual now. It also helps that specific cause that 2026 was a kind of chilehead lull as far as products being put out went…

I was formerly of the mindset that regular viewers would be “trained” to expect the FOH videos on Sundays and/or Fridays for hot sauces, and Wednesdays and/or Fridays for non-sauce content, but I have more than enough data to indicate that it is almost exclusively dependent on the product in the video. So, the plan, once I run out of non-sauce FOH videos, is to shift to Sunday/Thursday for hot sauces, since those are continuing at a fairly steady pace, although I am more planning, at this point, for that to take place sometime in Q1 2027. If hot sauce content itself winds up tapering, then it will probably go to just Sunday FOH video posting. This will then leave Thursdays open for stuff I want to post more timely, like the fast food stuff, if any, and I can temporarily back one of the Thursday videos to Wednesday to accommodate. I’ve been keeping the Hot Ones hot sauces on Fridays only, but the data again strongly seems to suggest that doesn’t matter.

Prior to the weird turn in August I mentioned, this quarter was burning hot temperatures, which didn't seem to cool off into something more pleasant at night, combined with that whole cyclospora thing, or things. While I don't have it...I don't think...as usual for summers, my appetite plunged off of a cliff and without much desire to have things to eat, there is a tapering of hot sauce consumption as well and my tolerance skidded pretty hard. I did manage to get another Archive sauce ticked off, though, which I'm pleased about, as well as clearing a bit more space for the Hot Ones project to potentially pick up slightly more for next quarter.

Of course, speaking of the Hot Ones, Season 31 dropped in September and it looks to have a lot of more Asian flavor orientation, which is cool. It's also added a few more to the hit list, which I will get more into for the EOY Q4 posting. It also looks like one of the more tamer seasons and one in which I've already covered 2 of the sauces, continuing my streak of having at least one sauce of every season covered. On an unrelated note, I also am getting the strong impression that the show is putting itself in pretty significant danger of being over-exposed with all the new stuff it keep churning out...