The 12 Best Celebrity Hot Sauce Brands
From big brands like Cholula and Tabasco to small-batch farmers market gems, the United States hot sauce market is, for lack of a better term, flamin' hot. Hot sauces today are available in every flavor imaginable — curry, truffle, maple bacon, pumpkin; you name it, it's been made into a hot sauce. Different hot sauces' heat factors vary widely on the Scoville scale, a system created by pharmacologist William Scoville over a century ago that measures the capsaicin content of various chiles in order to rank them from least to most spicy. Depending on the peppers used in a bottle, hot sauces can be so mild that one wonders if it's appropriate to call them hot sauces, or so hot they'll melt your face and scorch your tongue into oblivion.
Hot wing eating contests and viral programs like "Hot Ones" have capitalized on the population's love for hot sauce, and over the years, many actors, musicians, comedians, and other celebrities have cashed in on the phenomenon. These bottles typically garner quite a bit of attention due to their creators' popularity, but as is the case with any celebrity-backed product, some stars' hot sauces are of much higher quality than others. From spicy and smoky to tangy and sweet, here's a list of what we believe to be the very best celebrity hot sauces ever created.
Alton Brown — Holiday From Heck
Alton Brown doesn't shy away from spicy food, as evidenced by his appearance on "Hot Ones." The Food Network star, chef, and author is known for coming up with unique flavor combinations in his food, so when he released his own hot sauce in 2022, it came as no surprise that he took quite a non-traditional approach. Brown's aptly-named Holiday From Heck hot sauce draws on ingredients like pumpkin puree, molasses, and apple cider vinegar to channel the warm, inviting taste and aroma of fall comfort food.
Holiday From Heck drew its spiciness from habanero mash but also included baking spices like ginger, nutmeg, star anise, and cloves to further enhance its autumnal profile. Pairings for the sauce range far beyond typical Thanksgiving-esque food items like mashed potatoes and stuffing — it could easily be used to spice up turkey tacos, roasted carrots, or even a cozy bowl of beef or bison chili. Alton Brown's hot sauce was originally only available for purchase at his live shows, but it was such a hit that a batch of 400 bottles was created for online ordering. Sadly, the popular sauce is not currently in production, but here's hoping that more will be available this holiday season.
Chris Caffery — Tears of the Sun
Hot sauce might not be a product you'd expect from the guitarist of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, but lo and behold, Chris Caffery has done it. Caffery's spicy sauce, called Tears of the Sun, is manufactured by boutique producer High River Sauces. This bright sauce features the fruit-forward flavors of mango, pineapple, peaches, and papaya blended together with scorching Peach Ghost-Scorpion peppers for a surprisingly tasty heat. Heatonist reviewers are quick to note Tears of the Sun's ability to maintain the heat without sacrificing a vibrant, juicy, vacay-vibe-inducing flavor; an impressive feat for a five-ounce bottle of sauce.
Tears of the Sun has won multiple awards, including best overall hot sauce in the 2011 Hot Pepper Awards, and was also a featured sauce on Season 14 of "Hot Ones." Use this tropically-spiced sauce to add heat to your barbeque platter, fresh pineapple slices, or tacos al pastor. It's a smooth and spicy ride, and its medium heat is just enough to get your taste buds singing without scorching your tongue off.
Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein — Made in Hell
From AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" to KISS' "Hotter than Hell," rock bands have long had a thing for singing about, well, hell; and American punk band The Misfits is no exception. In fact, former Misfits guitarist Paul Caiafa (known in the music world as Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein), who went on to form his own band called Doyle, was so enamored with the fiery depths of eternal doom that he created a hot sauce dubbed Made in Hell in collaboration with Halloween Hot Sauces. The bottle's label features a shot of von Frankenstein wearing green face paint with glowing red eyes, and the words "Made in Hell" are, naturally, emblazoned in bold red letters with a yellow-orange outline meant to look like fire.
Made in Hell was made using mainly traditional hot sauce ingredients like cayenne peppers, vinegar, and garlic, but the addition of basil and oregano gave it a pinch of Italian flavor. Hot Sauce Fever reviewers are keen on the presence of Italian herbs in the mix; the garden variety botanicals keep an even score with the chiles throughout the experience. The sauce is unfortunately no longer in production but proved quite popular when it was available, earning an impressive ranking of 4.9 on Hot Sauce Fever.
Ed Sheeran — Tingly Ted's
Ed Sheeran's love of hot sauce is well-documented. It might not be what you'd expect from a redheaded Brit, but in past interviews, the "Shape of You" singer has revealed that he always carries a bottle of hot sauce with him when he travels so as to be able to spice up his food. Nowadays, it won't be hard for him to find a bottle to stick in his suitcase, because Sheeran just launched his own hot sauce line called Tingly Ted's, named for the tingly feeling of hot sauce on the tongue and Ed Sheeran's childhood nickname, Ted.
Sheeran worked with Kraft Heinz to develop Tingly Ted's, which currently offers two varieties of sauce: Tingly and Xtra Tingly (in layman's terms, spicy and extra spicy). His goal, according to a video he released on Instagram to introduce the sauces, was to come up with a sauce that resembled ketchup in its consistency and that could be used on anything (although he warns against using it on bananas). Both the Tingly and Xtra Tingly varieties are made with ingredients like vinegar, tomato paste, and lemon pulp, but the Xtra Tingly version contains 39% jalapeño while the Tingly bottle has 16%.
Alice Cooper collection
Alice Cooper is known for channeling painful emotions into his music, and a recent venture into the hot sauce world proves that he's just as adept at translating his feelings into food — or, more specifically, into hot sauce. On his website, the Godfather of Shock Rock says that "In general I don't believe food should be painful. But in the case of my hot sauces it is PAIN, PLEASURE, PAIN, PLEASURE! Just repeat until satisfied!"
Cooper's line of hot sauces contains three varieties, each named after one of his best-known songs. Welcome To My Nightmare, named for his debut solo album, is a mild, Southwestern-inspired sauce made with serrano peppers and a hint of lime juice as well as garlic and cumin. The spicier No More Mr. Nice Guy sauce kicks up some smoky heat with aged habanero peppers along with carrots, onions, and vinegar. The spiciest of the sauce trio, Poison, is billed as "reaper hot" due to the fact that it's made with real Carolina Reaper chilis, which Guinness World Records proclaimed the hottest chili pepper in the world.
Michael Anthony — Mad Anthony
Few musical groups have rocked harder than Van Halen, and Michael Anthony Sobolewski (a.k.a. Mad Anthony), who played bass and sang backup vocals for the band for over 30 years, has his own line of Mad Anthony sauces that are sure to rock your world. In an interview with Scott Roberts, Michael Anthony revealed that the idea for a line of hot sauces was sparked by a chance encounter with a hot sauce called Ring of Fire while on tour, which he loved so much that he got a tattoo of the bottle on his arm ... and the rest is history.
While the Mad Anthony assortment also includes barbeque sauces and a Bloody Mary mix, it's the hot sauces that stand out. The collection currently offers four different types of hot sauce: regular, mild-style, XXXtra hot, and fiery mustard, and patrons of Mad Anthony's website have the option of purchasing individual bottles or a mix-n-match three-pack of hot sauce. These varieties allow those who only care for a dash of spice to add a reasonable level of seasoning to their food with Mad Anthony's mild sauce, while those who like to crank up the heat can do so with the blend of spicy peppers in the XXXtra Hot version. The fiery mustard also allows for great flavor experimentation: Use it as a base for a honey mustard dressing, drizzle it over a hot dog for a kick, or simply spread it onto your sandwich.
Bootsy Collins collection
Eclectic singer and guitarist Bootsy Collins rose to fame as a pioneer in the world of funk music back in the 1970s, so it should come as no surprise that Bootsy's trio of hot sauces is pretty darn groovy. Unlike hot sauces that capitalize on the use of imagery involving blood, fire, demons, and other spooky themes in their marketing and packaging, Bootsy Collins's hot sauce conveys a more laid-back, psychedelic, and fun vibe ... at least on the surface. These are still hot sauces, after all, and a couple might have you scrambling for a glass of milk after using them to douse your chicken wing!
Bootsy has three different types of sauce in his portfolio. Bootzilla is the everyman's sauce — a Louisiana-style hot sauce made with cayenne peppers and garlic, somewhat similar to Tabasco or Frank's. The One sauce takes things for a twist with jalapeño peppers blended with pineapple for a hint of sweetness. If you're looking for a tropical-tasting sauce that still brings the heat, Body Slam might speak to you — it's a Bajan-style creation with a mustard base balanced out by sweet papaya and elevated with Scotch Bonnet peppers.
Mötley Crüe collection
The heavy metal rockers of Mötley Crüe experienced something of a second coming in 2019 when Netflix released "The Dirt," a star-studded biopic about the band. The group had previously arranged a "final tour" in 2016, but the popularity of the film led to a renaissance of sorts, and the metalheads have been on a roll ever since. In addition to a Mötley Crüe coffee brand that launched last year, the gang has also developed a line of bespoke hot sauces with varying levels of spiciness.
The collection includes six bottles named after some of the group's biggest hits, such as Primal Scream Scorpion Pepper Hot Sauce (super hot), Shout At The Devil Hot Sauce (Extra Hot), Dr. Feel Good Jalapeno Hot Sauce (hot heat), and Home Sweet Home Mango Hot Sauce (mild heat). Interestingly, the band's hot sauces only use three different kinds of peppers: Habanero is used in four of them, jalapeno in the Dr. Feel Good, and Scorpion pepper (the hottest of the three) in the extra-spicy Primal Scream. Unfortunately, the hot sauces don't appear to be available at the time of this writing, but we're crossing our fingers for a new batch of goods soon.
Ron Bumblefoot Thal — Bumblefoot
In 2007, Guns N' Roses guitarist Ron Thal told Guitar Messenger that he'd come by the nickname Bumblefoot after hearing the term while helping his then-girlfriend study for a test for veterinary school and writing a song titled "Bumblefoot." The song is what helped him rise to fame with his first album, then morphed into the name of his band, and ultimately became his stage name. It's also the name under which he sells his collection of merchandise, which includes a collection of hot sauces.
The Bumblefoot line, like many others, includes three different flavors. The Sauce is your everyday hot sauce perfect for dressing up anything that could use a kick, made with roasted red peppers, red serrano pepper mash, and Mediterranean herbs. Bumblicious is a unique take on hot sauce, using cherry, bourbon, and chipotle peppers to conjure up the taste and aroma of barbeque sauce. Finally, BumbleF**ked is a truly spicy hot sauce made from orange habanero pepper mash as well as ginseng and caffeine — so if you're looking for heat and an energy boost, this might just be the sauce for you, because evidently, the kick from habanero peppers just isn't enough.
Joe Perry — Rock Your World
Traveling the world as Aerosmith's lead guitarist meant that Joe Perry encountered his fair share of bland food. Perry explained in a 2004 interview with Blabbermouth that having grown up eating spicy foods, he frequently found himself confronted with drab, unexciting cuisine during his escapades, which led to him carrying around his own bottles of hot sauce while on the road. Fast-forward to 2004, and the rockstar decided to launch his own hot sauce called Rock Your World.
Joe Perry's hot sauce has a unique flavor created by the use of vinegar, red bell peppers, lime juice, fresh habanero peppers, onion, and garlic in the mix. Heat-wise, Perry compared his sauce to Tabasco in the Blabbermouth interview: "I sat in with Emeril on one of the shows ('Emeril Live' on Food Network). I sat in with his band, and he cooked some stuff with my sauce [...] he said it was about 60 percent heat. That's coming from an expert. But if you can handle Tabasco Sauce, you can probably handle my sauce." Rock Your World is not currently in production, but some signed bottles are available for purchase on resellers like eBay.
Danny Trejo — Trejo's Hot Sauce
Danny Trejo is best known for his roles in films like "Heat," "From Dusk Till Dawn," and "Animal Factory," but the actor also operates a chain of restaurants called Trejo's Tacos (and one location called Trejo's Coffee & Donuts) in the Los Angeles area. You won't find any Cholula, Crystal, or Frank's hot sauce in these taco joints: Instead, Trejo equips his restaurants with his own unique Trejo's Hot Sauce.
Trejo's Hot Sauce features an impressive blend of seven different peppers: chipotle, chili de arbol, guajillo, chili puya, California entero, serrano, and cayenne. The sauces are made without genetically modified ingredients, are naturally gluten-free, and are free from preservatives. Reviews of the sauce on the Trejo's Store website note a strong smoky flavor with a good kick of heat, and many echo the manufacturer's assertion that the versatile sauce can be used on just about anything. Luckily, you don't have to be an Angeleno to sample the flavorful hot sauce: It's available for purchase online at the Trejo's Tacos Store.
T.J. Miller collection
T.J. Miller is known for bringing the heat to the big screen in comedies like HBO's "Silicon Valley" and the 2016 holiday film "Office Christmas Party." Now, the controversial funny guy is bringing that heat to kitchens around the country in a collaboration with Indiana hot sauce manufacturer Scoville Brothers. At the time of writing, T.J.'s line includes four different flavors of hot sauce, all of which are made with organic, farm-grown peppers.
The mildest of the bunch is T.J.'s Choice Chipotle, which his website described as "his most choice hot sauce" and, appropriately, carries a smoky chipotle taste. Slightly hotter is the Extreme Gangster Heat bottle, and the spiciest of all is the F**king Intense Ghost Pepper Type S**t, which incorporates ghost peppers into the recipe. In a 2022 interview with River City Live, Miller explained that "ghost pepper is actually a very flavorful pepper, but people usually use it just for the heat." The final and most recent addition to T.J.'s hot sauce assortment is T.J.'s Diet Hot Sauce, which is a zero-calorie and zero-fat version of the Choice Chipotle.