Now, I love me some spicy food. Yum. So when a Groupon for the Houston Hot Sauce Festival came up this past summer Amy bought it. Festivals are fun. We enjoy going to them. This seemed like a great idea. Flash forward to yesterday, the day of the festival. We'd had torrential downpours all Friday during the day and night. We were wondering if we would even be making it to the festival. However, the rain stopped, the morning came, and the forecast cleared. So we ventured out. It was located at a convention center and when we arrived we thought it might be held inside, score. But no, it was outside. But hey, it's in a parking lot. But no, it wasn't. It was in the grass, or what was grass before the aforementioned storms, coupled with the setting up of all of the booths and vendors. Now it was mud. Lots of it. With patches of muddy grass sprinkled throughout just for giggles. No, seriously, it was muddy. But we decided to brave it, give it a shot. After all, we'd driven all the way there. So in we went.
We squelched our way into the festival. The boys spotted the jumpy houses right away. Sadly, it was a pay-for-jump arrangement and I couldn't see spending a minimum of $2/per boy to have them jump. Oh well, we moved on. The first booth we went to had a sauce called, I kid you not, Death Nectar.
Well, rather than start off slowly (as my dear wife would later suggest that I should have done) with the milder sauces, and then working my way up to hotter ones, I opted for the Death Nectar. It was hot. Very hot. But also very good. The guy said it was rated 337. That sounded high, but out of what, 1,000? After sampling I headed to buy a water. The fire was dwindling by now and I was doing well. Then Amy suggested that we get the boys a snow cone, since there wasn't a ton for them to do. On the way back from the snow cone vendor I started feeling funny. A little weak. Shaky. Amy took one look at me and told me to go find a place to sit down. Apparently I didn't look too good. Pale. Sweaty. Yeah, I was feeling way worse, like I was going to pass out. So I found a seat and tried not to pass out.
Well, I didn't pass out. After about 5 minutes I was better. However, given then events of our brief encounter with the festival we decided it would be best if we called it a day and headed home. Thus ended our adventure at the Houston Hot Sauce Festival. I don't think we will return.
On the way home I did research the sauce I'd tried. Turns out the 337 the guy was talking about, was 337,000 Scoville units. If you are not familiar with the Scovile units, I suggest you look it up. Especially if you are venturing out to a hot sauce festival. For an understanding of the rating of the Death Nectar, it is about 400 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. A jalapeño rates 3,000 - 8,000 Scoville units. The ghost pepper, one of the ingredients in the Death Nectar, is one of the world hottest peppers and can reach above 1,000,000 on the Scoville scale. Had I been better versed in this prior to our visit to the festival, I may have avoided the Death Nectar. However, it makes for a good story. Visit here to read more about or to purchase the Death Nectar. I'm still working on Amy about getting some, it was good. She just rolls her eyes at me! :)
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| Grinder's Death Nectar |
All is well, cooling off, in Drosche Land.
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