Time to expand the chilehead world view for those of us here in North America! Thanks to Mick from Ol’ Man Stillmanz Boutique Chilli Sauces, we have a report from the 2008 Hot Sauce and Fiery Foods Festival (called the HSFFF) from the land Down Under. Mick’s story about the show is pretty entertaining, and we plan to do more to highlight Aussie products and industry events as we hear about them. Check out Mick’s story, fresh from the show:

The two days were a huge success, as Horrible Haggis’s Festival just goes from strength to strength. The funniest thing is this year was to be the last at his deer farm in the beautiful wilds of country Victoria. Imagine driving for 40 minutes into rolling hills, dairy farms, and little wineries. It’s magic great if you’re on a motor bike. My wife and I, not knowing Victoria, got pretty nervous when we realized how rural it was. I remember turning to her and saying something about no one coming to this festival in the middle of nowhere, its real “Mad Max” country.

Let me tell you, Haggis is a fiery little fella but a good guy at heart. He was saying to me that it was time for a change. He thought the best thing for the festival was to bring it into the Melbourne CBD so it would be easier to take it to the people, get some bigger sponsors, and take some of the financial pressure from the Redback Chilli Co. I could see the sense behind his thinking; it sucks throwing a party and then catching the whole bill.

That Friday I got very drunk and slept in the stall. I was awoken early by my wife, she threw a bottle of Gatorade at my head, told me I looked terrible, and with that…I was up!

Saturday the first Day

It’s funny when you are the new guy on the block. There’s a funny feeling on the back of your neck and the pit of your stomach its fear; we didn’t know what to expect from this whole experience. All I knew was that no one in Victoria had ever heard of “Ol’ Man stillmanz boutique chilli sauces.” I had 600 bottles of sauce and I had to sell them. Because I’m from Brisbane Qld…that’s over 1000 kilometres away, and who knows how many miles.

The first day was hot and dry about 32 degrees. The sound check at the stage was cranking out, the bar was set and ready to roll, and all of us sauce guys were winding up our final preparation for the onslaught of the masses.

Then they started to roll in and they didn’t stop.

The rockabilly bands played loud and wild guitar solos howled through the air. The day got hotter and the crowd just kept growing in size and what a crowd…they were great. Ever go to a chilli festival and find that the crowd isn’t really into chilli? There are no tire kickers at this festival. The crowd is hardcore, they love chilli, and they want to try it all. We got swamped with hands grabbing for samples and asking questions. I was so busy I had to ask people from the crowd to get me beers and you know they got them and gave me my change.

The only break was from the heavy stream of people was when the chilli eating contest was on or when they had the tequila and hot sauce scream challenge. The chilli eating contest was fairly cool to watch when you had a chance. A heap of extra large yellow manzano peppers were kindly donated by Disaster Bay. They’re a great sauce company who make one of the most unique products on the market, a chilli wine consisting of up to 8 different peppers.

Now for the tequila hot sauce shot and scream challenge. Just as it sounds, you drink a shot filled with hot sauce and tequila and the first to scream out after having the shot is the winner…and it’s harder than it sounds. It was very interesting to watch nonetheless. NOTE: Every person who won the chilli eating contest finished the day in the same way….power-vomiting behind the stage.

END OF DAY 1…that night, the vendors threw a party and ran amok too much and got drunk. Some of the fairground machinery was turned-on, there was much screaming, much nervous laughter, and many unwell people in the morning.

Start of the Sunday

OK, so Saturday rocked and everyone tells me Sunday is better. They had a chili cook off, they had Brazilian bands and they had bigger, wilder crowds. Needless to say, they were right.

On Sunday, the festival was a blur and I was too busy to move. I missed the chili cook off, the chilli eating and the shot competitions. I was just pinned to the tent talking and talking and talking and selling almost everything I had to sell.

So what I’d like to tell you about is some of the great people and stalls that came to the 9th Annual HSFFF Australia. I thought I’d start with Marcel from THE CHILLI FACTORY. This guy is huge here in OZ and over here he’s slowly taking the planet by storm. He’s got great products and is one of the good guys in a ruthless industry. Marcel sells… he was near us and his stall just pumps and pumps. When you look at guys like that you realize you have a lot to learn.

One of your own was there, Mr. Jim Campbell from MILD to WILD, and this guy’s great. I was telling him how I grow fataliis and have a product and there’s this guy Cajohn who has some fatalii products…. and he quietly turns to me and says “yeah I grow ‘em for him.” I say “How many?” His reply was, “Oh, about 4000 plants.” After that conversation, I picked his brains as best as I could on the state of growers in the U.S. market. The man is a wealth of knowledge.

Then there is Haggis and his Redback Chilli Co. For me, I am usually a bit unsure about cartoonish labels. I always think maybe the sauce can’t back it up and the label is the selling point. Haggis’s products however are great; the art on the labels almost distracts from a tasty product. Haggis could have no label at all and sell buckets of this stuff, and I really like his sauce.

Byron Bay Chilli Co. was right next door to us. John Boland couldn’t make it but the guys who were there were great value. John’s sauces have won quite a few of the Scovies over the years and they did well with the crowd.

Distributors for Blair’s Death sauces were there and they burned a few but I never got a chance to say g’day to them.

And then there was us HSFFF virgins “Ol’Man Stillmanz Boutique chilli sauce.” I can tell you we did just fine. They loved our fruit-based habanero hot sauces and we loved them, but not in a biblical sense.

The bands were great on the second day, just awesome. The crowds were just great, and the whole experience was perfect. Late on the final day after we had packed up our stall, we headed up to say goodbye and to head back to my wife’s relatives house (our base camp). Haggis spotted me saying goodbye and asked me to help him set up the tequila line. What the hell’s a tequila line, I thought….

92 shots of tequila lined up on a board. I looked around and realized there weren’t a lot of people left, and it was then I got nervous. Ever sung the tequila song and had back-to-back tequilas until you couldn’t…I have, and it made me think Haggis is a good guy. He runs a great festival, and he puts a huge amount of his own money into running what is classed as the premier chili festival in Australia. You can count on one hand the best hot sauce in Australia and all of them will be at Haggis’s place in February, and it gets bigger and better every year. He wants to move it into the city, but god I pray he doesn’t because I had the best time down there. The crowd loved it! I swear so many people said I’ll see you next year and I hope it stays at the farm…and I hope too, what we in OZ need to do is find Haggis a sponsor. Great times!

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI