The CNE made its own hot sauce and is slathering it on everything this year

Toronto's beloved CNE is right around the corner, and for 2026, it's coming with a considerable kick.

Everyone gets something different out of the annual exhibition, whether you go for the rides, the games, or the animal pavilion, but the outrageous eats lead to some of the event's most talked-about moments year after year. Who could forget the ketchup and mustard soft serve a few years back?

This year, the Ex is spicing things up in an entirely new way by launching its own signature hot sauce and slathering it all over a series of different dishes at the event.

Manufactured by Hamilton small-batch hot sauce business Tijuana Tom's House of Hot Sauce, the CNE's Sweet Heat hot sauce blends sweet flavours of molasses, vanilla extract and raspberries with the kick of habanero. Clocking in at a three-out-of-five on the spicy scale, it's a force to be reckoned with.

The hot sauce will be sold by the bottle for $12 exclusively at the CNE's new coffee and merchandise shop, Drip, but if you want to sample it before you commit to a whole bottle, you'll also be able to find it incorporated into plenty of dishes, too.

Los Vietnamita Taco Truck, for example, is dipping juicy pieces of fried chicken in the hot sauce, placing them into a taco shell made of Buldak ramen noodles and topping the whole thing with cotton candy aioli and kimchi.

Jerk Dogs Food Truck, a vendor new to the CNE this year, puts their fieriest foot forward with the "Cotton Candy Wafflelicious," a monstrosity that features — hold my hand — a waffle-battered jerk chicken hot dog, mango mustard, pineapple relish, jerk barbecue sauce, CNE Sweet Heat hot sauce and a generous topping of cotton candy for good measure.

Mercifully, some vendors are taking a more measured approach. Marry Me Mochi has crafted a three-piece mochi donut collection centred around the hot sauce, including a mango habanero donut with the hot sauce marbled into the glaze, and a savoury "Nacho Affair" donut, topped with nacho cheese and crispy bacon, served with a side of either sour cream or CNE Sweet Heat.

I can't believe I'm describing nacho donuts as "measured," but such is the magic of the CNE, I guess.

The CNE kicks off on Friday, Aug. 21 and runs until Sept. 7, and, if the new sauce is any indication, the Ex's 147th year is shaping up to be its hottest yet.