Bed-Stuy Drag Queen's Sauce To Make 'Hot Ones' Debut

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — A Bed-Stuy hot sauce made by a culinarily-inclined drag queen will be slathered on wings and eaten by celebrities on television.

Shaquanda's Hot Pepper Sauce is the third of nine sauces to be featured on the upcoming season of "Hot Ones," an online series that features celebrities trying to answer questions as they knock back increasingly spicy wings.

"This island-style hot sauce is made in Bed-Stuy, but the scotch bonnet and habanero driven heat is straight out of Barbados," host Sean Evans says in a YouTube teaser published earlier this month. "Say hello to your new best friend Shaquanda."

Shaquanda is the alter ego of the hot sauce chef Andre Springer, who has been whipping up the spicy stuff in Bed-Stuy since 2016, according to the Shaquanda Will Feed You website.

Springer hails from Bed-Stuy and learned how to make hot sauce with his Barbadian grandmother who taught him to pickle peppers, according to this Indigogo campaign.

It was at the historic LGBT nightclub The Slide in downtown Manhattan that Shaquanda made her first appearance in a round of Gay Jeopordy, Springer writes.

"As an artist, lover of food, and drag queen, I needed to make something that was most authentically me," Springer wrote. "Hot sauce seemed like the natural next step."

Lots of love goes into Shaquanda's Hot Pepper Sauce, as is witnessed by this very serious informational video:

Ingredients include lots on "bougie" ingredients like New York apple cider vinegar — "it's also a natural anti-fungal!" — and ginger that Shaquanda may or may not keep in her wig.

"Rub it on white meat or rub it on dark meat," the chef recommends. "You too can be the Queen of your kitchen."

Shaquanda's sauce will certainly be rubbed on chicken wings and fed to a line-up of celebrities whose names have not yet been released.

Past guests have included Taraji P. Henson, Stephen Colbert, Tiffany Haddish and Kevin Hart, Neil deGrassi Tyson, Billie Eilish, Gordon Ramsey and Tyra Banks, to name just a few of many.

Season 9 will debut on First We Feast's YouTube channel on May 30 at 11 a.m.