Photo courtesy of Brian Ambs Youtube channel.
Brian Ambs is a master of many trades: a business owner, freelance photographer, skateboarder, and, perhaps most notably, a hot sauce connoisseur. His Instagram bio pins him as the intersection of skateboarding and hot sauce—a unique combo that’s led him to develop several successful businesses and a substantial following on his YouTube channel.
Since Ambs began posting YouTube videos in 2017, his hot sauce-centric channel has amassed more than 187,000 subscribers, with his most popular video having over 3.4 million views. In Ambs’ world, spiciness is the name of the game, so it comes as no shock that he hails from Buffalo, New York, the home of spicy Buffalo wings.
“I’ve fallen in love with the hot sauce industry,” says Ambs, and his YouTube channel shows it. From reviewing new hot sauces and trying ultra-spicy foods, to doing click-worthy challenges like eating only spicy food for 24 hours, Ambs has the hot sauce game on lock. So much so, in fact, that he now has his own line of hot sauces in collaboration with High Desert Sauce Company, based out of Tucson, Arizona.
“I initially thought it would be a conflict of interest because I review hot sauces on my channel,” says Ambs. “But it’s actually made me better at my job. My hot sauces are everything I like in a hot sauce after thousands of bottles and styles tried.”
If hot sauce is one side of the coin for Ambs, skateboarding is the other. In 2013, he co-created ReVive Skateboards alongside Andy Schrock, his childhood friend and fellow YouTube aficionado. ReVive sells all things skateboarding, from wheels and decks to branded apparel.
Schrock and Ambs also collaborate with their friend JP Coovert on a line of children’s clothing called Pancake Attack.
If owning several businesses and running a YouTube channel wasn’t enough, Schrock and Ambs also have a combined YouTube gaming channel, Taco Game Time, which has over 145,000 subscribers of its own.
“The majority of the time, my day-to-day work life is a lot of fun. I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to do this for a living and I don’t take that for granted,” says Ambs. “My inspirations are always changing, but I’d say I try to work off of ‘informed intuition.’”
On an average day, Ambs gets in early morning run before helping his son get ready for school and out the door. He’s at his studio before 8 a.m., catching up on emails from across his many business ventures before filming and editing content for his YouTube channels. Don’t worry though, Ambs’ studio has its own skate park, so he gets in some board time every week. There’s never a dull moment for Brian Ambs.
“I’ve been tasting and reviewing hot sauces for a long time now, and I hope to continue growing my hot sauce subscription club that highlights companies making cool new hot sauces,” says Ambs. Fans can subscribe to Ambs’s Patreon where, for $18 per month, they get a new bottle of Ambs-approved hot sauce delivered to their door.
As the hot sauce industry continues to experience rapid growth, often likened to that of the craft beer industry, Ambs hopes to stay immersed in the action. “My goal is to introduce people to sauces they never would have known existed and to do my part in growing the industry,” he says.
We tried some local hot sauces with Brian. Watch the video here!
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