Hey there,

Hope you’re enjoying your week as we ease into the winter months. In the past couple of newsletters I’ve described the hustle and bustle of the chili pepper harvest season. I feel like the mania that built up during summer peaked a couple weeks ago at the NYC Hot Sauce Expo.

The event was everything we hoped for with lots of engagement with hot sauce enthusiasts and makers. We gave out more samples of Craic Sauce over a two day period than ever before, receiving lots of positive feedback, especially with our Brian Boru’s Curry sauce.  

In an environment like the worldly and well attended NYC Hot Sauce Expo I can find my thoughts spinning and comparing myself to others. It can be overwhelming, but we left the great gathering of hot sauce with a sense of fulfillment and were more driven to continue what we’ve been building. Cheers and kudos to Steve Seabury of High River Sauces for bringing it together!

What stood out to me was hearing from people from all walks of life and learning about their story and deep common connection to the fruit that is chili peppers. My favorite part was seeing the responses of people sampling, but also getting to meet people that shared their connection to the stories we’ve shared on our podcast and CraftHotSauce.com over the years. 

While I enjoyed vibing with the hot sauce community, I was also on a mission to stock up our store with some most unique and flavorful new hot sauces!

If you want some top notch hot sauces on your Thanksgiving table or for Holiday gifts, please don’t wait to order!

Shipping delays may be out of our control, but flavor curation is not! 💯🔥

Blasts from the past! 

The one of the first brands to be on Craft Hot Sauce is Bravado Spice Co. They're back with 6 new flavors for our shop. I tasted 9 of their sauces in probably 90 seconds. We have three nice sweet and flavorful sauces and then three that lit me up with ghost, scorpions and reapers. Incredible miso and other deep flavors with the capsaicin got my endorphins ringing. I was not a huge reaper or super hot hot sauce fan, but of late, I'm loving these. You can buy individually or go with our suggested Bravado bundle for those who like bold heat and flavor.

Personally Curated Surprise Box and Curated Starter Collection

We're at a unique smaller size where we can actually take your own flavor preferences, look at our collection and then really think about a perfect set of sauces for you. And then we can tell you a few more things about the makers and hot sauce too.

The Curated Surprise Hot Sauce Box consists of three bottles. After you do our hot sauce flavor interview we'll take the responses and match some bottles up. 

The Curated Starter Collection consists of nine bottles that are meant to cover uses for any meal over an extended period of time. Based on the person's hot sauce flavor interview we match up a group of sauces you'll be reaching for all the time, as well as others that will be new and open up some new flavors. 

Mikey V's!

A super friendly dude who makes incredible hot sauces in Texas. If you want to learn about making or tasting hot sauce, you gotta listen to our podcast conversation with Mikey V from a couple years ago. He even make a hot sauce cook book. (A great holiday gift!)

Mikey's wide range of sauces and salsas come from a deep understanding of cooking and a good slice of creativity. I stocked up the shop with two sauces, each that I could finish in one sitting potentially. Check them out here. 

Fraktured Haunted Harvest

Our best seller! Now Back in Stock

Fraktured's Haunted Harvest was our best selling hot sauce the last two months. We stocked back up now with both versions the Haunted Harvest while catching up with Fiona and Cheyne at the NYC Hot Sauce Expo. Fraktured is a seed to sauce company that specializes in long age fermented mashes in PA. 

While the content of our past couple newsletters has been US focused, we’re hopping across the pond and sharing a new maker story from Bruce at Hoots Sauce Co in Somerset, England. 

Bruce is a professional chef that cooks with native British woods. He chars a variety of super hot peppers over these native woods that he then ferments them. I highly recommend checking out some of the cool things Hoots Sauce Co is up to here.

And last but not least, here a proper picture for the last peppers we sourced from local farm, F-Word Farm (F for farming, fermenting and foraging). A beautiful mix of Carolina reapers, chocolate trinidad scorpions, lemon starburst, and white ghost peppers.

It feels good to slow down a bit and focus more on sharing some new craft hot sauce stories. Anything you’re excited for this winter?

Thanks there and talk to you later!

Brian