As a former resident of Bradenton, Florida, I was a little nostalgic to see such a great new hot sauce shop doing good business there. John Martell’s Hot Shot Pepper Emporium is only a few miles from where I used to live, and we’ll definitely stop in on our next trip to the ol’ hometown…whenever that happens to be. For now, here’s the article, which admittedly is a little older now than when it was first published:

Hot sauce fans will find nirvana at Hot Shot

Last week I had a craving for jerk chicken, and when I couldn’t find a decent jerk paste at the supermarket, I paid a visit to John Martell’s Hot Shot Pepper Emporium at 512 36th St. W., Bradenton.

John pointed me directly to an entire shelf of Jamaican jerk pastes like Grace, Walkerswood and the one I had in mind, Busha Browne’s.

The red chili peppers tattooed on John’s arm make it pretty clear that he knows a thing or two about spicy food. He says that his inventory of hot sauces, mustards, relishes, chutneys and barbecue sauces has grown from roughly 400 when he opened his shop two years ago to more than 800. After telling The Herald that his New Year’s resolution was to stock more than 800 items, he couldn’t really back down. In fact, he just added a few new sauces last week.

Customers can sample around 70 of the sauces at Hot Shot.

Plenty of the items on John’s shelves are there by customer request. “If I can find it, I’ll get it in,” he told me, adding that many of the special requests he tracks down turn out to be good sellers.

“I like to work with local people,” he added, noting several sauces made in the area, including Shag’s, Sassy Sarah’s, Westy’s and Sharkey’s.

I definitely saw a few of my favorites there, including Pickapeppa, a Jamaican take on A-1, and the Sriracha and chili garlic sauces from Huy Fong Foods, which are great with fried chicken, blue crabs and Bloody Marys.

John says that his favorites are Tahiti Joe’s Tropi-Garlic Italian Heat and a curried mango sauce.

If you don’t think you like spicy foods, remember that heat isn’t a one-dimensional thing. There’s more out there than just Tabasco. The diverse inventory at Hot Shot Pepper Emporium is a fine example

If you stop in to John’s store or talk to him, tell him that Joe & Linda sent ya!!

Original article quoted from:

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/living/14370238.htm