DALLAS — Austin, Texas-grown company Yellowbird Foods launched a new spicy wing sauce called Bliss & Vinegar, which was featured on season 16 of the viral YouTube show, “Hot Ones.”
“Hot Ones” is hosted by Sean Evans, who interviews celebrities while they eat wings that progressively get hotter.
In 2021, celebrities including Jimmy Kimmel, Megan Thee Stallion and Tom Holland tasted the new Bliss & Vinegar hot sauce — it was the second one in a lineup of 10 different spicy condiments in the episodes.
The new hot sauce is available across 246 H-E-B grocery stores, on the menu at every Pluckers Wing Bar, and on Yellowbird’s website with shipping to all 50 states. The 13-ounce bottles retail for $6.29 each.
Yellowbird was founded by George Milton and Erin Link in 2012 after they then committed to a healthier lifestyle. At the time, they couldn’t seem to find clean condiments — so they decided to create their own.
The duo started out by sharing their homemade spicy inventions with friends at dinner parties, farmers markets, local restaurants and grocery stores. After almost a decade of being up and running, Yellowbird was asked to create the custom Bliss & Vinegar sauce for Season 16 of “Hot Ones.”
“I really love making hot sauce out of unexpected ingredients,” Milton said. “Bliss & Vinegar was so fun to create because, for me, it was all about balancing the mouth response between ‘f–ing weird’ and ‘f–ing delicious.”
The hot sauces the Austin company makes are filled with whole fruits and vegetables that help create complex flavor profiles and their signature thick, smooth consistency. In the limited edition Bliss & Vinegar sauce, the organic red serrano peppers, onions, ginger and distilled vinegar are balanced with strawberries, dates, coconut cream and a hint of cinnamon.
“The ‘Bliss & Vinegar’ name is a play on the well-known phrase ‘full of piss and vinegar,’” Link said. “We wanted its name to embody the full flavor experience, and Bliss & Vinegar does just that.”
So what do you think, can you handle the heat? To help put the hotness level in perspective, Bliss & Vinegar sits at 66,200 Scoville Heat Units, according to the Yellowbird website, which puts it in the same heat range as cayenne pepper.
