Contest and Festival Facts

Admission

The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival requests that you pay an admission fee in the form of three nonperishable food items to be donated to the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas. Collection sites will be set up at entrances to Waterloo Park.

Contest

At the heart of The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival is the contest itself. The blind-tasting competition for individuals, restaurants, and commercial bottlers is conducted by some of the top chefs in the state of Texas. They take hot sauce seriously, and so do most of the people who enter. Several previous winners in the individual category have gone on to start their own hot-sauce companies.

The contest has three levels of competition: individuals (homemade), restaurants, and commercial bottlers. This gives us a good chance to recognize homemade salsas in a class by themselves. It also gives us a chance to consider salsas made fresh daily in restaurants apart from those made for grocery store shelves. The three categories of hot sauce for each level are designed to leave enough room for a wide variety of styles. In the past, special variety sauces have included fruit salsas, dried-pepper salsas, and even a purple sauce.

Entry and Judging

All entrants: Please bring a container of your best salsa to the check-in area in Waterloo Park between 10:30 and 11:30am on Sunday. Individuals: Please bring one pint of salsa. Restaurants: Please bring one quart of salsa.

See the entry form in the paper.

Restaurant and commercial salsas are available for tasting by the public in the main tent in the center of the Waterloo Park grounds. Due to new health department regulations, individuals' salsas cannot be served to the general public.

Our judges pick winners in each of the following categories:

Homemade red

Homemade green

Homemade special variety

Restaurant red

Restaurant green

Restaurant special variety

Commercial bottler red

Commercial bottler green

Commercial bottler special variety

Commercial bottler pepper sauce

Winners will be announced at 5:15pm from the festival stage.

People's Choice Award for Commercial Salsas

Commercial salsas are available at separate booths around the park (marked by blue numbers on the map).

The public is invited to vote in the commercial categories:

Commercial red sauce

Commercial green sauce

Commercial special variety

Commercial pepper sauce

Voting: The People's Choice voting for the best commercial bottler sauces will take place under the balloting tent by the Cool Zone (the fan on the map).

Vote for your favorites by 4pm. Winners will be announced at 5:15pm.

Food Vendors

Sample the fare from some of Austin's favorite restaurants, including:

Buffalo Billiards

Chief's BBQ & Grill

Curra's Grill

Matt's El Rancho

Oaxacan Tamaleo

Sun Garden Shaved Ice

Chips for the tasting tent are donated by H-E-B.

Cold water, lemonade, Sweet Leaf Tea, and beer will be available to cool off overheated palates.

Capital Area Food Bank's Sizzling Summer Raffle

All proceeds help to feed our hungry friends and neighbors throughout Central Texas!

T-Shirts & Caps

Hot Sauce Festival T-shirts will be for sale under the Chronicle tent for only $10-15 each. We also have festival caps ($15).