Trying to create a new and exciting salsa in the marketplace can be about as challenging as trying to recreate the wheel. Skeptics will tell you that there are only a finite number of potential ingredients and their combinations are also similarly limited. Such nay-saying is totally lost on the fine folks at the Big Orson Sauce & Salsa Factory, Inc. who have dedicated themselves to making salsa that is both tasty and a lot unique. Jason Clabaugh is their stogie-chompin’ pitchman and all-around Cajun salsa guru who offers up some interesting facts about the origins of the company, life in New Orleans (or as some would say, N’awlins), and how mango salsa can be as good or better than tomato salsa:
Tell us a little about your background and how the creative process of making salsa has evolved from your humble beginnings
I don’t have any formal training in the culinary arts, but it is one of the big passions of my life. This particular product was born as part of my courtship of my wife, who happens to be a full-blooded Cajun. I was trying to make something to impress her and my local grocery put mangoes up for their weekly loss-leader sale. The salsa I made was such a hit that by the end of the sale, I was buying the mangoes by the case and friends and family were telling me that I should look into putting the salsa into commercial production. The next year when mangoes were on sale again, I posted a thread on a bulletin board I belong to that I was going to make a batch and within one weekend, I had orders for well over 250 pints. Clearly this had some commercial potential, but with no background in the food business, I had no idea how to go about pursuing it. It wasn’t until after Katrina that I had the time and financial means to try.
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Popularity: 8% [?]
JD Cowles, the mastermind behind All Spice Café’s wonderful wing sauces, was kind enough to send me 3 of his most popular concoctions. I have here in my grubby little hands “Caribbean Spice”, “Chipotle Garlic” and “Cayenne Habanero..(the ‘XXX’version…yeah!). All three are a brilliant orange color and all natural. I’ll write a short review of each but first I’d like to share the conversation with the man himself, JD Cowles. So without further ado…Mr. “Pepper Face” himself…
2008 has been a great year for All Spice Cafe. We had our first booth at the Fiery Food and Barbecue Show in Albuquerque. In August, the “Best of LA” issue of Los Angeles Magazine voted JD Cowles as the Best Hot Sauce Maker. In September, All Spice Cafe becomes a vendor for Whole Foods. Also in September at the Zest Fest in Fort Worth, TX, All Spice Cafe wins 3 Golden Chile Awards and a 3rd place Award and in November, All Spice Cafe wins 7 Scovie Awards in Albuquerque, NM.
Where did you come up with the name “All Spice Café”?
The name, All Spice Cafe, started out as a dream to have a restaurant down the road one day. I decided to use it as the name for the hot sauces with the hopes that the sauces would help in making All Spice Cafe a reality where everything on the menu would be spicy, spice for flavor not necessarily heat. For the short term I’d like to see ALLSPICECAFE.COM become a virtual cafe and eventually the real deal.
How did you get started making hot sauce? Do you have a culinary background?
I grew up with a Mom who is a great cook and started hanging out in the kitchen at an early age. By age 11 or 12, I was cooking cube steaks with onions, garlic, chili sauce, Worcestershire sauce and a dash of Tabasco. I really enjoyed making up these spicy little steaks for lunch on the weekends. Went to college in upstate NY in the 70’s, Buffalo wings were the rage and really took a liking to them. I Started making a hot wing sauce in 1980 for use on my grilled chicken wings, for dipping carrots and celery, mixing with salad dressings, on eggs, etc. The list goes on and on . . . I brought the sauces to parties and barbecues but never thought about selling the sauce until years later.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Spicy snacks that are actually both good and spicy are hard to come by, but Kentucky’s own KP’s Specialty Pepper Products has a formula for products that have every chance at becoming hugely popular. Makers of some novel spicy nuts and a few hot sauces, we became acquainted with them at this past Jungle Jim’s Weekend of Fire show in August 2008. Here’s some much appreciated info about the KP products not to mention some more info to tickle your fancy:
Tell us a little about yourselves…your professional background, love of spicy foods, and how you got into this industry.
My name is Leon Kirkpatrick but people call me KP. I was raised in North Carolina which is where my love for good Carolina BBQ and spicy foods comes from. I actually got into the industry through a mistake by an older gentleman who thought he had planted bell pepper plants but had actually planted habanero plants. He brought me about 250 peppers and another friend suggested that I try my hand at making hot sauce. I came up with the recipes for the two hot sauces I have now and the rest, they say, is history.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Proof positive that Columbus, Ohio is the nexus of hot sauce creativity is the up-and-coming hot sauce entrepreneurs known as the Sauce Cartel. We’ve known of Gary and Max, the creative forces of the company, for a while and have rubbed shoulders with them at a few industry events over the past year or so. Our first exposure to their sauces was at the 2007 Jungle Jim’s Weekend of Fire show where they were showing off their hot sauce wares to the hot sauce-adoring public. Since then, their company has undergone a name change (from Hell’s Kitchen to Sauce Cartel) and has broadened their product line to include salsas, jerk sauce, and even a spicy applesauce. As enthusiastic supporters of our hometown hot and spicy brethren, we thought it to be high time to shine the blog spotlight on the Sauce Cartel and let you hear a little from them and their products. Here is some info from Gary of the Sauce Cartel…
Tell us a little about you & Max’s background, and of the name of your company. How did you get into this business?
Ok, our backgrounds are completely different. I was a nail biter as a child, and as a way to stop me (or attempt to stop me) was to put hot sauce (which I called Red Water, when I was young) on my fingers. It didn’t bother me the way my parents thought it would. In fact, it had quite the opposite affect on me. As I grew so did my tolerance for spicy foods. As my tolerance grew, I found myself always looking for something new. When I was about 10 or 11 my parents leased a plot of land from a local farmer so my brother and I could grow our own vegetables. The funny thing is, my brother grew all sorts of stuff and I grew peppers. Mostly Jalapenos and Cayenne peppers. It was with those peppers that I attempted to make my first hot sauces.
Max was lucky enough to travel the world with his parents as he was growing up. Being that he has always liked food, he had the ability to taste different foods from around the world. Max is always found in his kitchen trying new recipes that he has picked up in his travels. Oddly enough he also found himself stranded in the Virgin Islands a few years ago. He had to work in a kitchen to make the money for the plane ticket back home. It was in that kitchen that he acquired the recipe for our Jerk Paste.
CaJohn gave the name of the company, Sauce Cartel, to us. We were having all sorts or issues trying to come up with a name that we felt we could not only stand behind, but would also project our image.
As for how we got into business, On May 5th 2007, I entered a hot sauce in an amateur contest, at the North Market in Columbus, Ohio. CaJohn was one of the judges. We didn’t win, but we did come in second place. Afterward, CaJohn and I spoke and he told me why he thinks we didn’t win. I was told that we have something with that sauce. So, I viewed it as this, Run with it. And that is exactly what we have done. Instead of find a co-packer, we took an enormous leap of faith. We built our own processing plant. We have now been in business for over a year.
Popularity: 15% [?]
My introduction to these sauces and products came as an evolution-like process. First I saw the media articles come rolling across my computer screen. Then came the impressive list of awards through the Fiery Food Challenge and Scovie competitions. I even read a review or two about the sauces on another site which does reviews on hot sauces and spicy foods (there are others?). Finally, out of the Internet ether came an offer from Chef Bud Selmi himself of Sizzlin Sauces asking us to try his humble products and to allow us our own say about them.
Sizzlin Sauces actually hails from the great state of New Hampshire. Besides its nickname as the “Granite State” and being known for snowy winters, great places to ski, and the birthplace of Adam Sandler (my trivial knowledge has no limits to its depth about stuff like that), it also didn’t really have a reputation as a hotbed (no pun intended) of hot sauces and spicy food. That is, until now.
Chef Bud is a pretty interesting guy. We don’t know too many chefs in the hot sauce business, so we dialed him up (that is, sent an email) and asked him to tell us a little about himself, his products, and how he went about making New Hampshire a place on the hot sauce map….
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background. How did you get become a lover of things hot & spicy?
I have always been a lover of Hot and Spicy food items. For years I grew my own Hot Peppers. Back in 2000 a close friend introduced me to friends of his who had started an online Pepper Plant business – Cross Country Nurseries. That year I purchased some plants, had a bumper crop of Habaneros, and then had to do something with a whole bunch of peppers. So I made a batch of sauce, gave away a bunch and also sold some. 6 weeks later the sauce was all gone. The next summer I purchased a green house and a whole bunch of pepper plants and started our business. We continue growing most of our own hybrid Habanero peppers.As far as my background I am a Certified Chef through the American Culinary Federation. Although not formally schooled in the culinary field I apprenticed under several very talented chefs.
Popularity: 88% [?]
After publishing an article about CaptainSpongefoot that appeared in the Denver Post a few months ago, we received a message from the folks there in Colorado who work with the ol’ Captain himself wanting us to try the products out for ourselves. Always being ones who try not never turn down a chance to try good hot & spicy products, we quickly agreed. About a week later, a package appeared on our doorstep…and it’s been our mission ever since to take these sauces for a test-drive to see what they could do and how they could make our food better, spicier, and just more tasty in general.
First, however, we wanted to find out a little more about CaptainSpongefoot…who he is, what does, and more. We caught up with Paul DiBello (a.k.a. CaptainSpongefoot), and he was gracious enough to allow us to ask him a few things about himself and his products. Here’s Paul….
Tell us a little about yourself and how you work to distinguish yourself and your products in the hot sauce market.
I decided early on that we would not be “somebody’s bottled up anger”, nor are we a painful body function. And I chose not to play the circus sauce game. I wanted to present a high quality sauce without making a joke about the product, something that is rare in this food group.
You have some simple, elegant labels. Who came up with the design and how did you decide on those?
I knew I wanted a different look but I didn’t know what. Sukle Advertising was contracted to find an image for the company. Their team at first came up with a name change for the company that actually made reference to a painful body experience. I almost went with it but said no at the last minute and asked then to keep CaptainSpongefoot and work along an old world, quality feel of a by-gone era. One of the team members presented a few versions of ships, nautical elements, and when the C&O labels were finally presented we all knew it had a unique feel. We also all knew that it would be a difficult marketing path to pursue.
Popularity: 32% [?]
Mario and Tony are the creative forces behind the great sauces of Chooch and Pootan. Chuckle at the name of the company if you will, but as we discovered…the sauces are a force to be reckoned with in the hot sauce industry. Yet another sauce maker from the Buckeye State, we met up with Mario and Tony this past August at the Jungle Jim’s Weekend of Fire show in Cincinnati, OH where we had a chance to sample all of their sauces and just knew that they were destined to be one of our next Featured Products. The hot sauces will be featured in a “part one” review, with the wing sauces to follow in the “part two” version. Mario Bertone of Chooch and Pootan was gracious enough to take time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for us about how two nice Italian boys came around to making such good hot sauce….
Tell us a little about the two of you…your background and how you got into the hot sauce/wing sauce business.
Tony’s mother lived with my parents when she came to the USA from Italy.
Tony’s parents bought a home directly behind my parents home, but on another street, our backyards nearly connected. As we got older, Tony bought a home, I bought a street away, and our backyards do connect. This makes it nice, if we drink to much wine we do not have far to go to get home.
Tony is great in the kitchen, his recipe for Hotta Winga Sauca impressed our friends and neighbors. We decide to visit a Co Packer to get his thoughts. CaJohn was that Co Packer. CaJohn liked our product and suggested we enter it in the Fiery Food Challenge in Ft. Worth, Texas, so we did, and took 1st place with the Original version.
We then discussed the business opportunities, and [then] decided to proceed.
Popularity: 34% [?]
After a bit of a hiatus, we return to our Featured Product cybercolumn with our focus set upon Scorpion Bay Hot Sauce. We were contacted by Rob Burns, who is the president, CEO, and grand poobah of Scorpion Bay Hot Sauces and was asked to give his sauces a try. After seeing the products in person and tasting them for ourselves, we thought that he & Scorpion Bay would be good to focus a little more attention upon so we could find out more about Rob and his outstanding products.
The three sauces we tried are listed below for their component parts:
Chocopotle: tomatoes, water, apple cider vinegar, jalapeno peppers, chipotle chiles, red onions, brown sugar, serrano peppers, cocoa powder, garlic, kosher salt, canola oil, mexican oregano, orange juice, lime juice, xanthan gum, spices
Hotacado: tomatillos, jalapeno peppers, water, avocado, serrano peppers, apple cider vinegar, garlic, cilantro, kosher salt, orange juice, canola oil, mexican oregano, jalapeno powder, xanthan gum, lime juice, spices
De Arbol: tomatillos, diced tomatoes, chile de arbol, apple cider vinegar, onions, garlic, canola oil, orange juice, kosher salt, mexican oregano, cilantro, cumin, lime juice, xanthan gum, spices
One of the great things about the hot sauce business is that there are a bunch of devoted, passionate people in it who are totally in to what they do. Rob Burns is one of those people. Rob was kind enough to answer some questions for us about his business and his love for hot sauces. Here is our interview with Rob:
Tell us a little about how you got into the hot sauce business and the evolution of your enjoyment of hot & spicy food.
Well, I got into the hot sauce business like a lot of other folks. I started out making hot sauces for friends and the demand just grew and grew. Pretty soon I was devoting a good portion of my time just keeping up with the requests from friends.
I would say the inspiration for creating my hot sauce comes from my love of travel. Especially places like Mexico—and Baja in particular. In many places Baja is still reasonably pristine and untouched by American tourism. There are some great secret surf spots and it’s one of the few places left in the world that can give you that spirit of adventure when traveling.
Down there you never know what’s around that next corner. It could be bandits, Federales, a new secret surf spot. Or a remote fishing village where families invite you in for dinner and, if you’re lucky, will show you a few family cooking secrets.
These places have some great original authentic recipes for hot sauce and would definitely be my inspiration for creating my particular style of hot sauce.
As far as my development and enjoyment of spicy foods, I think it was genetics combined with living in a great region for spicy foods. I can remember being a child, sitting on my grandfather’s lap watching him eat dried red chili peppers. Also, my mom pretty much can hang with the best—I still have not seen her eat something that is too hot for her liking. That includes some of the pure cap extracts!
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Popularity: 48% [?]
Wow how time flies. It’s been almost two years since Joe and Linda interviewed our buddies over at Kato Productions. Mick and Rita have been turning out some great products including their newest creation, Hemi Hot Sauce, so we felt it was time to do a little catching up.
Popularity: 53% [?]
Recently published in Chile Pepper Magazine as Rhode Island’s representative to the “From Sea to Shining Sea” coast-to-coast tour of hot sauces, we are proud to bring you some of the inside scoop on the brewing of hot sauce in the lair of Devil’s Own Sauces. We were introduced to Steve Kitchen & crew by picking up a bottle of their Devil’s Own Jerk Seasoning while at this past ZestFest. Suffice to say, it was a pretty amazing jerk sauce…and certainly one of the best ones we’ve tried that was NOT manufactured somewhere in the Caribbean. Our early impression of Devil’s Own led us to find out more about them & their products, which led us to Steve Kitchen…one of the gurus behind these creations. We asked Steve a few questions and then greedily began the task of tasting his yummy hot sauces. Here’s what Steve had to say….
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Popularity: 54% [?]
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