As I was working in & around the hot sauce shrine we have down in our basement, I began to wonder if other people who do collecting go about it in a similar way as we do. Some questions I’d like for some people to answer are:

1. How do you keep track of all the bottles in your collection? (For example, I use MS Access to keep a list.)

2. How many bottles do you currently own?

3. What sorts of racks/display apparatuses do you use to display your bottles?

4. Do you buy 2 bottles of one kind at a time…one to use and one to collect? Or do you just save the empty bottles?

5. Aside from current market value (those who peruse eBay know what I mean), which bottle(s) are your most favorite or most sentimental?

Answer any or all of the above questions. Don’t be shy, folks! Shout out whatcha do! We can’t all wait for that next issue of Chile Pepper to find out then…

(published on behalf of Mason R., who is busy “on assigment” and won’t be writing again for a while….)

Welcome to The Capsicum Romance!

Are you interested in a particular hot sauce/chili? I’ll let you know what I know. Are you interested in making spicy dishes, and ways to add a new zing to old favorites? Those will be here too. The Capsicum Romance is my platform to the world of chiliheads where I will review products, share recipes and experiences, and discuss all things hot.

To give you a little insight into my world, I’m still relatively new to the chili world. I’ve always loved hot and spicy food, and I was first able to exercise my taste freedom like most people, after moving out of my parent’s house. The last nine years have been a taste exploration. This is my forum for information exchange; another opinion for you to consider when deciding on your next purchase, somewhere where you can get a dinner idea, and sometimes a fact source. Aside from my professional training as an organic chemist, I have tapped a pool of knowledge from friends who come from all over the world, and I plan on sharing that knowledge as well. If you wish to contact me, you may leave me a private message for DreamTheaterVT at www.thehotpepper.com or via email vtchili@vt.edu

The boring part is over. Time for the fun to begin, and I’ll start with the dinner I made for myself tonight.

One of my favorite meals growing up was sloppy joes. Sloppy joes are a near perfect food for hot sauce because you can spice up your meal without making it an overpowering flavor, unless that is what you want. Furthermore, nearly any hot sauce can be used, giving you as many variations as there are hot sauces available. Do you have a hot sauce that is too vinegary for normal use? Just simmer it longer to evaporate it off. Have a hot sauce too hot for your taste? A little will go a long way here. And, as I learned tonight, it can help mask a mistake. Chopped fresh chilies work great as well in this dish. Lately, I’ve been using Predator hot sauce on my sloppy joes. I like Predator out of the bottle, but I think its flavor really compliments the brown sugar and onion. As I stated earlier, it can also cover up a mistake. I added too much garlic originally, but after adding my hot sauce, the garlic taste was no longer overbearing. Below is the recipe I usually follow for making my hot sloppy joes. Please note that I don’t measure anything, so I’ll try to describe how much I use. One of the pleasures of the eyeball method is that my meal is always a little different.

1 lb. Ground beef
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 tsp crushed garlic
Ketchup
Yellow Mustard
3 (or more) teaspoons brown sugar (add a little molasses for a darker color joe)
Onion powder & garlic powder to taste
1 chopped chili without ribs/seeds (substitute or add a quarter of a green pepper)
Worcestershire sauce
Hot Sauce of choice

Brown the beef, and grain the fat. Lower the heat to a low setting, and add the onion, garlic, and fresh chili and cook until onion is softened. Add enough ketchup so that you can make a thick mixture upon stirring, and then add some mustard. Your ketchup to mustard ratio should be about 3:1 to 4:1. Then add the brown sugar, and sprinkle some onion and garlic powder. Add a dash or two of the Worcestershire sauce. Simmer for 3-5 minutes and taste. Feel free to add more sugar, onion, garlic, or woozy sauce to suit your taste. When you have the taste where you want it, add the hot sauce (will vary on your taste and choice of sauce), and simmer an additional 5 minutes. Serve on bun.

I’ve tried a few hot sauces with this. Predator works great, as do other very hot sauces. Joe Perry’s Boneyard Brew is another good one, as well as Jamaican Hell Fire, Blair’s Death Sauce, Tabasco’s Chipotle (the only Tabasco product I use), and Scorned Woman. There are tons of other sauces I plan on using with this. If you try a sauce and it is a good fit, I’d love to hear about it.

Keep it spicy

Mason

Yeah, so we couldn’t help but dig up a cool SNL quote from the Sprockets sketch, featuring Mike Myers as “Dieter.”

For the HZOB version, see below:

» Continue Reading

We’ve talked to John on thehotpepper.com site for a number of months now, and it was obviously just a matter of time before we were able to squeeze the DEFCON wing sauces into our schedule of culinary chaos. Little did he know of our weakness when it comes to tasting buffalo wing sauce. LOL! We appreciate John and Mrs. DEFCON Creator (aka Maggie) for sending us some of the tasty organics which crawled out of the lab, and into our mailbox. Thanks, guys!

Tell us a little about your humble beginnings making wing sauces. Hell, if they’re not-so-humble, tell us about that too.

Well, I started making wings about 12 years ago. I was intrigued by the taste and felt I could make them. Man, I really came out with some heinous stuff in the first couple of tries. After a while though, things started tasting a bit better than steaming roadkill, and I started making them for our annual Superbowl parties. During the year each year a few friends would always ask if I could make them a batch of sauce for a party they were throwing…I had no problem doing it. A little over a year ago, a good friend of mine asked me over a couple of beers, “Hey man, why don’t you try selling this stuff, people love it.”. Well, I gave it a shot, and here we are, owners of the best wing sauce of 2006, sales in over 20 states and as of recently overseas, and we’re having a ball making this stuff. It kind of ironic too, my wife can’t handle ANYTHING hot, she considers herself Mrs. Oppenheimer…In her words “She only builds the bomb, she doesn’t drop it”. Well, I guess that makes me Evil Uncle Oppenheimer, and yeah, I have a fully loaded B-52, and the bombay doors are open.

We picture your workings in the home lab as Young Frankenstein meets Doc Brown (from Back to the Future) meets Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. How is the creative process for you?

I was the quintessential chemical tinkerer / midnight alchemist at a very early age, hence the shape of our sauce bottles. This fascination has carried into this day and age, as you can see by the pics I sent. You should be able to find me at the Fiery Foods Show, I think I’ll stand out a bit.

As for our home lab, our early R&D days were just that. Hell, there was a time, when screwing around with extracts, I would take a breather. I’d walk out the deck, raise my goggles, lower my respirator, and light up a butt. I got strange looks from our neighbors, as if we had a meth lab in the basement. Habanero dust in every nook and cranny of the house, 25 different vinegars in the spice cabinet, perpetual watery eyes, and the infamous 2 gallon ceramic pot on the stove, awaiting the next batch to be created. Things may have gotten a little more hi-tech and commercially zoned as of late, but ahhhh the early days, whose rough and determined attitude still drives us today. In my opinion, Nature was built to play with. As I stated on www.thehotpepper.com, my capsaicin-based homunculus who lives in the crisper of my refrigerator is proof of that.

There are quite a few wing sauces out there, so what makes yours different/better/more desirable than some others?

Some others? As we see it, it’s currently as ALL others, LOL! Well, we have stuck with the original formulae, and haven’t screwed around with the recipes at all, unlike many other sauces out there. As I said before, I’ve been making this stuff for 12 years for Superbowl parties, I guess you could see that as 12 straight years of test marketing (with a very rough and critical crowd), and the fact that more and more people come for the wings than the game every year, we have to be doing something right. Nothing like empirical data gathered from a Superbowl party.

How shocked were you to receive a Scovie Award? What did you think your chances were when you sent your stuff in to be judged?

Considering my wife wanted to have me committed during my “happy dance” after receiving the phone call, we were pretty excited. We actually won 2, which made it that much sweeter. We didn’t have any idea we’d win, given the number of wing sauces out there, and the fact that many of them have been around since the original creation of the Buffalo Wing. We expected at most a mere honorable mention of some sort, but to win the trophy for the actual category we truly wanted was flat out awesome. 2006 will be a year we ride the wave, so to speak, and intend many public appearances, from big shows, to “Defcon Days” at local drinking establishments. We at Defcon Sauces are committed to what we make, and from the results in the last year, I think were on the right track. Our first business plan was simple, to pay for half of an upcoming 2007 Shelby Mustang GT 500. Well, now that we are on the map, we now want to replace every bottle of hot sauce in every bar in the United States with ours. Just like our motto states, “Future Rulers of Earth”. Ahhh, global domination, what a rush!

With the most recent product, the Defcon 0 sauce, being your hottest yet, can we expect to start to see bottles with negative integers soon? Other new stuff?

It’s kinda weird, the ZERO stuff has taken off like a rocket. I had no idea that would happen. It takes a LONG time to make a batch of that stuff, as we refuse to use any machines to create our extracts, it’s all hands on (with really thick rubber gloves) and COMPLETELY natural, unlike a vast majority of extracts out there. Our immediate idea for this line of Defcon is to just make it hotter and hotter as we go along, but the negative integers might happen as well, we’ll have to wait and see. Our next release of ZERO might be ready for the Fiery Foods show in March, so we may release it there first, for collectors’ sake, in some REALLY cool packaging.

Other new stuff we’re encompasses the very complex use of our own extracts. We are currently working on two Defcon variations for possible production, horseradish and wasabi. Since we’re using our own extracts, we can keep the original color and texture of the sauce, which we find kind of cool. These will be a while in the making, but, if we choose to put them into production, we can guarantee they’ll be good. So far, the horseradish stuff is truly mind-numbing. The vapors alone will get rid of the worst guest that won’t leave. Who knows, one guy uses our #3 sauce on his plants for deer repellant (and they haven’t returned in 2 years), maybe our ZERO extract will eventually cure the common cold, it certainly is hot enough (yeah, pun intended).

Awards

The Defense Condition 2 was a 1st place winner and the Defense Condition 1 was a 3rd place winner at the 2006 (and most recent) Scovie Awards. Kick ass!

So what’s in all this stuff? An Ingredient List!

Defense Condition 3: Peppers, vinegar, butter, salt, spices (least hot)

Defense Condition 2: Peppers, vinegar, butter, salt, spices

Defense Condition 1: Peppers, vinegar, butter, salt, spices (most hot)

(Obviously, the Creator is keeping the exact ingredients close to the vest.)

Joe’s take

Defense Condition 3: There’s undoubtedly a reason why this one comes in the largest bottle of the three, and it’s not just because its modest heat level will allow the average wing chef to make more. It just has the broadest taste appeal. It’s just vinegary enough so that you taste that with each wing, but spicy enough to let the naive palate know it ain’t messin’ around. This is one where you can really appreciate the taste without worry about the burn that immediately follows with its hotter sibling sauces. I didn’t quite use it all with the wing batch, and I found it to work well with baking in onto some other foods as well. Even though any poultry dish I used it with tasted better, I’ll still save it for wing night!

Defense Condition 2: Just like the proverbial porridge from the Goldilocks story, this one is just right. It tasted very much like the Three sauce, but I’m firmly convinced that there is a synergistic taste effect with the heat level that makes this sauce the most desirable of the three to me. It was a little much for our resident wing newby here, but we would probably have licked the plate clean had no one else been around to witness us do it. Not quite as vinegary as the Three sauce, it’s just good eatin’. This sauce may indeed be destined for world domination…but domination had better come in a bigger jar! LOL!

Defense Condition 1: I made the smallest batch of wings using this sauce, fearing the gastronomic consequences of the capsaicin potency within the bottle. After all, the Creator warned me to “be very careful with the little bottle, and don’t get it on your hands (or any other exposed epidermal tissue), Nature may call!” So, with a slight amount of trepidation, I chomped into the first few wings…and immediately felt the wrath. I’m not sure where this compares as far as heat levels go with other uber-hot wing sauces, but every sweat gland on my scalp opened up and gushed after the second wing reached my stomach. Wow! The taste closely mirrored the Two sauce, but your taste buds can only register so much before the capsaicin short-circuits them. If you want your wings to have heat, taste, and attitude…then this bottle is for you.

Linda’s take

Defense Condition 3: This was a nice wing sauce with which to start wing night. Really wonderful wing flavor with just enough spice that could appeal to almost anyone’s heat tolerance. Perfect for kids who want to share the experience of wing night. I think this is also perfect as a sandwich sauce, to make the ordinary sandwich into the buffalo sandwich.

Defense Condition 2: Wow…where can I get some more of this stuff? This was a fantastic and perfect sauce, in my opinion. Yes, past tense. We used all of this and probably would have made more wings if we had more sauce. A little more kick and a little less tang than the #3 make this bad boy perhaps the best wing sauce I’ve tasted. No more going back to the local wing joint when you can make this at home with better flavor.

Defense Condition 1: I tried one of these. That’s all I could take and when I was done with that one, I was done for good. So, if you aren’t used to super hot wings, you need to get your fill of the other sauces before even going here or you’ll be drinking milk for a while. That said, this sauce STILL has a lot of flavor. The flavor hits you right before the heat, so if you wanted to keep tasting the great flavor without being run over by the heat, just keep eating them really, really fast.

Want to review DEFCON Sauces for yourself? Go here and leave your own opinion:

www.rateitall.com
www.thehotpepper.com

Don’t just take our word for it! Here are some online reviews of these sauces:

Who knew folks at SHU could write this well?
Is Nick Insane? You be the judge.
Cool note from the Food Mall

Give these reviewers a shout and ask them to review DEFCON Sauces as well.

Carl’s Big List of Reviews
Alien Zombie
The Hot Sauce Guide
Saucerater
Feeling Saucy

Recipes

If you’ve not made buffalo wings at home before, this great article from the HSB will help a ton!

Read this discussion thread where the Creator discusses his Zen mastery of chicken wings.

We’ve updated a few of the pics with our new snazzy digital camera. Thanks to Chris Tevis from Perfectly Pickled for offering a great deal on the lucite display racks. The daunting part of our collection is that we simply don’t have enough space to display them all. Roughly 60% of our 380+ sauces are on display, with the rest still in boxes that can be swapped in or out as desired. The ones pictured do not include the 2-3 dozen that we have open for use at any given time and are kept in the kitchen cupboard and/or fridge. Yes, we love our hot sauces.

View image 1 - Hottest of the Hot
View image 2 - Mounted Wall Rack
View image 3 - Big Floor Rack
View image 4 - REALLY Hot Stuff
View image 5 - Dave’s Insanity Sauces
View image 6 - The Row of Blair
View image 7 - Some Oversized Bottles
View Image 8 - Autographed sauces
View image 9 - The Row of Blair, other side
View image 10 - A hot duo

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