As ZestFest 2008 approaches, our thoughts go out to all the cool collectibles that are available. Not sure if these will be available there, but this cool one from Red-Eye Brand would be a cool one to add to your collection. Here is the info:

Redd-Eye Brand Collector’s Edition Hot Sauce - our very first: 210o

Limited number (18) still available, get yours today.

210 Collector’s Edition Hot Sauce in your own specially designed, numbered and signed bottle. Get yours today!

$7 Shipping is added per bottle

web site: www.redd-eye.com

$25.95 each bottle

Great story about yet another place to get your fix of hot sauces and other spicy foods, this one in Arkansas. Check out this story from the Joplin Globe:

Heat wave: Demand for hot sauces burns white hot, but pepper heads want some flavor too

By Dustin Shipman

For some it takes courage, for others a sense of adventure to take that first bite that they know will set the taste buds ablaze.

Your real pepper heads — connoisseurs of spicy flavors — probably have to look no farther than the kitchen cabinet for a specialty hot sauce to add some kick to a favorite dish.

Although pepper sauces have the reputation of simply being hot, most fans of pepper sauce agree that flavor is the most important part when picking a favorite.

Mel Shipley and his wife, Jan, cater to pepper heads with their business Silly Chili, 87 Spring St., in Eureka Springs, Ark.

“We specialize in hot-and-spicy anything,” Shipley said. “We carry hot and spicy barbecues, salsas, hot sauces, pickles and a lot more,” he said. “People come in here looking for hot and spicy things all the time.”

Click here to read the rest of the source article

I’m not sure what is going to be more surprising or pleasing to Joe about this post; that I actually wrote here for once, or his gift which I’m about to explain.

Dear Joe,

Buying gifts for you can be difficult. It’s not that I don’t know what you like. It’s simply hard to justify buying things with our taste when we’re still on a shoe string budget. We talked about this the other day when you asked me to wait to buy you that Zune you want. I think you’re actually going to be pleased that you did that.

Why am I posting this here? Well, your birthday gift this year is hot sauce. No, not just any hot sauce. It had to be special. It had to be something you’ve been wanting for a while. It had to be something on a wish list. Do you know the one I’m talking about yet?

On your Facebook wish list there is a bottle of hot sauce. Dave’s Insanity Special 2006 Holiday Edition. When I read that there are hardly any left I was skeptical, but I found out the hard way. There are not a whole lot left and most places online are selling them for $300+. We couldn’t swing that. I knew that. So I did what I thought should be done. I contacted Dave. I expressed my tale of woe and how much I wanted this to be a surprise for your birthday. I said I couldn’t afford the prices out there and did he know of any place I could get one for less. I waited.

I heard back from his office with some great news. Not only was one available, it was the one sitting on Dave’s desk which they were more than pleased to pass on for your birthday. It is #86 and apparently valued at over $500. Better yet, it is signed specifically to you. So, here you go, honey. Happy Birthday! She is waiting for you at home. I was going to wait until you got here to open it up and be surprised, but I thought reading about it here would be even better.

I love you!

P.S. No, it wasn’t free. But, it WAS less expensive than I could have gotten it elsewhere.

This is the first of many products we tried at the most recent Jungle Jim’s Weekend of Fire show, and one whose booth should have drawn more attention that it received. Kelly’s Classic Homestyle Hot and Spicy BBQ Sauce is in the classic mode of traditional red BBQ sauces, made with a tomato sauce base, along with other ingredients you see in a lot of mass-market BBQ sauces:

Ingredients: reconstituted tomato paste, sugar, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce (vinegar, molasses, corn syrup, water, salt, caramel color, sugar, spices, anchovies, and tamarind), mustard (water, ground mustard seed, vinegar, salt, and turmeric), molasses, natural hickory smoke flavor, modified corn starch, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, cayenne pepper, and other spices

First impression: Big eighteen-ounce bottle with a simply-stated label. Despite the words “hot & spicy” being emblazoned on the bottle, you’ll notice that cayenne pepper seems to be the only ingredient that fits the mold for that. Great smoky aroma and nearly perfect consistency for a BBQ sauce as it crawls from the bottle when poured. Going back to the ingredients, I take a great deal of pride in mentioning that this is one of the most wholesome set of ingredients for a BBQ sauce I’ve seen in quite a while. All the ingredients are easily pronounceable, natural, and lacking the usual set of preservatives and high fructose corn syrup that infects a great many sauces. For those who want an all-natural BBQ sauce, it doesn’t get much better than this. That, plus if you take a peek at the nutritional information…it’s pretty low-calorie and low-carb as well.
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First newspaper coverage of the Austin Hot Sauce Festival, courtesy of the Austin American-Statesman:

Hot Sauce Festival brings tears of happiness
Salmonella scare earlier this year fails to dampen attendance, enthusiasm.

By Tony Plohetski
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, August 25, 2008

First, there was the salmonella outbreak in June that officials initially suspected was linked to tomatoes. Then, earlier this month came the news that the bacteria had been traced to certain kinds of peppers.

For weeks, organizers of the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival wondered if their event was doomed.

On Sunday, they got their answer: a resounding “no.”

Instead, nearly 30 hot sauce and salsa makers showed up before dawn. By noon, they had given out countless samples.

Thousands of tasters shuffled from booth to booth, sharing opinions about their preferred sauce. And the number of people who entered the sauce-making contest rose from about 400 last year to 600 this year.

“It doesn’t seem to have turned anyone away,” event organizer Elizabeth Derczo said as she looked out over the crowd from a Waterloo Park hillside.

Click here to the read the rest of the source article

Whooda thunk that you would find some groovy-lookin’, fine-tastin’ Texas-style hot sauce in the great state of…uh…Michigan? Check out this cool article from Mlive.com for a neat story:

Texas Traditions Hot Sauce Factory turns up heat
by Erin Albanese | The Grand Rapids Press
Monday August 18, 2008, 6:16 AM

BYRON TOWNSHIP — Byron Center isn’t the “Southwest” typically thought of when it comes to a hot sauce factory, but a Texas recipe is tempting local taste buds.

Former Texan Frank Isham, who lives in Byron Township, brought his secret family recipe to the shelves of Texas Traditions Hot Sauce Factory, which opened July 26.

His son, Garrett Isham, 19, is a partner in the business and managing the restaurant.

On site, they make and package the 49-year-old secret recipe developed by Frank’s father-in-law, Dale Toepperwein. The complex blend of ingredients is available in 16-ounce jars of Tangy Mild and Zesty Hot.

“We’re three generations of hot-sauce makers,” Frank Isham said.

Click here to read the rest of the source article

It’s once again getting close to all of our family birthdays over the next 2 weeks, so we’re escaping the friendly confines of central Ohio to take both a few days off combined with a job interview for Joe. Since Joe will be finishing his Anesthesiology residency in June 2009, we’ve been actively pursuing different job opportunities both here in Ohio and in the rest of the country. Our next interview stop is Sandusky, Ohio, home to the fabulous Cedar Point amusement park. We will luxuriate at Cedar Point today, then do the interview thang tomorrow and tour the area as well. We’re even having our housing provided while we’re there at a Great Wolf Lodge, which looks pretty amazing in itself. Our postings may be scarce over the next few days, but we’ll be back at it again this weekend. See ya!

Continuing with the Australia in a Box series, we come back to Ol’ Stillmanz. I have in front of me, two very small containers of his sauces. Let’s give them a try shall we?

Ol’s Stillmanz Nagas of War Ingredients: Nagas, tomato paste, salt, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, lime juice.

Ol’s Stillmanz Naga Fatalii Sambal Ingredients: Nagas, Fataliis, salt, jerk seasoning, apple cider vinegar, lime juice, brown sugar

» Continue Reading

Blair hasn’t been setting any land-speed records with a bevy of new products, but he sure has done a bang-up job on packaging of his tried & true hot sauce products. Colorful and distinct, each of his new sauces now has its own unique box for those who want to see it look good upon a display (or sales) shelf. Noteworthy in the picture is Blair’s new Zakk Wylde hot sauces, due to come out soon. No word yet as to when those Zakk Wylde sauces will hit the market, nor when any of the signed guitar promotion/contest will start, but we’ll publish that info as soon as it’s available. Stay tuned!!

Check out Blair’s products at Extremefood.com.

Well folks, we have a contest winner! Drum roll, please…

The winning caption as chosen by our celebrity judge was that from Jim Campbell, who quipped:

Joe awards the first place prize to the star center from the Special Olympics basketball team. He tells him it goes great on Mac & cheese…..

Jim wins a bottle of rum from Vietnam with a real King cobra eating a Green snake inside, 1- proto label of banned from the HSB, 1- HWL.com bumper sticker, 1- miller lite shot glass, 2- miller lite coasters and 1 miller-lite magnet.

Congrats, Jim! Big thanks to Blane of Headwinderlicker.com for his generous donation of prizes for this as well.

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