The New York City Hot Sauce Expo returns to Brooklyn this Saturday and Sunday. In addition to more than 40 hot sauce vendors, the event — now in its 13th year — will also feature craft beers, spicy food and plenty of eye-watering programming, from competitive eating competitions galore to a Tabasco cocktail demonstration and a “bobbing for reaper peppers” experience.
The Expo, which is arguably the nation’s preeminent hot sauce festival, is the brainchild of upstate-born Long Island resident and metalhead Steve Seabury. It all began in the early 2000s, when he started making and bringing around his own hot sauce to improve the “really crappy food” he was eating at “7-Eleven at 3 o’clock in the morning” while touring with bands. Then, when Live Nation partnered with him on his Metal Alliance Tour festival, he decided to small batch and sell his sauce as High River Sauces. It was a hit, and in 2011 the expo was born.
Ahead of this weekend’s heat-cranking event, Gothamist called up Seabury to discuss the state of the spice industry, regional heat tolerances and peppers. An edited and condensed version of the discussion is below:
A pizza eating contest.
Gothamist: How has the hot sauce scene changed since you started the Expo?
Seabury: You know, back in the day there were only a handful of hot sauce companies, and then maybe seven years ago it just exploded. I always make the joke that my grandmother's gonna start a hot sauce company because it just seems like every town has like 10 or more companies now. I love watching the growth and the amount of people in mainstream America that really gravitate towards spicy foods now. It's definitely become mainstream. The biggest trend I've noticed is, everywhere you go, you see more spicy options. I'm waiting for Cheerios to come up with a Ghost Pepper Cheerio. There's spicy everything now, from beer to chips to candies.
In addition to 13 years in New York, this will be your ninth year doing the Expo in Portland, Oregon, your seventh year in Chicago and your fourth year in Nashville. Where in America have you seen the highest spice tolerance?
I would say New York has the highest tolerance for heat out of all the festivals.
I’m surprised. I’d think it’d be Nashville.
I thought the same thing. All the hot chicken sandwiches and stuff. But no. They’re wussies down there.
I think everyone enjoys a certain degree of spice, but when you get to the super-hots people get really scared and they can't handle it. New York has grown into, I think, the capital of spicy food. I think it helps that we have so many different cultures of food here.
We do a Guinness World Record at our shows where we see how many reefer peppers you can eat in a minute. New York held that record for a long time. But two years ago, a gentleman in Portland beat that record. So they own it for eating the most reefer peppers in a minute. But I’d say overall, New York definitely has a higher tolerance for heat.
Anything you want to highlight about this year’s event?
We always invite the best hot sauce companies from around the country. Everyone wants to come to New York to show off the goods. You're gonna find companies that you've never even heard of before, stuff that you can't find anywhere. We have everything there from super mild to super hot.
We also have five eating competitions per day. The audience loves to see it. It's like watching a train crash. You can't turn your head. It's hilarious. We got the puke buckets there. People really push themselves. It's pandemonium.
The 13th NYC Hot Sauce Expo takes place on April 25 and 26 in Industry City. Tickets start at $15.
