What an end to the month!

I even saw my first ripe reaper pepper of the season yesterday. I hope you’ve been enjoying your summer, perhaps with some relaxing home-cooked meals, live music, or even some new hot sauces.

I’ve been slowly coming off the high of the Lowell Folk Festival which took place in my town last weekend. It’s the longest-running and second-largest free music festival in the states, with music from all over the world and foods from 25 different nationalities, and the craic was 90! It was energizing seeing an entire diverse community coming together, dancing, eating, and enjoying the experience as one.

Launching my own hot sauce company in Lowell has forced me to get out and meet all the different types of people in the community, whether they be farmers, market customers, commercial kitchen colleagues, or a bar owner listening to my pitch about why my sauce should go on all their customer’s plates!

But you don’t need to have a company to meet new people. A community with people that listen, support, and collaborate makes it a closer group. One person who does all those things and makes the craft hot sauce community tighter is Smokin' Ed Currie of Puckerputt Pepper Company, or as Brian Caudle calls him, “The MJ of the pepper world!” Ed, creator of the Carolina Reaper (the hottest pepper in the world), got some recognition from our contributors this month.

One of those people who shared how Ed has helped as he started his own hot sauce company was ourlatest podcast guest, Greg Foster of Inferno Farms. In our conversation, Greg shares more about his culinary background and talks about the lessons learned from his most influential mentors, and in case you didn’t know – Greg also holds the Guinness World Record for most Carolina Reaper eaten in one minute – so you’ll hear him talking about his mindset before chomping down on 124 grams of reaper.

 To listen to the episode, look up “Craft Hot Sauce Podcast” on your favorite podcast player, or you can stream it on Soundcloud below: 

Brian Caudle ofRed Dirt Pepper Company also wrote an awesome Craft Hot Sauce profile! He lives only a couple of hours away from Ed, so you’ll read about the origin and inspiration behind his hot sauce company.

We have a couple of featured sauces and notes below. Thanks for reading our August newsletter, and if you're going to be at the Portland Hot Sauce Expo in a couple of weeks, shoot me a note. Would be great to meet up there!

Cheers,

Brian

Puckerbutt Pepper Company

Have you triedhot sauce from Puckerbutt Pepper Company? Try it out and listen to my conversation with Smokin' Ed on theCraft Hot Sauce podcast.

It's Shark Week!

Get your Spicy Shark on during Shark Week. They are a small-batch hot sauce company from Portsmouth, NH with some tasty sauces!

Music I've been digging!

Elevator Blues! by the Resolectrics off their new album "Open Seas." They were our featured music guest on our podcast with Inferno Farms. They play a lot in the Pacific NW!

Shout out to HotLisco for the iTunes podcast review and feedback. You canshare your feedback here. 

Want to try new craft hot sauces?

I work with hot sauces companies that are contributors on our site and professional sauce makers so that you can learn about their stories and try new sauces. Try it for a month or three!