Pretty Fly for a Hot Sauce and the Oscars of Condiments (yes, that is a thing)

I'll get to the awards in a minute. First, the hot sauce authority we all love and admire, Playboy Magazine's (um, what did I just write?) Joe Donatelli ranked the best 19 hot sauces. The usual suspects are there - Tabasco, Frank's, Cholula - but the winner is surprising, at least to me.

Buy it here

Congrats to Dexter Holland! If you don't know him, he's the lead singer of The Offspring, who you might remember from such 90's hits as Pretty Fly for a White Guy and Come Out and Play (Keep 'Em Separated). Here's his hot sauce story:

How Far Can Dexter Holland's Gringo Bandito Go?

Meanwhile, Epicurious says Cholula's better...

What I consider to be the pinnacle of condiment judging just released their annual picks for the best in a myriad of categories. Chile Pepper Magazine (which can be found in paper form at Barnes & Noble) has all your awards winners here. I celebrated a few on BBQHoney's Facebook page earlier this week, and here's the list of all the winners and nominees: 

THE CHILE PEPPER AWARDS 2014 WINNERS

I'll definitely be trying a few of these (some are available near Casa de ZCB) and I'll report my findings once sampled.

It's Friday and warm (still) - Get the grill fired up and enjoy the weekend!

BBQ & The Bees - Mmm, viscous...

Featuring two of my favorite viscous fluids, BBQHoney will examine one of the easiest craft foods one can create (yet few do), and one of most important members of our natural world, bees. Why those two together like an old issue of Marvel Team-Up? Why not? They both taste good and they both are crucial to my existence.

Today's double feature will clean up a few items I've been sitting on. First the sauce! I make my own BBQ sauce and have experimented with quite a few versions, nearly all of them excellent, if I may say so. It is so easy to make a decent sauce at home, and having a few styles handy in the fridge makes you far more cool than your lame neighbor who arrives for the backyard BBQ with a six pack of light beer (for himself).

Really, don't bother buying the HFCS-laden supermarket crap, and DIY from now on.

Here's the basics from Food & Wine:

5 Steps to Creating Your Own Barbecue Sauce

Simple, right? Now get on with it, and let me know how you've revolutionized the world of condiments in the wasteland I call a comments section.

Just for kicks, here's Karen, over at the Art of Doing Stuff, who enters the ring with this loser (read the article first then try to attack me for being mean).

Speaking of condiment coup d'etat, be prepared to hear more about the Next Great Condiment Wars after reading this from Grub Street. By the way, budding entrepreneurs, check out the Mixed Made blog - a step-by-step walk-through of the process from idea to market.

By the way, ever wonder if bees are really "busy"? No? Well, most are, according to this item from Mental Floss.

One last thing for this evening - we're all doomed, probably.

Nighty night!