Author: Scott Roberts

Here’s the story: Texan Chef Wayne Brawley obtained a large amount of fresh tomatoes from his mother, so instead of letting them go to waste he decided to fire roast half of them and concoct a salsa recipe from them. Wayne’s family became big fans of his newly-spawned product, in particular his brother Wesley, who encouraged Wayne to continue to make salsa and suggested he tried to sell it in stores. Wesley had passed away in 2004. Wayne entered a pair of salsa contests with his chipotle-infused creation and took home First Place prizes for both. Believing he had a viable product on his hands, Wayne decided to take his brother’s urgings to market the salsa to retail locations around Texas. In honor of his late brother, he called it 2 Brothers Salsa.

I’ve asked Wayne some questions to shed additional light on his past, his company and salsa today, and what lies ahead for him and industry…

Scott: Where are you and your family from geographically?

Wayne: We live in the North Dallas area currently. My wife and I both…

A Whole New Scale Of Hot
Feb. 18, 2010

Peter Piper picked a pepper. If he had the new technology developed by one Baylor professor and his research team, he could have discovered just how hot the pepper was.

By Sara Tirrito
Staff writer

Dr. Kenneth Busch, professor and co-director of the Center for Analytical Spectroscopy, and his research team have eliminated the need for liquid chromatography in determining the heat of chili peppers…

Proprietor Gregory Epstein runs BIBBQ, which is short for Bainbridge Island Barbeque, and is named for the picturesque swath of land that is a stone’s throw from Seattle, Washington across the Puget Sound. With BIBBQ, Greg aims to treat those in the Pacific Northwest with some down-home barbecue in an area not typically know for low n’ slow, smoked n’ grilled meats. Greg had shipped me two of his BBQ sauces, Chipotle Honey Barbeque Sauce (a past Scovie Award winner) and Bainbridge Habanero Barbeque Sauce, along with a quartet of hot sauces: Cranberry Star Fruit, Asid Reign, Devil’s Blood and Sour Apple…

Need something that will identify chile peppers on the go? Well, Stefan Wallington sponsored by the South Devon Chilli Farm (SDCF), both from the UK, have whipped up an iPhone app that contains a small database containing information and photos on various chiles plus loads of recipes. Called Chilli Farm, it sells for 99 cents in Apple’s App Store.

I admittedly have not personally bought this yet, and my pre-purchase take on this is that since iPhones can internet access wherever there is coverage, you can simply surf to various websites to obtain this information (especially The Chileman or my own Scoville Scale). Still, the convenience of having all the data in one place coupled with the fact that this most likely leaps and bounds faster than reaching the web with 3G speeds probably outweighs the one dollar price tag.

To get it, just search for ChilliFarm made by SW Comms Ltd or click here.

Thanks to The Chile Foundry for bringing this to my attention.

“Video” is a word you’re going to be hearing a lot of in the online chilehead world over the next couple of weeks. A few days ago I mentioned that James Beck (of EatMoreHeat.com and Dave DeWitt’s right hand man) had something up his sleeve regarding the subject. In addition to that, there’s going to be a brand spankin’ new video project I’ve been working on very closely with one of the most well-known online chilehead/reviewers. It’s really close to be being complete, and should be one of the most fun and informative sites around. Stay tuned; I’ll keep you abreast of things on all the various channels: Twitter, Facebook, etcetra.

One of my “guilty pleasures” in sauceland is Buffalo Wild Wings’ Mango Habanero sauce. It’s sticky sweet similar to honey, pours thick, has a dynamite taste and packs some chile pepper heat.

I’ve tried out a few honey-infused hot sauces in my day, but to me that Mango Habanero has remained the quintessential “honey”-type sauce. However, I have been and will continue to be open to any syrupy or honey-esque hot sauces on judge them on their own merits.

Along comes Bee Sting Honey n’ Habanero Pepper Sauce produced by the Half Moon Bay Company. Although I admittedly have never tried anything under the Bee Sting line, Half Moon bay has a good track record of sauces and salsas (I love a few of their Iguana sauces in particular), so I was chompin’ at the bit to see if this worth any buzz…

My buddy James Beck of Eat More Heat has been dropping little hints as of late about a BIG announcement coming soon. He posted this message on his Twitter account yesterday:

“BIG announcement hint: me, donkeys & lasers, total mayhem, possible jail time, w/ @psedillo getting it all on video”

Whatever could this mean? Follow his @EatMoreHeat Twitter to find out!

Here’s my first 2010 edition of the Burn Buzz, where I list hot n’ interesting links about spicy food and BBQ that have been floating around on the intertubes lately…

Chick-fil-A Spicy Chicken Sandwich Coming Nationwide

Locally Made: Bill Hutchison Solves the New Mexico Pepper Debate – Helping to Answer the Question “Red or Green?”

The Great New Mexico Chile War – More on the Red vs. Green debate, plus a mishmash of other subjects.

Building A Better Pepper – Chile pepper farmer Ed Curry and growing chiles in Arizona.

Nestle’s Hot Sauce Heats Up – The food company introduces a new hot sauce in Malaysia.

Hot times in the city: Farmers process hot peppers on Saginaw ‘assembly line’ – Growing chile peppers in Michigan

New celebrity diet pill Capsiplex hits the UK streets – Capsaicin-based diet pill is claimed to burn as many calories as one would burn in 90 minutes of a brisk walk.

Congrats! You found the secret page! Here’s a picture of some wings as your reward:  

I don’t think I’ve had quite a wallop of pure flavor such as this in a long, long time; perhaps not since I reviewed Jake’s Mesa Breeze Basil Lime Marinade have I encountered a sauce that possessed bold, amazing taste notes and also was balanced and delicious. The sauce I’m talking about is the wonderful chile verde, garlic & ginger-based Uncle Brutha’s ALLSAUCE No 9, one of two condiments (the other sauce being a multiple chile pepper-dominated red sauce) devised by successful music industry sound technician-turned hot sauce maker Brennan Proctor.

Many of you reading this had received the inaugural issue of Blair’s Extreme News yesterday. Blair, of course, has blasted out e-mails to subscriber fans for years. But they’ve never been sent out on a regular, recurring basis until now (these promise to be weekly).

Now in my personal profession as a web developer, I’ve been heavily involved with broadcasting e-mail newsletters for whatever employer I happened to be working for at the time. This type of marketing when executed correctly had proven itself to be highly effective – at that time, that is. With the emergence and wide-spread influence of social media, namely Facebook and Twitter, is e-mail marketing as powerful as it once was? I happen to think that it still has a bit of life left in it. Where the medium will be in two or three years, who knows, but I believe it’s still a great way of touching base with your customers (both actual and potential).

Hot sauce manufacturers in general haven’t pursued this brand of marketing. With limited budgets and limited staff – monthly e-mail newsletters can require at least a part-time person who is well-versed in basic web and graphic design – it’s easy to understand why. Many of our favorite sauce makers have a full-time job to contend with in addition to concocting and producing spicy food products, and a lot of them have to reply on co-packers to bottle…

Not much to write about tonight – the evening consisted mostly of helping my boys with their homework, light web surfing on my laptop and catching the season one finale of BBQ Pitmasters on TLC. But I did want to mention that many fiery foods events, hot sauce shows and chile pepper festivals for 2010 are already scheduled. I’ve compiled most of them on the Hot Sauce/Chilehead Events Calendar. I urge everyone to look it over the list to see if you can take the time out of your busy schedules to attend one of these events. Some of them vary in function and have different focuses, but almost all have good & spicy food and great comraderie with fellow fiery foods fans. Be sure to check out their descriptions and click on the web links for more information.

Oh, and if you know any that I might have omitted, or have any important details I may not have posted, please contact me and let me know the details!