In a world gone mad for condiments, sizzling honey is king.
You may style it in a Sweetgreen bowl and KFC rooster nuggets, crunch on it in Utz potato chips and pretzels, and savor it in limited-edition ice cream pints. You should purchase bottles of it in bulk at Costco, relish it on ricotta toast in Williamsburg wine bars and put on it — kind of. Mike’s Scorching Honey, the main producer of the condiment, even collaborated on a branded sneaker final 12 months.
As of final week, you may go as far as to drink sizzling honey in an affogato or espresso martini at a Starbucks Reserve, the deluxe places the place the corporate introduces new flavors and merchandise.
Candy-and-spicy shouldn’t be a stunning mixture, particularly within the South, the place honey and sizzling sauce have lengthy stored firm with breakfast biscuits. And sweetened warmth has lengthy been a beloved taste profile throughout cultures: Thai nam jim gai, candy chile sauce; historical Rome’s honey and black pepper wine; Central European gingersnaps; Nashville sizzling rooster.
Launched as a pizza topping to the American palate just a little greater than decade in the past, sizzling honey has shortly gone from a drizzle to a deluge. Google searches for it have elevated tenfold up to now 10 years, peaking in February. Scorching honey has now joined the ranks of pumpkin spice, ranch and chile crisp as flavors that made the leap from cult traditional to mainstream darling.
In accordance with many rapturous TikTok movies, its affinity for charcuterie and cheese boards, to not point out rooster tenders and pepperoni pizza, has helped drive the development — and encourage recipes.
Now we have Brooklyn, a cradle of pizza custom and traits, to thank for warm honey’s ascent. In 2009, the progressive pizzeria Roberta’s launched New Yorkers to its Bee Sting pie, topped with spicy soppressata and honey. The pizza’s runaway reputation helped Roberta’s develop into an empire, with outposts in Los Angeles and a presence within the frozen aisle of grocery shops.
In 2010, Mike Kurtz, a pizza apprentice who had spent years tinkering with a mixture of honey, chiles and vinegar, started promoting his concoction out of Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint. His story goes like this: 20 years in the past, whereas mountain climbing in Brazil as a school scholar, he descended, sizzling and hungry, right into a inexperienced valley the place a lone pizzeria stood. There, he encountered a condiment unknown to him: jars of purple chiles macerating in honey.
The slice was transcendent, the flavour mixture haunting. Unaware that this condiment would in the future grow to be a nationwide obsession (and a $40 million annual enterprise), Mr. Kurtz didn’t ask for the recipe. “All I bear in mind is that it was run by a Swiss man,” he mentioned.
Scorching honey shouldn’t be a standard condiment in Brazil, in line with a number of Brazilian meals consultants. “I grew up with pepper jelly, and much and plenty of pepper sauces, however not sizzling honey,” mentioned Leticia Moreinos Schwartz, a meals author who grew up in Rio de Janeiro. In São Paulo, Brazil’s unofficial pizza capital, candy toppings like guava paste with white cheese are common, however honey — sizzling or not — isn’t a standard providing.
Mr. Kurtz quickly started experimenting with a recipe, first in his dorm room and later within the kitchen of Paulie Gee’s. As quickly as he drizzled the recent honey over the famed pizzaiolo Paul Giannone’s famend pepperoni slice, the Hellboy, a menu mainstay, was born.
Many honey purveyors have produced chile-infused variations to capitalize on the surging curiosity. Savannah Bee Firm, which provides sizzling honey to Starbucks and Costco, launched its model in 2022. Mike’s is the top-selling sizzling sauce on Amazon, regardless of Mr. Kurtz’s insistence that the product shouldn’t be a sizzling sauce. As a substitute of getting to push its method onto crowded sizzling sauce cabinets in supermarkets, the product was fortunate to land within the sleepy honey aisle, the place “nothing had modified for many years,” he mentioned.
Final 12 months, as a part of its quickly increasing packaged meals line, Momofuku launched a sizzling honey model of its common chile crunch. Final month, when the corporate started attempting to implement its trademark of the phrase “chile crunch,” it ignited a fierce debate over whether or not a sauce’s identify, particularly one which consists of generally used phrases, will be cornered by a single producer.
Mr. Kurtz mentioned his firm did, at one level, look into trademarking “sizzling honey.”
“The legal professionals mentioned it wouldn’t fly.”
