Austin Hot Sauce Festival 2012

This past weekend Conner and I went to the 22nd annual Austin Chronicle Host Sauce festival.  As an east coast girl, I'm a novice when it comes to anything hot.  The hottest I ever ventured was a little bit of wasabi on my sushi, a temporary burn that targeted my allergy-rattled sinuses and provided a minute of relief.  After living in Texas for about 5 years now, I've slowly begun to enjoy the different kind of burn that hot sauce provides. 

When we first got to Fiesta Gardens, slightly rugged from the night before, it rained a bit and cooled everything down, all the better to start raising one's internal temperature with hot sauce.  There was live music, tons of tortilla chips, and of course rows of hot sauce, separated into Red, Green, and Special Sauce.  We started with the Special row and after a jar of queso, I dove head-long into the first jar.  Big dollop of something red.  And I was a goner.  It was so ridiculously hot!  It made me get the hiccups and I felt lightheaded with no water.  I want to say that it was named something like SV 900 but I honestly don't remember.  I'd go again in a minute--this time with lots of water.

All photos by John Anderson.  More photos at Austin Chronicle.