Hey there,
Between the heat, a mini-vacation, and lots of outside time, summer feels like it’s in full swing! With a lot of face time with customers at farmer's markets last month, I was excited and a little surprised to meet so many people that grow their peppers or make hot sauce with ingredients from their garden or local farms. I feed off people’s enthusiasm from these creations, and I'm hoping to inspire a few people with some resources and stories we’re sharing today.
Last month, I interviewed Tim Myers of Hot Heads, who is someone who fits that persona I described above and went on to become a chili pepper grower and hot sauce maker in Pennsylvania. Tim is self-described as a go-doer, and he went from delivering ice cream to brewing beer to making hot sauce, eventually creating the large line of sauces he sells today.
On the podcast, we talk through early lessons growing peppers for the first time, how to scale a farm and hot sauce operation simultaneously, and the breakdown of some unique hot sauces like their chocolate reaper mole sauce. You can stream on our website here, or download the episode on your favorite podcast player.
If you’ve read this newsletter, you’ve heard a lot about fermentation over the years. We finally took the time to provide some context and a brief background on fermentation, explaining why it’s such an active and interesting topic in the craft hot sauce community right now.
Fermentation, more active than ever in craft hot sauce
If you don’t have the patience for a ferment and want to cook up a sauce as an afternoon activity, we have some tips for coming up with your own hot sauce recipe. I share a bit of my philosophy around hot sauce making, but I’d encourage you to add your own twist and flare! It’s a good time to familiarize yourself with creating a recipe, and peppers will be coming in soon!
Tips for coming up with your first hot sauce recipe
I want to introduce you to something new we’re working on! Think of the Harry Potter Sorting Hat, but for hot sauce! One of my favorite things to do is setting people up with their forever hot sauce ❤️
We have over 150 different hot sauces from small-batch makers, but to help connect the dots (of hot sauce), we designed a quiz so that we can confidently and personally recommend some hot sauces to you.
If you want to be one of the first to participate, take this quiz, and then try out the Personalized Craft Hot Sauce Box - we’ll pick out some perfect sauces for you.
Step 2: Get Your Personalized Box
To wrap up the newsletter, we have some great new stories written by a variety of hot sauce makers. Thank you toTorchbearer Sauces,Quarantine Project, andRevved Up. Check out their maker stories!
Be well,
Brian
Leave a comment (all fields required)