Hot Honey: From Brooklyn Pizzeria to McDonald's

Hot honey's origin story is unusually well-documented for a condiment that has become this ubiquitous. Mike Kurtz, founder of Mike's Hot Honey, began making his infused honey at Paulie Gee's pizzeria in Brooklyn around 2010, drizzling it on pizzas as a finishing element. The combination of floral honey sweetness and slow-building chile heat was revelatory for diners accustomed to thinking of honey and hot sauce as entirely separate condiment categories. Fast-forward to 2026: hot honey appears on 461 chain restaurant menus, has achieved 230% menu growth over four years, and is projected to grow an additional 151% by 2030. Datassential classifies it as having 'transcended trend status to become a menu staple with staying power that few flavors achieve.' In early 2026, McDonald's launched a limited-time hot honey menu featuring four new items: Hot Honey Sausage Egg Biscuit, Hot Honey Snack Wrap, Hot Honey McCrispy Sandwich, and Bacon Hot Honey McCrispy, along with a standalone hot honey dipping sauce. When McDonald's launches four items around a single flavor simultaneously, that flavor has achieved maximum mainstream penetration. The 'swicy' (sweet plus spicy) flavor category that hot honey pioneered is now a lens through which the entire food industry thinks about product development. Hot honey Ritz crackers, hot honey pizza, hot honey fried chicken, hot honey butter biscuits, hot honey cocktails. The viral hot honey sweet potato beef bowl on TikTok blended the condiment with the wellness angle and became one of 2026's most shared food recipes. Hot honey's functional versatility as a finishing element on pizza, a glaze for fried chicken, a salad dressing component, a cocktail sweetener, and a cheese board companion makes it uniquely durable. A quality bottle from Mike's Hot Honey runs $10-15 and will transform dozens of dishes.