Spice Fiendz Podcast
Spice Fiendz is the hot sauce review show where flavor meets foolishness. We dive into the spiciest, strangest, and most face-melting sauces on the planet—no milk, no mercy. Expect raw reactions, unfiltered opinions, and the kind of banter you’d hear if your taste buds were on fire. Whether you're a heat-seeker or just here to watch us suffer, subscribe for the pain. Stay for the laughs.
Spice Fiendz Podcast
Melting Faces & Making Memories: A Hot Sauce Journey Begins
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
From childhood pranks involving Tabasco sauce on sleeping lips to amassing collections that threaten domestic harmony, the Spice Fiends podcast launches with two hot sauce enthusiasts facing an ultimatum: use their 100+ bottles or watch their prized possessions get tossed. Their significant others' patience has worn thin, and this podcast serves as both salvation and celebration of their flavorful obsession.
Between fits of laughter and moments of genuine appreciation, our hosts dive into the Hell's Kitchen Hot Sauce sampler pack from their friend Ron Dunham. The tasting begins with Retro Jalapeño Verde Style Sauce, a mild yet flavorful blend perfect for Taco Tuesday, featuring jalapeño, honey, tomatillos, and lime juice. Next comes West Side Red Artisan Hot Sauce, a masterful Sriracha-Louisiana style creation with Fresno peppers, habanero, garlic, and unexpected raspberries. Finally, they savor Habanero Mango Salvation, where sweet mango purée balances perfectly with fiery habanero peppers.
Just when you think they're finished, the hosts tackle "Sickle Pickles, Fear the Spear" - pickles infused with Carolina Reaper, habanero, and ghost peppers. The contrast between wanting to enjoy the refreshing pickle while battling extreme heat creates a hilarious finale that leaves them sweating and reaching for relief. Throughout it all, their genuine enthusiasm for craft hot sauces and appreciation for flavor over pure heat shines through.
Whether you're a hot sauce aficionado or simply curious about this spicy subculture, join these self-proclaimed Spice Fiends as they save their collections one bottle at a time while sharing stories, laughs, and expert insights into the world of artisanal hot sauces. Subscribe now on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts to follow their flavorful journey!
Meet the Spice Fiends
Speaker 1All right. Well, welcome to the Spice Fiends podcast Number one. Number one, our inaugural episode. We got the spice. We got the spice. We got the spice. We got those. And we're doing this because we love hot sauce and eat it all the time and over the past year we've collected probably about 100 bottles of hot sauce each 100 bottles of hot sauce on the wall, and our significant others have been telling us to use them, or they're going to throw them out.
Speaker 2And they're going to throw us out.
Speaker 1They're going to throw the hot sauce out.
Speaker 2We have a hot sauce out.
Speaker 1We have a hot sauce addiction, but basically it's all piling up and we keep buying more, so we're using this as an outlet to go through our bottles and you know, talk about it and we've met so many people that make these sauces.
Speaker 1So we have a lot of stories and a lot of history here, and you might know us from our other channel, six, terrible Six which is more variety based of hot foods and stuff like that, and basically, yeah, we just had to do this to try the hot sauces and review them before they go bad. They're all going gonna expire soon.
Speaker 2Yeah, this is, yeah, this is, uh, we're, we're a little desperate here because we don't want to see our, our, uh, I don't want to see our babies go bad, exactly, exactly so uh, what, what, what actually got you into? Like hot sauce, just in general, because I don't even know if we've talked about this.
Speaker 1Now we're talking about it yeah, it is in the room, um, so basically, uh, the funny thing is my first experience with hot sauce and this sounds kind of fucked up, but it was when I was a kid boy and uh and uh, me and my buddies we had a sleepover and, uh, one of our um buddies so he'll definitely be a guest is, uh, davis, and that was this type of show, and I slept on the couch in the living room at this house and it was me, it was Davis, another Robbie, and this kid, james, who's the younger brother of this guy, james Hetfield, was the singer of a Boston hardcore band called Eye for an Eye.
Speaker 1So a little Boston hardcore history there. But basically, uh, yeah, so basically I was sleeping and I didn't know anything. I didn't know hot sauce existed, but, uh, one of them, I was sleeping, they put tabasco on my lip while I was sleeping and and woke up to it and I thought somebody had punched me in the face, like it was like, and I, I think, I think from then I was sold. But I definitely woke up and I was like what the fuck? I was like what, what?
Speaker 1what the hell would you guys do to me? You know it was definitely screaming, no, just in shock. You know it was just my whole lip was burning. I don't even know.
Speaker 2I got to call them and ask them and see how much you would think that'd be more of a traumatizing thing where they're like I hate hot sauce because one time I slept with all my friends I was in a put hot sauce in my mouth.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I probably should go seek therapy.
Speaker 2It's all unfolding now. I didn't know we're getting this time.
Speaker 1So this is a therapy podcast. So this is why you love it. Yeah, so I I will. I will actually ask about that and find out, like, how much they actually put on me and whatever. Oh, we'll bring it up to rob. Hopefully he remembers. I mean, we were like 10 years old, so it was a very, very long, long time ago, that's amazing and uh, yeah, so um, how did you get into hot stuff?
Speaker 2hmm, I think it was milk man. Just he just kept putting milk on the steps. So it's like why are you putting milk on the steps? I didn't order any milk. It's 90 degrees out, it's it's gonna go bad. Like why are you putting milk on the steps? I don't know, I'm just like. I mean, I guess you know. Like next thing, you know, my ex-wife leaves me for the milkman.
Speaker 1You know so then I you know how am I going to help you through this therapy then.
Speaker 2So every night I just I just drank hot sauce because I didn't know what to do with myself, and I'm sure he just kept drinking hot sauce and became a fiend and changed my name to El Diablo and it's a great name. Now I got six wives and 30 kids and I'm still a spice fiend.
Speaker 1Well, thank you. Thank you for joining me on this spice mission.
Speaker 2It's a spice journey for two spice fiends.
Speaker 1Yes, and just for everybody's, you know, just so everybody knows we're going to be okay. We do have toilet paper in the freezer. Yes, in case we have an accident.
Speaker 2Yes, and our seats are actually those toilet seats that the elderly use in case we have an accident out the other way. It doesn't spray all over the cameras don't cough.
Speaker 1There's no. There's no coughing in the podcast. If you hear a cough, but until we get that depends sponsorship. Yes, then we will not need those things. We are very dependent on that dependent sponsorship XL holds extra amounts. I don't know the sizing, oh man, Anyway. So should we get to this?
Speaker 2Let's do it. I'm ready. Let's get on to our first episode. Thank you guys for hanging on, and that's our little intro and we're just going to go for it. This is our first episode. We'll for hanging on and that's our little intro and we're gonna. We're just gonna go for it. This is our first episode. We'll figure it out as we go. Let's do it.
Speaker 1Let's do it let's make it a bumpy ride. Yeah, one of us, and here's our first victim, the sampler from Hell's Kitchen, our buddy Ron.
Speaker 2Yes, Ron is the man.
Speaker 1Yeah, so, anyway. So I figured you know, for our first hot sauce tasting we were at the Boston Hot Sauce Festival at the Harpoon Brewery Is that the full name of it?
Hot Sauce Origin Stories
Speaker 1I don't remember the name, but I think it's called boston hot sauce fest yeah, and um, we saw ron, oh yeah, ron, good old ron, from hell's kitchen hot sauce and he, uh, gave me the sampler it was. It was back in april, so I'm sorry, I'm probably gonna be saying this a lot because you know we've gotten a lot of these and haven't been able to get to them, but it's not including my collection either, so yeah, so this is this is our inaugural podcast sampler that we're going to do, because it's all Hell's Kitchen, ron's freaking cool.
Speaker 1We just saw him in New York. When was that? In July, the New York Hot Sauce.
Speaker 2Festival. Was it July? I think it was September oh.
Speaker 1All right, well you know, oh no, the New England Hot Sauce Festival was in July. That was in.
Speaker 2July. Yes, new York one was either August.
Speaker 1End of August, I think.
Speaker 2Yep, who knows, who knows what year is it.
Speaker 1We don't know. And now ron also gave me his uh, um, newest hot sauce. That's unnamed, but I, before we do anything with that, I we have to figure out what it's called, because I don't think it'd be fair to review a sauce without a name oh, it's got the reaper x in it or whatever yeah, the pepper x. Sorry, I don't know, I just called it reaper x. You're a reaper x all right, so let's open my ex girlfriend. Sorry, I don't know why, I just called it Reaper X. You're a Reaper X.
Speaker 2All right, so let's open this up.
Speaker 1I called my ex-girlfriend. All right, so we got. You want to read this one off?
Speaker 2Oh baby. We got retro jalapeno verde style sauce, and then we have this one. Next is west side red artisan hot sauce, and then we have this one. Next is Westside Red Artisan Hot Sauce, and then we have this Habanero Mango Salvation.
Speaker 1I feel like we might have done this, but I don't know, these are definitely cool little bottles, little mini bottles for the sampler, and his artwork is super cool. Yep, look at this the Statue of Liberty breathing fire in there. That's wicked cool Fire. I love it. That's one of my favorite parts of some of these companies the creativity and the artwork. The artwork, the packaging. It's like they put more into it than just the sauce Naming funny names Anyway.
Speaker 1Creativity is fun, my friends, so let's do these in the order of I think. I think the jalapeno is probably the lowest.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think this is three peppers.
Speaker 1This is two peppers.
Speaker 2Oh, where does it show the?
Speaker 1Oh, I see this is the single.
Speaker 2This is two peppers. Oh, where does it show the? Oh, I see this is the single. This is a mild sauce. Okay, probably good on tacos. Retro jalapeno.
Speaker 1All right. So we got these new spoons. Ooh, they're probably not really that practical, but I'm a sucker for skulls. Skulls For the listening audience. They're spoons with a little skull tip on the end.
Speaker 2I don't know, that's fine, I can't even whatever, that's fine, we'll get a closeup of it. Here's your skull spoon. I like it, cause the sauce could leak out. Yeah, so it's extra dangerous. Hopefully I don't have a cut on my arm and it means like cut.
Speaker 1Or you're trying to eat hot sauce while you're taking a pee.
Speaker 2What I'm shaking. I'm shaking. I love these spoons. Okay, I wait. We got to make a pack that we're never going to clean them Every time we use them. It's just filth, yeah.
Speaker 1Pure filth. Yeah, we can't load them up too much because those so our immune systems are unstoppable. Well, this one's green, so it looks good on the black. Oh my, yeah, it's got a greenish texture and color. Here we go.
Speaker 2Smells wonderful. Yeah, nice mild sauce there, that delicious smooth. Yep, I don't know how we haven't had this one yet. Yeah, oh, that's good, that's tasty, let's do just more. It's definitely a taco tuesday night stuff. Yeah, it's sweet, definitely sweet. Yeah, I think that's what kind of brings it out. It's not like over vinegary or anything like that, it's just, it's bright.
Speaker 1What else? I can't read that. What are the other ingredients on it? Can you see that? Let me get my magnifying glass, jalapeno Honey.
Speaker 2That's what it is. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Tomatillos, lime juice, vinegar, garlic. Tomatillos, lime juice, vinegar, garlic, salt shallots, poblano, habanero. That's great. At the end, that's a nice twist there.
Speaker 1Yeah. I'm going to get one more of these. That's delicious. I could drink that. Yeah, I could drink the whole thing. I mean you want it.
Hell's Kitchen Sampler Showcase
Speaker 2We got to get to other stuff. Yeah, that's true. It is that damn good, ron, you've done it again, even though you've probably had this one out for a while. We just haven't had it, yeah.
Speaker 1I'm afraid to look to see how long this has been out, for he's like I know all these things. It's a great hot sauce and it is. It's beautiful Retro jalapeno, all right, definitely highly recommend this.
Speaker 2That definitely taco tuesday material. Okay so all right, could go on a steak too.
Speaker 1Yeah, oh, totally puberto, next West Side Red. And this is a Sriracha Louisiana style hot sauce. I like that. Let's take this.
Speaker 2Let me shake it first. Give it a shake, gotta shake it. Well, shake it up.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, smells wonderful. It definitely has that sriracha, sriracha.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'll get you sriracha, don't go through the skull eyes.
Speaker 1Don't go through the skull eyes, alright alright, alright, damn, that's really fucking good too. That definitely has. It's definitely a a little bit hotter than that. Oh, totally yeah. They nailed the uh the rating on here. What, what pepper did they give it? Uh, two peppers, two peppers. And yeah, before we do the others, what else is in there?
Speaker 2We got Fresno peppers as the lead, red habanero peppers, garlic, raspberries, lime juice, salt, shallots, vinegar, blue agave, nectar. The creativity on that is just wonderful. I'm going to have more. It's a great sauce, great solid sauce. It's a great sauce, great solid sauce. It's a solid red. That's good. That's good.
Speaker 1Yeah, we're gonna go watch the Patriots after this, so we're gonna arrive with three.
Speaker 2We're too used to winning that, we just like to watch them lose now, yeah, yeah, we're changing it up.
Speaker 1No, I'm good, I'm just balancing the flavors in my mind all right, so west side red, this is good too. It's definitely um more flavor over heat you know, and the heat's there, but the flavor is just so good like I don't. I don't even care if it's hot or not, it's a good freaking sauce. So Westside Red Flavor is the most important part. Hell's Kitchen hot sauce.
Speaker 2Ron Dunham again. Yep, alright.
Speaker 1Skulls. So, last but not least, we have Habanero Mango Salvation.
Speaker 2I feel like we've done this in the past, but what does it say? Oh, it doesn't say anything. Okay, let's just go for it. Then I'll read the ingredients after Okay.
Speaker 1So I want to say that in my giant stash of hot sauces I think I have a full bottle of this that I've had since last July as well.
Speaker 2I feel like we reviewed this on 6 Terrible 6, but I also.
Speaker 1No, that was Ginger Devil. Oh okay, yeah. And then we did the balsamic one. Oh yeah, cheers, cheers. Annual salvation.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, cheers, Cheers, mango salvation Going up on heat here. Shit, that's good too. Lots of mango, I like it. Yeah, mango puree, carrots, honey, habanero peppers, garlic, vinegar, water, lime juice, salt.
Speaker 1But you just get a jolt of habanero and you all of a sudden can fucking read it's hitting my throat now. This is fucking good. I'm into all these.
Speaker 2Ron never lets us down. I'm not going to lie, he's a good guy too. Take some more Such a nice guy. He gave me a hat last time and he gave me this little sample pack. I think I sweated through the hat that he gave me. And then I saw him again and he's like why aren't you wearing the hat? And I was like, well, I think I've already sweated through it. That was at the new york fest, where we were just the new york fest, great. Yeah, by the way, we joined the competitions. Uh, kind of like in the moment. We're not usually cool like that, but we just did it in the moment.
Speaker 1Yeah, definitely, we definitely didn't win, because we didn't win.
Speaker 2I think it was more of a chewing thing than a spice thing. I could have kept going for hours.
Speaker 1Yeah, so yeah, habanero mango salvation is good. Yeah, so we did not review this before?
Speaker 2Yeah, that's my bad.
Speaker 1The cinnamon toast punch. Oh, so we did not review this before?
Speaker 2Yeah, that's my bad. The cinnamon toast punch? Oh, cinnamon ghost punch, Cinnamon ghost punch, you know what it's? Because it looks like it has a similar color as the ginger devil. So my brain is just malfunctioning.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, definitely good shit, awesome. So yeah, so shit. So we're not going to clean these, no, stick them in the dirt, cool. So um, yeah, I think, um, I don't think we're done yet. I think we should do, like, maybe one more thing yeah, I think I can keep going it's not like I mean, these were like earth-shattering, where my day is ruined, type.
Speaker 2They're just beautiful. Uh, flavored sauces, exactly so. Oh, now you're gonna bring extra pain.
Tasting Retro Jalapeño Verde
Speaker 1Yeah, we got um so I was at the mall yesterday and every time I'm at the mall and now we're we're based out of massachusetts, so every time I'm at the natick ball, I always forget that there's a pepper palace there and yeah, sorry, and pepper palace is cool, it's's cool. You go there, you know they have all their sampler spoons out. You can try pretty much whatever, mostly everything in the store, and we actually have. I think we were there, god, last fall, a year ago. We were there. I think between the two of us we picked up like 12 hot sauces. My collection's going, yeah, so we're going to have to do those at some point too. But I saw this and I was like, huh, this will be fun. It's pickles, it's Sickle Pickles, fear the Spear. Spicy pickle A little scared, I mean Reaper pickle. Yeah, oh, it's got Reaper Habanero and Ghost, uh, ghost peppers all in one oh, jesus christ so baby jesus, help me help me do we fear the spear?
Speaker 2don't fear the spear. Yeah, where's? The cowbell fuck somewhere in this room. How do you get this off? Oh, I think it's just pressurized. I'll use my special strength oh, there you go.
Speaker 1I'm gonna get some paper towels so we can prevent a mess here, just so we don't. We don't want to piss the landlord off here, so mess here, just so we don't. We don't want to piss the landlord off here, so we like to give a. Also, we'd like to give a big shout out to punch dance studios for having us here and using their space. Yes, yes, spicing up the joint. You know, you know what I'm saying smells spicy in here. All right, so I'm kind of thinking that maybe we I don't know what the I should have got you a fork too.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'll use my hands, Alright, just don't. Just don't flick it into my eye. Yeah, the fuck. Alright, it's a pickle.
Speaker 1It's definitely. You want to grab it, yep.
Speaker 2Alright, I'm just going to lay it there until we go for it. All right, all right, oh boy pickle juice on my arm all right, there we go.
Speaker 1This looks fucked up yeah, it's weird, cheers touching pickles yes all right. Oh yeah, oh it's hot. Oh yeah, oh it's hot. Oh, it's definitely all in there.
Speaker 2Mmm, oh, mmm, tastes like a pickle.
Speaker 1Don't wait, I have mixed feelings about this because usually eating pickles is like refreshing, nothing but refreshing. Oh baby, it's fucking hot.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's hot, it's got a pretty cool flavor, but it's also like yeah, like you said, like I've had spicy pickles and I enjoy them. This is kind of like eh.
West Side Red Artisan Review
Speaker 1I mean, maybe if you put them in a sandwich though oh yeah, we're just doing these straight up you should probably eat another one. Oh my God, I can't believe I need water. Oh, it's definitely yeah they definitely it's a lot fuck sweating. I kind of want to get another one. I want to have another one just for the effect. But I don't know, I don't want to throw up. Not the worst thing I've ever had. No, it's good, just a lot, just like I I've ever had.
Speaker 2No, it's good, just a lot. Just like I think it's just the pickle and it's like, yeah, it's a pickle and you just want to fucking, you want to keep eating it because it's a pickle. But then you're like, yeah, but it's hurting. You Went around the house with a pickle in my mouth misbehaving. It's fucking hot and, stan, I feel like it's burning my soul a little bit.
Speaker 1But he also had like a little spice before that. Oh, look at this, it looks like a leaf.
Speaker 2It's a grape leaf.
Speaker 1It's a pickle leaf, all right.
Speaker 2The top of that was refreshing For a second Usually I'm down, but I'm not in the mood today for extra spice. I don't know why.
Speaker 1the guy from Apocalypse doesn't make spicy pickles. I'm sure it's coming. He said he's got some new stuff coming out next year Nice yeah.
Speaker 2Anyway, it's burning me. Usually El Diablo is down, but today he's not down.
Speaker 1Oh, yeah, anyway, All right. So yeah, I think we've come to the end.
Speaker 2It was our first test run, so you know so. Yeah, so I think we've come to the end. It was our first test run, so you know the pilot episode. I think we're going to get a little wild and there's going to be some other wild videos to go along with this stuff.
Speaker 1Yeah, so yeah, thanks for listening. We're just getting started.
Habanero Mango Salvation Experience
The Spicy Pickle Challenge
Speaker 2So you can find us on everywhere, everywhere Instagram, spotify, youtube, youtube. Us on everywhere, everywhere. Instagram um, spotify, youtube, youtube. Yes, um all the pod places, yeah we will tell you after I submit. Yeah, once we figure it out. Uh, currently don't have a sponsor yet. So that's good, you don't have to fast forward through our sponsorship yes but I have a feeling our first sponsor is going to be Dude Wipes, but yeah.
Speaker 1All right, we'll see. Thanks again to Peanut Brothers Inc and the Dog House here. Punchdown Studios, thanks for listening Over and out. Have a spicy evening. Have a spicy morning lunch Over and out.
Speaker 2Have a spicy evening. Have a spicy morning, lunch and dinner and sleepy time.
Speaker 1Sayonara Au revoir, we got the spice. We got the spice.