HAWT HEADS | Spice is Life

The spicy food world does not start with challenges, restaurants, or viral videos. It starts with peppers. And somewhere between the farm and the table are the people turning those peppers into incredible hot sauces. Hawt Heads wants to help people find both. We are building a growing directory at HawtHeads.com dedicated to pepper growers and hot sauce makers from around the United States and eventually around the world. Our goal is not to decide who makes the hottest pepper or the best sauce. We want to create a useful resource where spicy food fans, restaurants, retailers, creators, and other members of the spicy community can discover the people producing the heat. Pepper Growers We want to hear from commercial farms, small farms, backyard growers, pepper breeders, seed producers, and anyone growing something interesting. Jalapeños. Habaneros. Ghost peppers. Carolina Reapers. Scorpions. Rare cultivars. Experimental crosses. Regional varieties. Peppers we have never heard o...

I am not here to start fake beef with Firehouse. I am here to give them credit. Because sometimes a chain actually understands the assignment, and Firehouse Subs does. A lot of restaurants say they care about flavor and spice. What they really mean is they have 1 sad hot sauce bottle somewhere near the register and maybe a menu item with the word spicy in the name. Firehouse is doing something better. Here’s proof: You have Duke’s Spicy Ground Mustard packets. You have a real hot sauce bar option with Deep Canyon Co. Sizzlin Scorpion, which is sitting at an 8 and actually looks like it means business. And then, because apparently somebody over there respects flavor too, you have Miss Vickie’s Spicy Dill Pickle chips. That is not an accident. That is a restaurant understanding that spicy people do not just want heat for heat’s sake. We want choices. We want layers. We want the ability to build the meal the way we want it. And that is what Firehouse gets right. They are not trying to mak...

I love Taco Bell. From being one of the most reliable places to be open late at night on long car trips, besides beloved diners like Waffle House in the South, to its undeniable willingness to push the envelope on what fast food should and could be, Taco Bell nails it. Here’s proof: Granted, I have not been a points guy for long, but if my math is right, that is about a grand worth of Taco Bell. So I think I have earned the right to say this: Taco Bell needs more heat. As much as I love Diablo, which came out in May 2015, we absolutely need something hotter at Taco Bell. And Taco Bell has already proven it is willing to play with serious heat. Back in 2015, Taco Bell released the Fiery Ghost Pepper DareDevil Loaded Griller. More recently, it has mixed Diablo with Mike’s Hot Honey, Hidden Valley Ranch, and Frank’s RedHot. In 2026, Taco Bell even turned Diablo Sauce into Diablo Dust for its crispy chicken nuggets. Then there is the real smoking ghost. At its 2025 Live Más LIVE event, Tac...

Last updated August 25, 2026 Hawt Heads wants the spicy world to get bigger. More sauce makers. More restaurants experimenting with serious heat. More pepper growers. More festivals. More food challenges. More competitions. More people discovering spicy food and finding their own level of heat. So we are keeping track of the spicy competitions and challenges we find. Some we are going to. Some we want to go to. Some are simply too good not to share. Don’t See Yours? Run a spicy food competition? Have a restaurant challenge? Organize a pepper eating contest? Make a hot sauce you want reviewed? Have something ridiculously hot that Hawt Heads needs to try? Email us at HAWTHEADS(at)GMAIL.COM. Send us the name, location, date, rules, and the official website or social page. We want to know about it. Always confirm directly with the restaurant or event organizer before traveling. Dates, rules, locations, and challenges change. Competition or Challenge? We use these words differently. A compe...