Some Spice with your Sugar? It’s Such a Popular Vice

For at least 2000 years, people have enjoyed chocolate. The Aztecs, and perhaps earlier pre-Columbian civilizations, enjoyed sipping a drink made with cacao and…hot pepper? Until recently, it would have seemed like modern-day sacrilege to combine our sweet chocolate with spicy flavors. But today, you can find gourmet chili chocolates in many high end grocery stores.

Here is a picture of the product line from Montezuma’s Chocolates, a British company. Would the late Aztec ruler have approved of having his name on chocolate bars? Montezuma never lived to see flavors like dragon ginger, orange geranium, and chili lime.

Spicy chocolate is only the beginning. While other bold combinations have become popular (such as intense sweet and salty flavors in the same food), the marriage of sweet and spicy has really caught on. Just look at who is doing it or planning new products that embrace these combinations (more on that in a moment).

Sure, the candy market has included some longstanding spicy sensations. Red Hots, Hot Tamales, and Atomic Fireballs are some stalwarts. These have been niche items for those who like taking cinnamon flavor to its spicy extreme.

Also notable is that sweet-spicy combinations have been popular for a long time in other countries. This post mainly describes tastes and trends in the U.S., which varies from other countries and world regions. Food in the United States was rather bland until immigration and travel brought residents into contact with more diverse flavors.

What we see today is a clear movement toward more spicy and sweet stuff. You can keep your sweet chili Doritos and your spicy Buffalo wings-flavored potato chips. I’m talking about traditional sweet stuff that has gotten hotter.

Pictures are worth a thousand words and what a tale they tell. Our traditional candy values are being ruined by these new-fangled immigrant flavors. Is it too late to build a wall?

Of course, I’m joking about the invasion. I love diverse flavors. And you know something is a trend when I get involved.

Normally, I’m not on the leading edge of trends; trends hit me before I wake up to them. Such was the case with one of my favorite drinks, a fermented kombucha drink from the Revive Company (a California kombucha brewery). Having tried several good kombucha drinks before, I was interested to take my first sip of Revive’s Tropic Wonder seasonal brew. It is made with fermented Earl Grey tea, fresh orange juice, vanilla, and…..what? Cayenne pepper?

Had I noticed cayenne pepper was an ingredient, I may never have purchased a bottle of this elixir, but not doing so would have been a mistake. Love at first sip. The taste was orangey Earl Grey with a smooth vanilla melt and then the snap of natural carbonation kicked up with something hotter. I did not think I would like spicy drinks, but this one (which is regional, seasonal, and difficult to find) gave me an instant education in what my palette has been missing.

And so, if I have finally gotten on board with the sweet and spicy thing, then there must be millions of people ahead of me, and therefore it qualifies as a trend. If you need some more confirmation that spicy sweet drinks are a thing, try some of the new Pepsi Fire. It tastes like Red Hots in a bottle of cola.

Naw, on second thought, I’ll just have a shot of sriracha sauce.

Wait, that’s not sauce, that’s…sriracha beer? Stout meets hot sauce. And another magical drink is born. What will they think of next?

Top image: Aztec Codex. Other images come largely from the beverage and snack makers, except for the Mexican Candy image, which does not appear to be copyrighted. Montezuma's Chocolates is owned by Montezuma's Direct Ltd; Pepsi and Pepsi Fire are registered trademarks of Pepsico; Skittles and Starburst marks are owned by the Wrigley Company; M&Ms are a trademark of the Mars Corporation; Lindt is owned by Lindt & Sprungli AG; Red Hots and Atomic Fireballs are trademarked and made by the Ferrara Candy Company; Hot Tamales are a trademark of the Just Born candy company; the mark for Jelly Belly beans are owned by the company of the same name; Doritos are a brand of Frito-Lay, a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo; Tropic Wonder is brewed by Revive Kombucha; Sriracha is a generic term (don’t tell the Huy Fong rooster company, which must have licensed that image to the brewery), and the beer is brewed by Rogue Ales & Spirits.