how to set IF statments for a costume taxonomy post list?

i have this array code to list bookmark links in "link-category" taxonomy.

    'category_before' => '<li id="%id" class="%class" >', 'category_after' => '</li>'

now i want to set if statement to each bookmark link that have "hott" tag.

i used this but not working:

 'category_before' => '<li id="%id" class="%class" <?php if ( is_tax('link_category','hott' ) ) {?> style="color: #ff8c00;" <?php } ?>
  >', 'category_after' => '</li>'

what i can do now?