Award Winning Hot Sauces 🔥

Hot Sauce Awards FAQ

What are the Scovie Awards?

The Scovie Awards are one of the largest and longest-running blind-judged competitions for spicy and specialty foods, hosted annually by Sunbelt Shows for more than 25 years. Around a thousand products are entered each year (1,011 entries in 2024, and 965 in 2025 from 169 companies across 35 U.S. states and 14 countries), scored by a panel of 80 to 100 judges who taste each product from coded cups without knowing the brand. A Scovie is widely treated as one of the top honors in the hot sauce world.

What is the Fiery Food Challenge and the Golden Chile Award?

The Fiery Food Challenge is the longest-running and most prestigious blind-tasting competition in the fiery-food industry, held each year at ZestFest and overseen by industry icon John "CaJohn" Hard. More than 400 companies enter over 900 commercially packaged products across roughly 70 to 85 categories. The best product in each category receives a Golden Chile Award. Because the judging is blind, wins come down to flavor and heat alone.

What is the International Flavor Awards?

The International Flavor Awards (also called the Flave Awards) is a blind-judged food competition created to give small and medium-sized makers a stage for original products. Every entry is tasted from a numbered cup, so judges cannot see the brand or maker, and each is scored from 1 to 10 by at least three judges on appearance, aroma, texture, flavor, use of heat, creativity, and overall impression. Barbaro Mojo's El Havanero took 1st Place for Best Latin Hot Sauce.

What is ZestFest?

ZestFest is the world's premier festival celebrating spicy food, held each year at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, Texas, and now in its 25th year. Alongside the blind-judged Fiery Food Challenge, the festival includes a People's Choice vote decided by festival attendees rather than a judging panel. Barbaro Mojo's Piñazo took 2nd Place in the People's Choice category.

What is the Old Boney Mountain Hot Summer Night competition?

The Old Boney Mountain "Hot Summer Night" is an international hot sauce competition held in Thousand Oaks, California, that doubles as a fundraiser for the Old Boney Mountain Foundation for Kids. It is one of the larger contests in the country, with 565 companies competing in 2024 across divisions from mild through extra hot, plus fruit-based, BBQ, mustard, and snacks. Barbaro Mojo's El Havanero won 1st Place for Best Cuban Hot Sauce, and the brand was ranked 19th Best Small-Batch Hot Sauce Company in the world.

Why do blind-judged hot sauce awards matter?

In a blind tasting, judges score each sauce from coded cups without seeing the label or brand, so results reflect flavor, aroma, and heat rather than marketing or packaging. That makes wins at the Scovie Awards and the Fiery Food Challenge a more reliable signal of quality than star ratings alone, which is why these competitions carry real weight with retailers and serious hot sauce buyers.

How competitive are these awards?

Very. The Scovie Awards draw around a thousand entries a year, and the Fiery Food Challenge fields more than 900 products from over 400 companies, with entries from around the world judged by panels of dozens of experts. Placing in any category means a sauce stood out against hundreds of others.

Which awards has Barbaro Mojo won?

Barbaro Mojo has earned twelve honors across five competitions, including a Scovie Awards Grand Prize for product packaging, 1st Place for Best Latin Hot Sauce at the International Flavor Awards (El Havanero), multiple Golden Chile Awards at the Fiery Food Challenge, and a ranking of 19th Best Small-Batch Hot Sauce Company in the world at Old Boney Mountain. The full record is listed above.

Are Barbaro Mojo sauces still small-batch even with all the awards?

Yes. Every Barbaro Mojo sauce is still handcrafted in small batches in Miami on a Cuban mojo criollo base of sour orange and garlic. The awards recognize that small-batch quality, they do not replace it.