Makers
We compete against these people and we buy their sauce. Every maker here is someone we have stood next to at a festival table, tasted at length, and would hand to a friend. Full tasting notes, using the scoring card, follow as we work through the bottles; we do not score our own sauces on this page and we say who sent what.
Brothers Eric and Eddie Stankiewicz, flavor-first sauces built to bring in people who do not usually reach for the bottle: Honey Mango Habanero, Agave Jalapeño, and a line that runs mild to hot. 1st Place Best BBQ Sauce at Weekend of Fire 2026. Fellow Floridians; we see them on the festival circuit more than anyone.
Mario’s pick: Garlic Datil. Roasted garlic, datil pepper mash, carrot, and lime on a vinegar base; mild-to-medium heat with a bright citrus finish. The datil is the St. Augustine pepper, Florida’s own, and this is the bottle that shows why it deserves the fuss.
Chef-owned and small-batch, made by Chef Flaco’s Gourmet Foods. Java Lava (coffee, roasted garlic, habanero, ancho), Bacon Garlic Reaper, Flaming Cock (a scorpion-pepper sriracha), and Wicked Original, a Louisiana-style Fresno sauce. A portion of every sale goes to Shatterproof, the addiction-treatment nonprofit.
Mario’s pick: Magic Mushroom Stout. Smoked shiitake, black garlic, stout beer, and cayenne; mild heat, deep and malty. A finishing sauce for steak, burgers, and anything with gravy, and proof that a hot sauce can be built on umami instead of vinegar.
Nepali sauces, handcrafted in Texas from recipes handed down through generations of Nepali women, built around a Himalayan pepper. Placed across three categories at Weekend of Fire 2026 and, when the crowd hit our booth, walked over and helped pour. That is the kind of maker this page is for. We will see them in Austin.
Mario’s pick: Emerald Sauce (medium/spicy cilantro). A cilantro-based green sauce with the Himalayan pepper underneath; the kind of heat that builds the more you eat. Made for momos and naan, and just as good on chips, potatoes, and grilled meat.
James LeSueur’s sweet-heat line (“the sweet heat that causes confusion”), and the maker who ran the table at Weekend of Fire 2026: 1st Best Hot Sauce, 1st Best Booth, and 2nd People’s Choice in one weekend, in a room with 400 sauces. When a maker sweeps like that, you buy the bottle and find out why.
Mario’s pick: Tropical Birdeye. Bird’s eye chile, the small Thai-style pepper that hits fast and clean, in the house sweet-heat style. Mario’s favorite of theirs; full tasting note to follow.
Not makers, but the two Miami places where the sauces live outside our own kitchen.
The neighborhood bodega that stocks the full Bárbaro Mojo line, 2859 Bird Ave Ste 1L, open 7 am to 10 pm daily. If you are in Miami and want a bottle today instead of in three days, this is the answer, and the reason our website tells people to go there.
A Cuban-American diner with the sauces on the table, for the Chug burger or the lechón hash. The videos we have shot at Chug’s are the most-watched things we have ever posted, which tells you where people would rather see a hot sauce: on a plate, in a diner, not in a studio.