2nd Annual NYC Hot Sauce Expo

2014 NYC Hot Sauce Expo poster

Building on the success and momentum of last year’s Expo, Steve Seabury of High River Sauces is working very hard to elevate his baby to a whole new level. From last year’s outdoor event in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to the indoor confines of the Penn Plaza Pavilion right next to the infamous Penn Station in New York City. With a bigger venue, comes bigger expectations, but Steve Seabury seems up to the task with major spots lined up for the week. Highlighted by NBC Nightly News at 7pm on Thursday March 27 & CBS This Morning Show Saturday Morning at 8am. Pulling all his media connections together Steve has the print media, Radio and TV entertainment world covered. If you look at how well the first year went, then the 2nd year is bound to be an event for the ages.

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REVIEW: The Jerky Connection – The Reaper Beef Jerky

The Reaper

Fear the reaper has a new meaning, and it involves beef jerky. So far in the 4 previous beef jerky reviews for The Jerky Connection, we have had a common theme with our team in their feedback, and that this beef jerky has awesome texture. There are a lot of jerky out that that are too chewy or disintegrates like cotton candy when it meets saliva. It is hard to get the right balance of chewiness along with flavor. Of course, we also want it spicy. The Jerky Connection looks to be delivering all 3 with The Reaper. Using the Carolina Reaper’s heat, they also have other chile peppers featuring Chipotle, Cayenne, Ghost Pepper, Trinidad Scorpion, and 7 Pot peppers added in generous proportions. That is a lot of heat coming for you, so indeed fear this jerky. Will our review team be up for the task? You can also find out for yourselves if you are headed to the Houston Hot Sauce Festival. They will be in attendance this year at the show. So look for them and tell them you saw their reviews here on ILIS.

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REVIEW: The Jerky Connection – World Destruction Beef Jerky

This is our 4th of 5 beef jerky reviews for The Jerky Connection. We have steadily increased the heat on our reviewers, and after reading about this beef jerky on their website, I think we jumped quite a few notches from the previous Hillbilly Hangover. Here is what the website says about World Destruction:

“So here we are…the End is upon us! We figure if the world is going to end, you may as well numb your taste buds first with some scorching jerky.
A blend of Sriracha, Garlic, and Trinidad Scorpion, and the Carolina Reaper will mercifully numb the taste buds in this killer jerky, and rock your mouth’s world. A tasty marinade coupled with some destructive heat will make this jerky one of your favorite snacks to await the dreaded cosmic collision!
If it is going to happen, you may as well eat some jerky first!”

This one seems to be for the chilehead who wants to burn his face off. Before we get to see what happens to our poor review team – Steve “The Machine” Smallwood, Heynetboy & Dale Gilbert – feel free to browse the previous reviews to see why The Jerky Connection has won so many beef jerky awards across the industry.

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REVIEW: The Jerky Connection – Hillbilly Hangover Beef Jerky

hangover

We are moving onto our 3rd review out of 5 for The Jerky Connection. The first 2 got outstanding reviews, so I am counting on some more excellent reviews for this award winning beef jerky company. We keep hearing about how good the texture is with their beef jerky from all the reviewers. Once you can obtain that perfect jerky bite, then you just have to win over with the flavor, but half the battle is all ready won. To go back and watch the other 2 beef jerky products, please check out them below…

1- Teriyaki Habanero Beef Jerky
2- Insanity

Our viewers can use the coupon code LOVESPICE to get 20% off their first order. No expiration for residual sales. If you can not decide, please check out all the sampler combinations HERE including the Carnivore Candy Sampler, The 7 Gates of Hell Sampler and the Holy Crap! Sampler. Thanks Tony, for giving our loyal supporters something for trying your jerky out.

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REVIEW: The Jerky Connection – Insanity Beef Jerky

Insanity-Beef-Jerky1

This is our 2nd of 5 spicy beef jerky reviews for The Jerky Connection. In our first review, we did their Teriyaki Habanero Beef Jerky. Scoring two 4’s and one 4 1/2 out of a possible 5 flaming hearts in the reviews, this beef jerky is off to a great start. The only issue the reviewers had with the jerky was that it could have been a bit hotter. The Jerky Connection does aim to please, and they have Armageddon Teriyaki Beef Jerky that amps up the habanero version with some red savina pepper heat added. As for this Insanity Beef Jerky review, I do not think with all the wacky jerky names they sell on their website, that this Insanity is all but sane in comparison. The marinade to make this one consists of: Crushed red pepper, crushed black pepper, cayenne, habañero, Thai, and Chipotle. Compared to some of the other chiles they use, this should be a cake walk for our review team which consists of Steve “The Machine” Smallwood, Heynetboy, and Dale Gilbert.

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REVIEW: The Jerky Connection – Teriyaki Habanero Beef Jerky

Teriyaki-Habanero-Beef-Jerky

I am not too fond of jerky reviews because I am not allowed to eat any jerky because of my stomach surgery. So watching these videos and seeing the jerky makes me so so sad. It is torture I tell ya! Plus now I am on a low carb diet, and beef jerky would be something I could normally eat on such a diet. Double sadness for me. Beyond all my personal woes, I am happy to present some very happenin’ jerky. I love the names of The Jerky Connection products. We have 5 of their products to review, and while some like this Teriyaki Habanero beef jerky have normal names, you got to get a load of their other products on their website. Such hits as Louisiana Road Kill, Santa’s Flaming Sleigh Ride, Satan’s Flaming Hemorrhoids, and 7 Gates of Hell to name a few of my favorites. The 4 other beef jerky flavors in the order that we will be doing them in over the next 4 weeks is Insanity, Hillbilly Hangover, World Destruction and lastly we finish off with The Reaper.

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REVIEW: Hellfire Hot Sauce – Chilimaster’s Reserve

Chilimaster's Reserve

Much like the reviews we did last year for Hellfire Hot Sauce, we have another stellar 4 reviews. We finish off with perhaps the most unique of the Hellfire product line. Check out this ingredient list:
Chocolate Habanero, Scorpions, Jolokia, Naga, 7-Pot, Black Raspberries, Black Plums, Cherry Juice, Blueberries, Premium Chocolate, Maple Syrup, Honey, Vanilla Bean, Cinnamon, Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey, Black Death Vodka, Salt, Vinegar, and spices. What laboratory was that hatched in? That is a crazy combo for sure, but when you hear the review you will realize, that the mad scientist behind this sauce, is not as mad as one would first believe. Here are the previous successful reviews:

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REVIEW: Hellfire Hot Sauce – Evil Bastard Sauces’ Extreme Heat

Extreme Heat

This is the 3rd of 4 reviews we are doing for Hellfire Hot Sauce. The other 2 products had some of the hottest peppers in the world in it, and this one is no different. You can see the other reviews below by clicking onto each one. When you throw in the words “Extreme Heat” into the mix, well then I can imagine that this particular sauce just might be a tad spicier than the previous too. I am sure the review team will fill us in on the heat level. Our squad of reviewers for these reviews is Steve Chambers, Steve “The Machine” Smallwood, and Ryan Graub.

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REVIEW: Hellfire Hot Sauce – First Blood

First Blood

We are back with our 2nd of 4 reviews for Hellfire Hot Sauces. In the first reviews we held the spotlight in the award winning Devil’s Gold which you can see HERE. Much like the Devil’s Gold, this First Blood is out of stock at the moment on their website. These are limited edition hot sauces highlighting some super hot chile peppers. In this one the chiles listed are: Bhut Jolokia, 7-Pot, Naga Morich, Moruga & Trinidad Scorpions, Chocolate Habaneros, and 7-Pot Douglah. They round off the ingredient list with Sun Dried Heirloom Tomatoes, Heirloom Garlic, Lemon, Vinegar, Salt and Spices. So it is not all about the heat, but with the name Hellfire, you expect the sauce to be painful in some way. Our review team had to be a tough group to be able to take on these sauces, so we drew straws and this is who we got…Steve Chambers, Ryan Graub, and the one and only, he don’t need no stinkin’ straws, Steve “the Machine” Smallwood.

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REVIEW: Hellfire Hot Sauce – Devil’s Gold

Devil's Gold label

Hellfire’s Devil’s Gold won a 1st place Screaming Mi Mi Award at the 1st ever NYC Hot Sauce Expo for the Fruit Based Hot Sauce category. Not a bad way to start off with a limited edition hot sauce. For those that have not followed us last year, we have year end awards called the Lenny Awards. Hellfire Hot Sauce won for best product line for their reviews for 4 of their products – Evil Bastard, Devil’s Blend, Pure Hell and their Blueberry Hell. So I imagine they are looking to recreate the magic with 4 more hot sauces. This is the first, and we will post the other 3 hot sauces over the next 3 weeks. For these reviews we have Steve “The Machine” Smallwood out of Ohio, Ryan Graub from Missouri, and Steve Chambers from Maryland.

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REVIEW: Henry Family Farms – Yellow Fatali African Habanero Varietal Chile Extract

Yellow Fatalli African Habanero

Before you go on about what an extract means to you, you better think twice about this product. Brought to you from journalist, television personality, and cookbook author, David Rosengarten. You can read a little more about him below in the “A Little About” section. Lets just say he knows a little about food and flavor. His take on what an extract is would be completely different than what we think it is in our chile community. Chile Extract in our world is pure capsaicin, pure heat of the pepper. What this sauce and the other chile extract sauce we will be reviewing next week are chile pepper purees with some little extra flavor to bring out the individual pepper notes. You might be surprised by what our reviewers think about these sauces.

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REVIEW: The Murph’s Famous Bloody Mary Mix

Murph's Famous

I have been doing reviews for 5 plus years now, and every now and then you run across a “character” that you know will be someone you will want to meet sometime in the future. You get that feeling from your first contact that you are dealing with a nice guy with a good sense of humor. Enter The Murph, Stephen “The Murph” Murphy. A Long Islander much like myself, a Met fan much like myself, so we all ready had much in common to talk about through our email exchanges. I recognized his bottles from Peppers of Rehoboth, DE, but I had also seen the bottle at a local Italian Market called Iavarone in the town I grew up in- Wantagh, NY. I go to the grocery store all the time, and every single time I see The Murph Famous Bloody Mary Mix I think of my beloved NY Mets. The Mets’ TV and radio announcers I grew up with as a kid were Ralph Kiner and Bob Murphy. While the name The Murph doesn’t necessarily make me think of Bob Murphy, the picture of Stephen on the bottle reminds of a young Ralph Kiner. I told him this and he got a chuckle out of it.

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REVIEW: Pretzelphoria – Holy Holy Cow!!!!! Habanero Hot Pops

Pretzelphoria Holy Holy Cow Habanero Hot Pops

At a local event here in Northern Virginia just a few miles away from my home I found this spicy pretzel snack. They had a whole line of different flavored products and they were happy to let you sample anything you wanted. So of course I had to try these small pretzel balls. Just one ball and I could feel a little heat. That surprised me to tell you the truth, but not as much as I was surprised when I got home to open the bag and see how fast I stopped eating them because they were really lighting me up. I soon reached out to them and setup this review to see if it was a fluke heat thing or it was me. I brought in Steve “The Machine” Smallwood who knows much about what is hot. I wasn’t sure he would even feel much burn, but it was a true test at any rate. Then I added Dale Gilbert and Revtommy2tone & Crimsonsteel to the team. The Good Reverend and Crimsonsteel did the review during his live weekly radio show.

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REVIEW: High Octane Sauce Company – JP5 Moruga Scorpion Pepper Sauce

This is our 2nd and last review for the High Octane Sauce Company out of Texas. They are using the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper which is presently the world’s hottest chile pepper. In our last review we gave feedback for their Hybrid Green Pepper Sauce which got a pretty decent review from our team scoring two 3 1/2’s and one 3 flaming hearts out of 5. Will this extra hot pepper sauce do as well? One way to find out folks, watch! Our review team once again is John Huber, Steve “The Machine” Smallwood, and Jacob Robertson. I wish Kevin Billings of High Octane Sauce Company the very best in their success for his young company. Things are all ready looking bright. Happy Turkey Day Weekend everyone, and start off your Black Friday with some good hot sauce here at High Octane.

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