Devil Duck’s Trip To Mecca, part 2

It’s 7:30am Friday morning and I’m already formulating my plan for the day. After a cup of coffee and a few cigarettes, my wife and I head over to Sandia Resort and Casino for a decent buffet breakfast. We are going to need a little something to buffer all of the capsaicin about to hit us. While we were choking down our overcooked scrambled eggs, we noticed a few vendors there getting a little nourishment for the long day ahead.

We stopped at the ticket booth to pick up our passes for the show and I got some goosebumps as the smell of all things hot and spicy wafted past my nose. There were some complimentary bags lying on a table with the 20th anniversary logo silkscreened on the side. We decided it would be a good idea to grab a couple so we could carry our stash while we made our way through the aisles.

The first booths of note, as we rounded the corner to the ballroom, were Blair’s, Danny Cash, and Jim Campbell (Mild to Wild).

The Danny Cash crew was really busy trying to finish setting up their booth. I have to say, they probably had the most efficient set up I’ve ever seen. The booth featured a two piece bar with speed rails. All of the sampling sauces were in plastic bar jugs with speed pour tops. Brilliant! Danny was also premiering his lineup of spicy Bloody Mary mixes that were just to die for.

Since it was still a little early, I stopped by for a little chat with Jim Campbell (Mild to Wild) to see how his trip to Australia went. Well, come to find out, he also made a trip to New Zealand as well to promote his lineup of spicy goodness. This guy really gets around. I don’t know how he juggles being a full-time fireman, hot sauce guru, and finding time to attend food shows. To top it all off, he had just returned to the USA the night before for this three day festival of fire. Talk about dedication!

It was time to enter the Ballroom of Doom. Everything inside was buzzing with anticipation. Brightly colored banners were everywhere, resembling battle flags. Wholesalers were charting out their plan of attack, bloggers chatted about, television crews tested equipment… and there we were, the only “official reviewers” for the show that I was aware of.

Down the first isle we ran into Salsa King, some really tasty wild game sausage (Schmickles Sausage), a guy selling chocolate covered habaneros, and the wildly famous Hot Shots with their display of a bazillion sauces. Next down the line was Cajohn…the man, the myth, the legend. So, to get my tongue ready for the day, I sampled one of his new releases, Lethal Ingestion followed by a drizzle of his Naga puree. What a way to start the day! At the end of the first row stood Chef Dean Martin’s booth. If you haven’t tried his Spicy Asian BBQ Sauce, you’re really missing out. I recommend you go to his website and order some right now.

Back up the 1st row, we ran into a couple of young guys from Torchbearer Sauces, Jilli Pepper, Grandma Coyote, and some really tasty chipotle chocolate truffles from Lillie Belle Farms (2008 Scovie winner for Cayenne Caramels. Talk about sweet goodness!)

Up and down, back and forth the isles we sampled, chatted, took notes, received sauces for review (some really good, some…not so much). The battleship Devil Duck was taking a beating but onward we sailed. “Our sauce is made with the finest…We use only the freshest…This is my grandmother’s recipe…”. My head was starting to spin from capsaicin overload and I think my dear wife was riding a sugar rush from all of the BBQ sauces. Time to retreat and regroup. This indeed, is a daunting task. Free sauces aside, I was beginning to think I bit off a little more than I could chew.

Big Dawg, My Favorite New Mexico Foods, Flaming Joe’s Jerk Sauce, Dakota Gold Mustard, Black’s Thick and Sticky, Defcon, Simmie J’s BBQ, Gringo Bandito, Intensity Academy…on and on and on.

Then it happened. I got sucker punched. I walked up to this booth to sample another hot sauce. The mild version was decent with a nice habanero flavor, but nothing to write home about. “Would you like to try this one? It’s a little hotter.” That was the line I was fed and I bit. Hook, line, and sinker. Now, I can take heat, but this was an extreme extract with the yucky chemical flavors and all, and my abused stomach can’t take that. I quickly shot him my death ray eyes and said, “You can’t do that to people. You’re going to hurt someone!” I was ruined. Some nice people a few booths down gave me a fist full of pretzel sticks and something to drink. Whoever you were, thank you. Apparently, I wasn’t the only person he did this too. Word got around about this little trick and by the end of the show, I observed several people avoiding his booth on purpose. “Oh, this is XXX XXXXX. I heard about him”.

However, just because I was out of the game didn’t mean my wife was. On and on she went. Sampling one BBQ sauce after another and taking notes on each one. On the top of her list were the following: Dave’s Shake It Up! “Orange BBQ Glaze”, BBQ’N Fools “Hot Teriyaki”, Ole Ray’s Kentucky Red Bourbon, Grumpy’s “Black Label”, Captain Spongefoot “Cranberry-Chipotle”, and J. Dogg Phair’s “Traditional”. Alone at the very top of her list… Simmie J’s entire line. “The Original is just a great basic BBQ sauce and the ‘Spicy’ kicks it up a notch. The Peach Cobbler Filling was so good he sold out and didn’t have any to give us at the end of the show. If you like Fig Preserves, his are to die for.” I’d say that’s an endorsement if I ever heard one. Look for a formal review on Simmie J’s soon.

If you ever get to make the trip here for the show, don’t forget the hallway surrounding the ballroom. If you do, you’ll be missing out on some very good sauces. The Suffern Bros. All American Hot Sauce, and Crispy Fire Popcorn are just two of the notable companies out there.

By the time we made it that far, The March of The Lemmings was fully underway and our weary bodies couldn’t take the mass of humanity any longer. So, it was back to Devil Duck Central to regroup, go over our notes and make my selection for the feature company… Because there can be only one.

(…to be continued)

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» Devil Duck’s Trip to Mecca, part 1
» Devil Duck’s Trip To Mecca (Introduction)
» Devil Duck’s Trip To Mecca, Part 3
» Devil Duck
» Devil Duck Becomes A Reporter

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