Contest & Festival Facts
Fri., Aug. 26, 2011
The 20th Annual 'Austin Chronicle' Hot Sauce Festival
Presented by Capital Area Food Bank of Texas
Sunday, Aug. 28, 11am-5:30pm
Waterloo Park at 12th and Trinity
No dogs. No coolers.
Capital Area Food Bank's Sizzling Summer Raffle
All proceeds help to feed our hungry friends and neighbors throughout Central Texas!
Parking
Free parking will be available in the Capitol Visitors Garage, Garage A, and Garage F.
Food
Food vendors will provide a wide array of foods. This year the following restaurants will be on hand serving up their specialty dishes: Aster's Ethiopian Restaurant, Buffalo Billiards, Curra's Grill, Matt's Famous El Rancho, Santa Rita Tex Mex Cantina, Sun Garden Shaved Ice, and Torchy's Tacos. Chips for the tasting tent will be donated by H-E-B.
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.
Music
Featuring emcee for life Bryan Beck of KGSR and live music on the Planet K stage from:
Schmillion, 11am-11:30am
Moonlight Social, noon-12:30pm
Foot Patrol, 1-2pm
La Guerilla, 2:30-3:30pm
The Bright Light Social Hour, 4-5:15pm
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 sauces in a class by themselves. It also gives us a chance to consider hot sauces made fresh daily in restaurants apart from those made for grocery store shelves. The 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 disposable container of your best hot sauce to the check-in area at Waterloo Park between 10:30 and 11:30am on Sunday.
Individuals: Please bring 1 pint of hot sauce if you made it at home or 1 quart if you made it in a commercial kitchen.
Restaurants: Please bring 1 quart of hot sauce.
See the entry form.
Restaurant, commercial, and individual hot sauces that have been made in a commercial kitchen are available for tasting by the public in the main tent in the center of the Waterloo Park grounds. Due to health department regulations, individuals' hot sauces cannot be served to the general public unless they were made in a commercial kitchen. (All entries will be judged by our panel of judges regardless of where they were made.)
Our judges pick winners in each of the 10 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 on the festival stage.
People's Choice Awards for Commercial Hot Sauces
Commercial hot sauces 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
Commercial green
Commercial special variety
Commercial pepper sauce
Voting: People's choice voting for the best commercial bottler sauces will take place under the balloting tent (No. 28 on the map) by the Cool Zone (the fan icon on the map).
Vote for your favorites by 4pm. Winners will be announced at 5:15pm.
Capital Area Food Bank's Sizzling Summer Raffle
All proceeds help to feed our hungry friends and neighbors throughout Central Texas!
Food Vendors
Sample the fare from some of Austin's favorite restaurants, including:
Aster's Ethiopian Restaurant
Buffalo Billiards
Curra's Grill
Matt's El Rancho
Santa Rita Tex Mex Cantina
Sun Garden Shaved Ice
Torchy's Tacos
Chips for the tasting tent are donated by H-E-B.
Cold water, Honest Tea and lemonade, and beer will be available to cool off overheated palates.
T-Shirts, Caps, Koozies
Hot Sauce Festival T-shirts will be for sale under the Chronicle tent (No. 51 on the map) for only $10-15 each. We also have festival caps ($15) and koozies ($3).
The Culinary Academy at the Art Institute of Austin Demo Tent
Head on over to the demonstration tent (No. 13 on the map) and watch local chefs make their specialty hot sauces. See "Hot Sauce Fest Cooking Demo Tent" for more information.
Noon-1pm: Chef David Holtzman, AIA, red
1-2pm: Chef Paul Petersen, Vivo, special variety
2-3pm: Chef Mizael Saucedo, Urban – An American Grill, green
EVEN MORE HOT SAUCE FESTIVAL INFO HERE
