Matt Bray 
If there’s a single word that sums up the year in heat, it isn’t “hottest.” It’s “swicy.” Sweet-and-spicy has gone from a niche flavor note to the thing every major brand is chasing, and the biggest launches of 2026 have leaned into flavor, fruit, and …
The datil has a specific problem: almost nobody can buy one fresh. It grows in and around St. Augustine, Florida, in small batches, for local families and local restaurants, and it barely leaves. So if a recipe calls for fresh datil peppers and you don’t …
There’s a certain kind of hot sauce fan who stopped chasing the Scoville leaderboard a while ago. They still love heat, but what pulls them across the room now is flavor: smoke, oak, a little sweetness, the sense that someone let the sauce sit and …
Chipotle powder answers a question that comes up constantly in home cooking: how do you get real smoke into a dish that never goes near a fire? It is ground chipotle pepper, which is a jalapeño left on the plant until it turns red and …
Scotch bonnets are hard to find on purpose-built trips and nearly impossible on accidental ones. Outside the sub-tropics and neighborhoods with a strong Caribbean population, most supermarkets simply don’t carry them. So you find the jerk recipe, you read the ingredient list, and you’re stuck. …
The scotch bonnet is the Caribbean’s signature chili: a squat, wrinkled, extra-hot pod that carries as much sweetness as it does fire. It’s the pepper behind jerk seasoning, behind most of the island hot sauces worth buying, and behind a heat that arrives a beat …
Hoisin on its own is already a fine glaze for grilled pork or chicken, but it isn’t barbecue sauce. Add ketchup, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar and it becomes one: sweeter and deeper than a standard tomato sauce, with a savory backbone you don’t …
Blueberries and jalapeño sound like a mistake until you taste them together. The berries bring a dark, mellow sweetness, the pepper brings a bright green snap, and the gap between the two is the whole point of the salsa. It takes fifteen minutes, there’s no …
Everyone reaches for the margarita, and the paloma is the drink they’re missing. It’s grapefruit and tequila with a squeeze of lime, it’s genuinely more popular than the margarita in Mexico, and it takes about two minutes to build. A shot of jalapeño simple syrup …
Here’s a light summer salad with a real kick to it. Sweet mango and creamy avocado go over fresh greens, a blended habanero dressing goes over the top, and the whole thing comes together in about fifteen minutes. Serve it as an appetizer or a …
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