Celebrity Collaboration Projects
Hot Shots Distributing takes pride in the partnership projects in collaboration with music legends and celebrities to bring their branded hot sauces to the market. We work with some of the worlds greatest musical superstars to bring out their passion for flavor and fire. To accomplish this, we pair our partners with a selection from our vast collection of sauces. The true challenge is to match the personality and flair of our partners with a sauce to create a unique fan experience. The celebrity's management team is then responsible for doing what they do best - promotion and marketing the sauce and engaging with the fans to encourage re-orders.
Elvis Presley, Alice Cooper, Motley Crue, and The Blues Brothers to mention a few of our successful collaborations to date, we’ve taken the time to help pair each individual with the heat level and flavor profile that truly represents them and accentuates the personalities of each mega performer.
Hot Sauce is wildly popular right now and continues to grow with consumers. The Hot Sauce Market size was valued at USD 3.1 Million in 2023 and projected to reach USD 5.9 Million by 2032, That’s pretty hot! Proving that Hot Sauce continues to be a great vehicle for incremental sales for celebrities when marketed to their fan bases and beyond.
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.
Chile Pepper Fun Fact – The Pepper X
X Marks the Spot for Extreme Heat
On August 23, 2023, Guinness World Records officially recognized Pepper X as the world's hottest chili pepper, measuring 2.69 million SHU, beating the previous world record of 1.64 million SHU held by the Carolina Reaper, which was also bred by the same grower, Ed Currie from Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Pepper X resulted from several cross breedings that produced an exceptionally high content of capsaicin in the locules – the plant tissue holding the seeds. The extensive curves and ridges of a Pepper X chili create more surface area for the plant placenta and locules to grow and retain capsaicin, adding to the intensity of heat experienced when a Pepper X is eaten. Ingestion of Pepper X chili causes intense abdominal cramps and heartburn.
The exceptional pungency of the chili was developed over 10 years of cultivation for desired traits to emerge through selective plant breeding, and 10 or more generations for the hybrid chilis to stabilize with the desired intense pungency. The Pepper X breeder, Ed Currie, produced 100 hybrid crosses per year with the intent that one or two would succeed for the 10-year development cycle.
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
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.
Half Moon Bay Trading Company Story
Half Moon Bay Trading Co. was officially founded in 1992 in Atlantic Beach, Florida by Tom Nuijens. Tom’s background was in advertising but was an avid surfer and would make countless trips to Costa Rica on surfing excursions. In 1978 Tom began development of his first brand of hot sauce, Iguana, with a co-packer and manufacturer in Costa Rica, it started as a hobby and a side business that blossomed into a huge success.
As managing partner, Tom oversaw marketing and product development of his growing company that produced pepper sauces, condiments and Bloody Mary mixers using produce grown primarily in Costa Rica. Each of the brands he developed took on an identity of their own under the Half Moon Bay Trading Company flag. Iguana, Bee Sting, Pirates Blend and Tamarindo Bay brands that specialized and expanded into pepper sauces, condiments, salsas, mixers, and tropical glaze toppings all with a flavorful Caribbean flare.
As the popularity of the individual brands under the Half Moon Bay flag grew, Tom was able to secure many large grocery and distributor accounts that enabled the brands an exposure nationwide and gain loyal fans outside of their home base in Florida. Both the Iguana XXX “Pretty Darn Hot” Habanero Pepper Sauce and the Iguana Red “Moderately Hot” Cayenne Pepper Sauce seemed to pave the way for Iggy the Iguana, the brand ambassador and mascot, as he appears on all the labels in a diverse variety of hats, backgrounds, and apparel.
With the growth in the distribution sector, Tom’s Bee Sting Brand shared the spotlight with both Bee Sting Honey n’ Habanero Hot Sauce and Bee Sting Thai Sting Sweet Chili Sauce rose above and were gateway sauces leading into larger retail size bottles in 12oz and 25.7oz options, more sauce to love! This move quickly lead to gallon size options for restaurants, cafes, and distributor accounts.
In 2023 Tom made the decision to retire and Hot Shots Distributing took over all operations and distribution of the company, with the aim to further grow and introduce these brands globally.
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.