Hot Shots Blog

Interesting Information from Hot Shots Distributing

Hot Sauce Fun Fact – Hot Sauce Tradeshows, Expos and Festivals

Hot Sauce Fun Fact – Hot Sauce Tradeshows, Expos and Festivals

Tradeshows and Expos and Festivals, Oh My!

A super fun way to sample hot sauces and actually meet the artisan makers behind those creations is to attend a hot sauce festival or expo. It’s a great way to spend a day or two surrounded by hundreds of hot sauces made from every corner of the US and often times a select few from overseas offering international flavors. The international brands are especially intriguing because they have indigenous ingredients like vegetables, fruits and spices that are not readily available here in the states.

Over the years the number of festivals has increased dramatically, show producers and promoters seem to have been doing their homework and strategically placing these festivals and expos around the country. With the placement of these festivals scatted about, it helps with travel costs and hot sauce fans don’t have to travel as far to attend and enjoy a show, many are within driving distance and a lucky few have them very close to home, almost in their backyards so to speak.

As hot sauce tradeshows, festivals and expos continue to draw big crowds, opens the doors for new shows to pop up and attempt to copy the success template laid out. To us, this is very exciting and the thought of more hot sauce lovers and future Chileheads supporting the industry, means the growth in the industry will continue. Just think about it, it’s honestly a great time to be a Chilehead. So get out there, do some research, find a festival that’s close to you, and take in everything spicy that they have top offer.

Want to SPICE up your menu without impacting your food cost?

Want to SPICE up your menu without impacting your food cost? 

Adding spicy options without changing your menu is not as hard as you would think. As the popularity of spicy continues to accelerate not only here in the US, but is becoming a global phenomenon, many restauranters struggle with the common issue; do I add a spicy dish to my menu? How hot do I make it? If I make it too hot, will it scare off my regular customers because it’s just too spicy?

Incorporating a new dish to your menu comes with a lot of research and proper food costing to ensure not only the dish, but the restaurant maintains profitability, you are a business and here to make money and provide for your families after all.

If you stay abreast of food trends and watch what is trending and popular in the industry, you can’t help but notice, especially in the big chain restaurants, there have been many, and they continue to come out with new spiced up food items. Typically, they run them for a limited time or in a limited release timeframe and they market it heavily. With all that being said, here is an option for you, something that won’t take recipe development and adjusting your menu. Providing a variety of hot sauces can achieve that.

A solid variety of hot sauce offerings are an easy way to provide multiple heat level options to your customers who can simply add what they want, their desired heat level, to your already in place menu options. This simply gives you the opportunity to stay current with this specific very popular food trend, provides an added fun dining experience and increased engagement to your restaurant overall.

How to set up a proper Wall of Flame

How to set up a proper Wall of Flame 

Let’s start with what exactly is a Wall of Flame? The concept is fairly simple, it’s a wide assortment of different hot sauces varying in heat levels and manufacturer options located in one central location, or shelf unit that a restaurant, café or diner provides for their customers. It can be wildly accepted and garner a lot of attention from the restaurant’s clientele. In this day of social media and posting not only the food the restaurant serves, but this could also be an easy way for the clientele to help promote the business as well, hashtag Wall of Flame or whatever the name of the decided spice assortment each restaurant decides to go with.

It’s easy to see the popularity of hot sauces continues to grow globally with the exciting success of the YouTube show Hot Ones hosted by Sean Evans. Sean interviews celebrities, musicians and athletes while running them up a gauntlet of chicken wings dressed in hot sauces of growing heat levels. Each level gets a little hotter than the last and becomes quite entertaining as the celebs reach their heat induced breaking point.

Hot sauce has become mainstream, the amount of small batch artisan sauces that are available are staggering. There is literally a hot sauce on the market for everyone right now, no matter of the flavor profile or heat level, there is an option out there and as a Chilehead, that is exciting.

We here at Hot Shots Distributing offer a wide variety of sauces from literally all over the world, simply meaning we offer a one-stop shopping experience, expert knowledge of the products we offer and the ability to help shape and individualize an order based on each specific restaurants wants and needs. We want to help our restaurant customers offer their clientele a fun and engaging dining experience, let us help add some spiciness to your food establishment.

Captain Thom’s Chili Pepper Company

Captain Thom’s Chili Pepper Company

Captain Thom's Chili Pepper Company is a brand of spicy creations and hot sauces that was created by Captain Thom Edwards who started making his own hot sauce in the early 1990s.

Captain Thom was a self-proclaimed hot sauce fanatic who had a passion for creating new and unique flavors of hot sauce. He experimented with different combinations of peppers, spices, and other ingredients until he finally found the perfect recipe for his hot sauce. Edward’s passion for good food and drink was unmatched, his love for barbeque stood out in his hometown of Timonium, Maryland where he would travel in and around the Baltimore area for festivals and BBQ competitions.

Captain Thom's hot sauces gained popularity in the early to mid-2000s, thanks in part to the growing popularity of spicy foods in the United States. The brand has since become known for its wide variety of flavors, ranging from mild to extremely hot. Thom would attend hot sauce conventions and expos dressed as a Pirate Captain and would garner amazing attention and his booth was always a destination spot for attendees looking for photo ops with The Captain. His self-proclaimed First Mate, his wife Nancy, was always by his side to support his passion.

Captain Thom's hot sauce has been featured in several magazines, including Bon Appétit and Maxim, and has won numerous awards at hot sauce competitions. Edward’s also penned a reoccurring feature article in Chile Pepper Magazine called Captain Thom’s ChileMax! The article was an outlet for the Captain to share recipes he developed himself with the readers. The recipes and dishes were the hottest offerings in the magazine each issue, lending to the name of being chiles to the max.

When Captain Thom and his First Mate retired, they sold the company to Hot Shots Distributing in 2016.  Today, Captain Thom's hot sauces are still being made using the original recipes including the wildly popular Captain Thom’s Slappin” Fat Bacon Flavored Ketchup. Another extremely marketable sauce in the product line that exploded for the company was his Dia De Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead Piquine Tequila Pepper Sauce with its signature gem eyed skeleton key chain, it is still to this day a best seller.

Another Revenue Generator for Restaurants

Many small restaurants struggle on a daily basis to make money and turn a profit, whether it’s local competition, surrounded by the big national chains or just costing out their dishes properly. Restaurants are after all a business and like any business, profitability is key to their overall success. If you’ve taken a look at the trends in the restaurant industry and honestly many aspects of the food industry as a whole, spicy, and hot sauce are extremely popular right now, you can say… They are HOT. One option we here at Hot Shots Distributing can provide is a wide variety of craft artisan hot sauces for a restaurant to purchase wholesale that they can not only offer their customer base to utilize while dining, but to resell as well. From high end gourmet to political satire, to novelty and everything in between. Hot Shots offers a (1) one case minimum, (12) twelve bottles that can be mixed and matched. Meaning that restaurant owners do not have to buy into large quantities of any one sauce, this reduces overhead/backstock and the owner can adjust easily to what sells best at their location and/or dial in specifics on multiple locations. The advantage of being able to customize an order to fit the exact needs of their individual business to help reduce operating costs and provide another revenue stream and that is definitely HOT!

CaJohns Fiery Foods Story

CaJohns Fiery Foods Story

 

Founded in 1996 by John “CaJohn” Hard in the Columbus, Ohio area, CaJohns Fiery Foods became synonymous for innovative and flavorful spicy products. In its 27 years CaJohns has been a groundbreaker and leader in the industry, it stands alone as the most highly decorated and most award-winning small batch product lines in history amassing well over 500 awards, including over 250 first place honors in various food competitions, trade shows and cooking contests.

John Hard’s background was in his father’s family run fire suppression business. He traveled the country and his love of the culinary arts had him seeking out different cuisines and cooking styles everywhere he went. Hard spent a large amount of time in Louisiana where he absolutely fell in love with the Cajun culture and of course it’s food. Not only did it spark the desire to cook in that style but to adapt his nickname, CaJohn, which is a play on the words Cajun and his name John. This then became the name of his spicy food business he started with his wife Sue.

From very early on Hard set out to develop his products with the highest quality and amazing flavor profiles. He strived to stay ahead of curve and studied the trends to not only stay relevant in the fast growing and moving industry but also became an innovator and carved a path that many other companies would attempt to emulate. Formulating base recipes, he could later build off and change direction and flavor by incorporating different chile peppers and/or ingredients, the addition of fruits into incredibly flavor-packed salsas, and spice blends that met the heat desires of so many repeat and loyal customers across the world. The Hard’s would source unique and beautiful art bottles for small and large run special reserves and collectors’ pieces from glass log cabins to motorcycle and truck shapes to bottles shaped like sun bursts, lips and even chile peppers. The one set that continues to delight customers globally are the perfectly matched Adam & Eve bottles, shaped like the torsos of a man and a woman, like two spicy lovers that stand the test of time.

CaJohn, dubbed as the Godfather of Hot Sauce, was inducted into the Hot Sauce Hall of Fame in 2015 in New York City. He was part of the inaugural class which included legends Edmund Mcllhenny, the founder and hot sauce pioneer of the Tabasco brand. Chip Hearn, Peppers in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Dave Dewitt chile pepper historian and author known as the Pope of Peppers, and Dave Hirshkop of Dave’s Insanity Sauce.

On June 25, 2018, Hot Shots Distributing signed the final agreement to purchase CaJohns Fiery Foods, CaJohn stayed on as a consultant, continued to help develop new products and recipe development as Hot Shots takes this iconic business into the future and carries on the legacy.

Heartbreaking Dawn’s Artisan Foods, LLC.

Heartbreaking Dawn’s Artisan Foods, LLC.  

 

In 2009 Johnny McLaughlin, started his sauce and seasoning company with his wife Nicole, Heartbreaking Dawn’s. He named the company after a poem, “Winters Lament”, from his favorite French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Like many hot sauce companies out there, his passion came from growing his own peppers and in turn making sauces for friends and family. McLaughlin’s self-proclaimed “Love for adventurous eating” took his sauce making to a higher level, he enjoyed playing with unique flavor combinations and out of the ordinary ingredients.

 

McLaughlin’s original three flavors; Jalapeno Pineapple, Classic Gold and Mango Habanero became overnight sensations and as he began to hone skills, his love for cooking and creating amazing food opened doors and gave him the ability to share his passion on a wider scale. Johnny appeared on the “Chopped Through” episode of the Food Networks wildly popular show Chopped in 2012, where he made it to the second round. Next up for Chef Johnny was his appearance on the “When in Rome, Cook on a Scooter” episode of Cutthroat Kitchen hosted by Alton Brown, and yes, he had to cook on a scooter on national television. McLaughlin’s biggest television opportunity and huge boost for Heartbreaking Dawns as a company was his 2013 appearance on the CNBC show Crowd Rules, where he had to compete with three other small businesses for the chance to win a grand prize of a $50,000 investment. Johnny easily appealed to the studio audience of 100 entrepreneurs and business professionals to win the $50k grant to support the growth of Heartbreaking Dawn’s and the chance to continue to follow his dream.

 

In 0000 Johnny decided to step away from the hot sauce industry and sold Heartbreaking Dawn’s to Hot Shots Distributing. McLaughlin wanted to spend more time with his family and young children. He felt that we could and would maintain the highest of integrity with his recipes and overall brand. After a quick transition, Heartbreaking Dawn’s continues to be one of our best-selling brands worldwide.

 

 

Hot Sauce Fun Fact - So you want to be a YouTube Star?

Hot Sauce Fun Fact - So you want to be a YouTube Star? 

Are you up to this challenge? We wouldn't condone it... 

A YouTube star thought it wise to make a video of himself bathing in a tub full of hot sauce. Cemre Candar, who loves to 'share his imagination' (that's what his bio says), has earlier had success with his videos showing him swimming in a tub of melted chocolate and Oreos.

"Bathing in 1250 Bottles of Hot Sauce" allegedly explores what happens when a human empties the contents of 1,250 bottle of hot sauce into a bathtub and submerges himself in it. And because the burning is in the details, the host/Guinea pig, Candar, tosses in fresh chilis -- and then his entire body. 

This clip is one of several posted to the same channel, featuring such hits as "Filling Bath with 520 lbs. Chocolate" and "Eating a Testicle Challenge." It is Internet stunt at its dumbest, and you get to waste 4 minutes at work because of it. But I guess if that's your thing, who am I to judge...

Chile Pepper Fun Fact - Wilbur Scoville

Chile Pepper Fun Fact - Wilbur Scoville 

The Man, The Myth, The Legend.... The Game?

People have known about the tongue-burning, tear-inducing qualities of peppers long before Columbus reached the Americas. Before Wilbur Scoville, however, no one knew how to measure a pepper's “heat”. The doodle team thought his work in this field—and the development of his eponymous Scoville Scale—deserved some recognition.

Born in Bridgeport Connecticut on January 22nd, 1865, Wilbur Lincoln Scoville was a chemist, award-winning researcher, professor of pharmacology and the second vice-chairman of the American Pharmaceutical Association. His book, The Art of Compounding, makes one of the earliest mentions of milk as an antidote for pepper heat. He is perhaps best remembered for his organoleptic test, which uses human testers to measure pungency in peppers.

Doodler Olivia When has been thinking about Scoville and his test since last summer. From the start it was clear it was going to be a chance to do something fun. She writes:

"Spiciness is somewhat of a universal, comical experience, which I think opened the door for us to do something we usually might not be able to, like a fighting game. I started making storyboards for how the game could unfold while engineers worked on building prototypes. Then I started sketching and making draft art to put in the prototype, so we could see what the experience would be like in interactive form.

After that I started working on backgrounds, boss characters, meters, and then all the character animations, and ending animations. At some point we thought about setting it in a human mouth, to clarify things, but then realized that was probably too weird (thankfully). Designing the boss peppers and animating Scoville's reactions to eating them were probably my favorite parts.

So, Google... 'Stay and Play at Home' Scoville (2016) Doodle

Hot Sauce Fun Fact - Why you sweating me?

Hot Sauce Fun Fact - Why you sweating me?

When hot sauce is consumed, a common reaction by the body is to sweat, particularly on the forehead. The scientific term for this reaction is gustatory perspiration.

Gustatory sweating is sweating that occurs on the forehead, scalp, neck, and upper lip while eating, talking, or thinking about food. For many people, sweating occurs due to eating hot and spicy food. For others, however, it happens frequently after eating any food.

And the burning feeling that makes hot sauce so appealing to pyro-gourmaniacs comes from a collection of compounds called capsaicinoids.