What's Your Chili Tasting Plan?

Home style, red style, chili verde – there’s so much chili and so little time to taste them all. And, with more than 400 chili cooks and a variety of flavors, spices, and personalities, it’s going to be hard to get through all 400 chilis, even impossible. For those of you who haven’t been to a chili cookoff before we want to give you some guidance so you will get the most out of your trip.

Here are our tasty tips for chili tasting at the 49th Annual World’s Championship Chili Cookoff:

1. Make a plan

You love chili, but with more than 400 vendors, it is nearly impossible to taste every single one. We suggest that you plan out your tastings over the three days of the event. Start in one area and move in a logical direction around the festival area. If you don’t plan on spending three days at the World’s Championship Chili Cookoff, plan on arriving early on the day of your visit (the cookoff opens to the public at noon). While it may be tempting to taste as much chili as you can as fast as you can, we suggest taking it slow, which leads us to our next tip.

2. Go Slow

The best way to enjoy the chili cookoff is to go slow. Consuming to much chili at once can put you into chili overload or chili coma. Take your tasting kit and enjoy your selections, then take a break and enjoy some music or one of our many local and regional craft vendors. Then go for round two of chili tasting. Switch off tasting chili and enjoying all the other events we have going on. For a schedule of events click here.

3. Choose Wisely

400 chili cooks means 400 opportunities for different chili tastings. That’s a lot of chili! Most people wouldn’t attempt to try all 400 selections and we certainly would not recommend it, but we do want to encourage you to try and taste the full range of chili offerings. We suggest choosing wisely which chili to taste. Whether you choose based on style, ingredients, or the way the booth or cook looks – that’s up to you. We recommend stepping out of your comfort zone and try something a little different.

4. Bites, not meals

Your stomach can only hold so much chili. We strongly encourage you to try a different chili with each taster within the kit. Sometimes, when we find something that we like a lot, we tend to go overboard. We crave more. Don’t fall into that trap. Move on to the next chili and try as much as you can!

There you have it, our tasty tips for chili tasting at the World’s Championship Chili Cookoff. We can’t wait for this exciting event this weekend and hope you enjoy it too!

Instagram it!

Take some pics and share them with us on Instagram using #GSRchilicookoff – and see them in our feed below.