Savoring Rochester: A Deep Dive into Karma Sauce
This episode features guest Gene Olczak from Karma Sauce (@karmasauce)! The main focus of their conversation revolves around the intricacies of developing unique hot sauces, including the balance of flavors, sourcing ingredients, and the challenges of scaling production. The episode also touches on the influence of various cultural flavors and the art of creating sauces that respect those traditions while still being innovative. As they taste through some of Karma Sauce’s offerings, Chris and Gene share insights on the sensory experiences of heat and flavor, providing a rich understanding of what goes into making a great hot sauce.
Mentions:
karmasauce.com - @Redbirdfairport - @CraftCannery
Mentioned in this episode:
Joe Bean Roasters
Joe Bean Coffee - Coffee that lifts everyone. https://shop.joebeanroasters.com
Pauly Guglielmo Show
Pauly Guglielmo is a former radio guy turned food business entrepreneur. While running a manufacturing facility is his day job, he likes to dust off his broadcasting skills once a week on this podcast and talk to entrepreneurs and other influencers. https://pauly-guglielmo-show.captivate.fm/
Mind of Magnus
Check out Mind of Magnus at magnusapollo.com, and leave him factoids at 585-310-2473! https://mind-of-magnus.captivate.fm
Transcript
I'm Chris Lindstrom, and this is the Food About Town podcast.
Speaker B:Rochester.
Speaker B:Well, why Rochester?
Speaker A:Chris Lindstrom was a hoot.
Speaker A:He was just so much fun.
Speaker C:He never stopped talking.
Speaker B:I mean, it was great.
Speaker B:Here's a good idea.
Speaker B:Have a point.
Speaker B:It makes it so much more interesting for the listener, and we don't need.
Speaker C:Any characters around to give the joint atmosphere.
Speaker C:Is that clear?
Speaker B:Because I'm a pro.
Speaker A:That's what pros do.
Speaker A:A professional.
Speaker A:Look it up in the book.
Speaker A:But now, yeah, I'm thinking I'm back.
Speaker A:And we are back with another episode of the Food About Town podcast.
Speaker A:It has been a bit of a break.
Speaker A:Did I break a little bit?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:We'll talk about that on an Fat Bite soon.
Speaker A:But we're not here to talk about me being miserable and not functioning well.
Speaker A:We're here to talk about hot sauce.
Speaker A:And I'm here with a guest.
Speaker A:Guest, why don't you introduce yourself for the second time?
Speaker B:Yeah, this is Gene Olczak at karmasauce.
Speaker B:Just happy to be here across town in Rochester, but it's awesome to see you again, Chris.
Speaker A:I was going to say thanks so much for coming over, man.
Speaker A:It's been a while since I've seen you and you've been epically busy, but let's get plugs right off the bat for Karma Sauce.
Speaker A:Where can people learn about all the different offerings?
Speaker A:We're going to talk through a lot of it during the show, but where can people go find it online?
Speaker A:And we're not going to mention all the stores because it's too many stores, Gene.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's quite a few.
Speaker B:So karma sauce.com and we actually have a.
Speaker B:Just updated our store locator so you can go look around the country or the world.
Speaker B:You know, we seem to have a hotspot in France, you know, but then also Wegman's Redbird market, which is our original France.
Speaker A:How the hell did that happen?
Speaker B:I don't know, but it's fascinating.
Speaker B:I want to go visit that shop in Bordeaux, but, oh, man, that would be killer.
Speaker B:We have it so you can see who carries what now as well.
Speaker B:So if there's like, you know, we have quite a large product range, but we have.
Speaker B:We have some core products where it's, you know, three to five things that are more essential or more accessible.
Speaker B:And then the weirdo stuff like burn after eating, which, you know, right now is out of stock.
Speaker B:But, well, and it's.
Speaker A:That's like.
Speaker A:That's a.
Speaker A:That's a big sauce.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:That's a whole different thing.
Speaker A:And it's so funny you mentioned store locators.
Speaker A:I. I worked on a project that was a startup for a few years.
Speaker A:We were trying to do like transparency and sourcing and distribution of food and food and drink stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And we actually built a store locator that actually worked really well, but just didn't have.
Speaker A: Then we got to: Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Who knew?
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:There's quite a range of tech you get into into with that as well.
Speaker B:You know, it's just astounding with the, you know, we called consumer product goods.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Where you, you know, some of these things will keep tied right into cash register receipt receipts at Kroger's or Wegmans or whatever.
Speaker A:Oh, that's great.
Speaker B:And that you pay big bucks for that.
Speaker B:We don't have that budget, so.
Speaker A:Yeah, that.
Speaker A:That's a whole different world.
Speaker A:And you're absolutely right.
Speaker A:Like, that's where.
Speaker A:That's where the real integrations are.
Speaker A:That's where the real stats are.
Speaker A:I mean, as.
Speaker A:As people, both of us are a bit of a analytical nerds, I would say.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, sure.
Speaker B:Well, you know, I remember seeing you over there, I think was it on Lexington when I was working on the James Webb Space Telescope.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Visit your shop there where we were putting together that thing that looked like Doc Octopus.
Speaker A:Oh, God, that was.
Speaker A:That was a fun project that, that you and I got to work on a little bit after we worked together on the aerospace side of things.
Speaker A:And that.
Speaker A:That was great, like to still be involved with that because I loved that part of my career.
Speaker A:But I was a. I was not a great.
Speaker A:I was not a great employee when I was younger.
Speaker A:I didn't understand how to be a good adult yet.
Speaker A:But I think that stuff takes time for a lot of people.
Speaker B:Oh, for sure.
Speaker B:And there's no better way to learn about the other side of that than having to be a boss, be an owner.
Speaker B:Man, what a pain in the ass.
Speaker B:I was.
Speaker B:I was the worst employee ever.
Speaker B:But somehow they still liked me.
Speaker B:So it shows you how tolerant you have to be.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So skills get you by for a while, but then at some point you also have to be an adult and take care of your stuff because that's.
Speaker B:Be nice to people.
Speaker B:That's the main thing.
Speaker B:Be nice to people.
Speaker A:And we were actually talking about that before because like you were going through your.
Speaker A:Going through your audit stuff today.
Speaker A:And that's like, that's part of the adult stuff.
Speaker A:We're going to talk about all the fun stuff like flavors and development of things.
Speaker A:But hey, you're, you're a full fledged business.
Speaker A:You have to deal with all the, all the detailed stuff of being an adult where you have to deal with, you know, quality audits and procedures and all those things.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So today we were doing a first day of our SQF audit which is above and beyond like an FDA requirement for us to work with some of the bigger chains.
Speaker B:It's sort of table stakes at this point.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so, yeah, it's, we do, we're doing it to ourselves basically, is the way to put it.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's a lot of extra paperwork.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because polygogliamo on our, for the Polygoogliamo show on the Lunchadore podcast network was talking about that recently.
Speaker A:He had just gone through his SQF audit because he's working with, you know, Wegmans and some other larger brands as well.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker A:So he was just going through that a couple of weeks ago too.
Speaker A:And it's, it's just, you can tell, you can hear it in his voice.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Just because it takes a lot out of you.
Speaker A:It's a long day, it's a lot of work.
Speaker A:But when you do get through it, it's like, oh, so we are doing the right things.
Speaker A:We are going through the right process.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It was an interesting time.
Speaker B:Before we were SQF certified, I think poly was about a year ahead of us or so.
Speaker B:So we had a thing where we would do our sauces for hot ones in bulk and totes.
Speaker B:And then because we didn't have the certification and things were going through Nestle say to Hot Pockets, that kind of a thing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Where we had to send them to him to be sort of SQF processed.
Speaker B:It was sort of like getting blessed by the Pope in a way.
Speaker B:So we were, we, we were selling a lot to him in a sort of.
Speaker B:As an intermediary at one point.
Speaker B:So I'm going to the details, but that actually happened.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:No, that makes sense.
Speaker A:And that's like, that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:It's the, it's the underside, it's the other side of food and food and beverage and regulations that like people don't know anything about.
Speaker A:Which is why I love talking about it sometimes is that this is the other stuff that people don't know.
Speaker A:And that's why we have, why we have regulations, why we have those things to you know, hopefully protect people and protect consumers and do those things.
Speaker A:But there are people, conscientious people who are doing this work and yeah, hey, if we're not there yet, we work with a place that is and your organization like Craft Cannery, doing good work around those things.
Speaker A:Um, but that's, that's kind of why CO packers exist too, which is, which is pretty cool.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So anyway, so we're.
Speaker A:You're going through all that, but over the last few years since we talked, I think the last time I ran into you was at an event out on the east side, maybe Canandaigua or something like that.
Speaker A:I'm sure we ran into each other one or two times after, but it was the last time we talked in detail.
Speaker A:You were like really starting to angled towards expansion.
Speaker A:And if you want to listen to all the history of, you know, me working with Gene and you know, the start of karma and everything else, you can go back and listen to the original episode was way long ago.
Speaker A:I didn't go listen to the whole thing.
Speaker A:But like you've been on this trajectory of growth over the last, you know, five plus years that is kind of staggering from where you started.
Speaker B: I mean we, you know, back in: Speaker B:And you know, while I was working full time and just doing evenings and weekends, it pretty much stayed at that level for quite a long time until I decided I could take the jump after, you know, without feeling guilty because the James Webb Space Telescope had all my.
Speaker B:Had launched or all the optical testing was done and I didn't have anything else to do with it at that.
Speaker A:Point, which was kind of your.
Speaker A:So I'm sure everybody's seen pictures of that.
Speaker A:But James Webb Space Telescope had a lot of Rochester influence.
Speaker A:A lot of stuff happened out of, you know, the Harris L3ITT company throughout all those generations.
Speaker A:And Gene was on the optical side of that.
Speaker A:And that's, you know, that's like a lifetime kind of job.
Speaker A:Like that's got that huge cachet.
Speaker A:But also as a passionate nerd, that's kind of a huge deal.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Actually I was shocked when I got that opportunity to work on.
Speaker B:Turns out part of that was the fact it was just such a weird project to phase all those mirrors in a test environment on the ground and not in space, pointing at stars.
Speaker B:And I think there was a bit of an aversion to it.
Speaker B:Like we have, I don't even it's difficult to even know how to approach at first.
Speaker B:You're kind of inventing the whole approach to designing the test from the ground up.
Speaker B:Yeah, pretty cool.
Speaker A:And it had to be just one amazing thing to see the images coming off of that after it actually got up and it was running because, like, you know, the theory, you know, everything else, you know, it's working.
Speaker A:But to see the images, they're like, mind blowing for casuals.
Speaker B:Yeah, I was, you know, I have to say, I was so relieved to see it working.
Speaker B:That was the main thing, because it was.
Speaker B:It was a very risky project.
Speaker B:You know, there was so many things that were done the first time in that way.
Speaker B:You know, a lightweight, segmented system flying out there with all dissimilar as you, you know, working on where you did and where you are, you know, all these dissimilar materials, all the material, all.
Speaker A:The petals of mirrors folding out and to get the level of detail that people are seeing now.
Speaker A:And those images there.
Speaker A:A lot of people just have these revelatory experiences seeing those because they saw the last ones, they saw the Hubble ones and they saw those, and they're seeing the same images with this new level of clarity that changes people.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker B:And, you know, it's the funniest thing because it, it's years in the making.
Speaker B:So, you know, I worked on it for almost 10 years and I was always the new guy.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then it's five years later that you see the images coming out.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Same thing with the one down in Chile that just.
Speaker B:They just put together on the ground.
Speaker A:Oh, those are.
Speaker A:That was super cool too.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's Vera.
Speaker B:What's her name?
Speaker B:The trip I'm drawing a blank on the.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's one of the.
Speaker A:One of the high altitude astronomy centers over there.
Speaker A:And that's one of the kind of places they use because the skies are so clear.
Speaker A:The, you know, the altitudes are so high that you can get a lot of that stuff from the ground that you can't get in many places in the world.
Speaker B:Yeah, my wife sent me a picture about this.
Speaker B:Hey, check out this telescope.
Speaker B:It's really cool.
Speaker B:And it's like.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, I worked on that.
Speaker B:It was called LSST back in the day.
Speaker B:You know, I was like, oh, did I work on that?
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, that.
Speaker A:That other mind blowing thing.
Speaker A:Yeah, I kind of got.
Speaker A:I kind of did a thing on.
Speaker A:That is pretty cool.
Speaker B:Yeah, that one's a long story.
Speaker B:That was, that was the test Was.
Speaker B:Was the way we did it was really wild.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And we can nerd out about that another time.
Speaker A:But so what I kind of want to dive into is.
Speaker A:So you went from the garage, you expanded, you were growing, and then there was this big spike that, you know, obviously you got from working on, you know, working and making sauces with hot ones, having your stuff on there.
Speaker A:I think we talked about a little bit last time.
Speaker A:It actually might have been before hot ones the last time I had you on.
Speaker B:Yeah, it seems about right.
Speaker A:I think it was before.
Speaker A:And we were talking right as you were starting to do more work with them.
Speaker A:The last time you and I were having a long conversation.
Speaker A:But I mean, that.
Speaker A:That changed kind of your entire trajectory.
Speaker A:Not that you weren't going that direction, but that spike is hard to make.
Speaker A:You can't manufacture those spikes.
Speaker A:People think you can manufacture viral moments and manufacture those things.
Speaker A:They kind of happen when they happen, but you have to be ready for it.
Speaker B:You have to be ready.
Speaker B:You have to, you know, be out there doing it.
Speaker B:You know, they're not gonna happen if you don't go out.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's like the.
Speaker A:It's the thing that people say, like when.
Speaker A:When I was a younger guy and was kind of miserable and looking like, oh, I wanted to find more friends.
Speaker A:I wanted to find your relationship.
Speaker A:And those things people say, oh, do the things you love and it'll happen.
Speaker A:When it happens, and you're like, I hate you.
Speaker A:Why are you telling me this?
Speaker A:It's the worst thing somebody can say to you.
Speaker A:Unfortunately, it's also 100% correct.
Speaker A:But if you're out doing the thing that you love doing, and you're doing it without any reservations, when the opportunities there, you're a more fully formed person.
Speaker A:But at the same time, as a business, you are already making really good products.
Speaker A:You're already making things that you are proud of.
Speaker A:You're already making sauces that were ready for an opportunity, and then the opportunity happened and you were ready to jump into it.
Speaker A:Maybe not immediately at the scale, but you're already making a high quality sauce that was ready to be on a show like that.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, thank you very much.
Speaker B:Yeah, that was a factor.
Speaker B:You know, we had gotten on the show, I had done some custom work for Noah Chamberg at Heatnest as well already.
Speaker B:And then it was sort of.
Speaker B:He said, well, you know, I want this southwestern kind of Acapulco barbecue kind of a sauce, you know, and then sort of came up with a few variations on that theme.
Speaker B:And it's like, oh, by the way, this is gonna be the next Hot One sauce.
Speaker B:And, you know, amazingly, it ended up.
Speaker C:Being.
Speaker B:One of the most popular ones or the most popular.
Speaker B:I don't have the exact sales number.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's very, very popular sauce.
Speaker A:Well, and that like to have, I mean, both your specific sauces on the show with the Karma sauce label and then also producing their, you know, their, you know, middle tier line, you know, the Los Calientes line, like that is a.
Speaker A:That's a huge thing for, you know, a growing company to have.
Speaker A:That exposure is a dirty word, I think, in many ways.
Speaker A:But this is one of those times where it actually is true that the visibility, I'd say less exposure, more visibility of the brand and people liking your sources, celebrities liking your sauces.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Has provided a lot of opportunity.
Speaker A:But it's so weird when I, when I watch the show to see the reaction of people to your sauces and you see the positive things.
Speaker A:Like, it's gotta be so weird to see like a list celebrities saying that they love your sauce.
Speaker B:Yeah, I do pinch myself.
Speaker B:It's crazy.
Speaker B:In our last one that we did on was Liftoff, which I sort of lobbied for as a.
Speaker B:Doing a milder sauce because, you know, aside from Los Calientes, which is Hot ones branded, obviously the Karma sauce placements had always been kind of on the burner side, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah, they were up in the, you know, six or eight range.
Speaker A:Usually.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was seven to nine was the first.
Speaker B:First.
Speaker B:First few.
Speaker B:And then getting with a 2 was like, which is.
Speaker B:It's a little bit of a hot 2, but still on the approachable side.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, because 8 is permanent.
Speaker A:And then you varied in different spots.
Speaker B:Right, right, varied.
Speaker A:You know, you know, 1 and so now 1, 8 and 10 are always the same, but, you know, you've had stuff all over the map.
Speaker A:But the reception has been wildly positive.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:You can't say that about every sauce and we're not going to speak about many of them.
Speaker A:But it's so interesting, like, if we did percentages, the percentage of people that were vocal about liking your sauces was.
Speaker A:Is shockingly high.
Speaker B:Oh, thank you.
Speaker A:Which always for me, like, to know that, like, I know this guy, I worked with him, we're nerds together for a long time.
Speaker A:And then to see that is always, like, always felt really good to see a local person killing it like that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I did learn from this last season or one before last is that, you know, the.
Speaker B:It's nice to have the milder sauce because it is more approachable.
Speaker B:More people will say, oh, yeah, I like this.
Speaker B:This is great.
Speaker B:But the.
Speaker B:The burners are better tv, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker B:You get the.
Speaker B:That sort of memeable reaction on the high end.
Speaker A:So I do have.
Speaker A:So I'm going to do some tasting just as a.
Speaker A:Just as a shot across the bow to.
Speaker A:To my buddy Evan Dawson.
Speaker A:My goal today is to be better than he was with handling the heat.
Speaker A:I would be surprised if I wasn't shout out to Evan taking a break over the summer.
Speaker A:But that's my goal today.
Speaker A:But so I do have that one.
Speaker A:I do want to taste that.
Speaker A:So let's talk about liftoff for a second because as would you call this is now part of your core line of products is liftoff.
Speaker B:It remains.
Speaker B:I think it's still a little bit too new to make that determination.
Speaker B:It is broadly available, however, and it's got a nice unique vibe to it.
Speaker B:We do some infusions with the vinegar with galangal, lemongrass, lime leaf.
Speaker B:And so it has a nice freshness to it and a greenness and just citrusy deliciousness that really goes well with a lot of things, you know, and from, you know, boon.
Speaker B:Fuck, you know, sort of Vietnamese food or Thai food to.
Speaker B:I really like it as a alternative to like a chimichurri as well.
Speaker A:I. I do love that you brought up boon is like the first one instead of pho, because to me, this is much more like.
Speaker A:If you're talking about Vietnamese, I'd sing.
Speaker A:Is much more approachable from a noodle or a rice perspective.
Speaker A:You are, you know, a boon or a calm or something like that.
Speaker A:You know, where it's.
Speaker A:You're working with a rice or noodle dish versus.
Speaker A:Because I think.
Speaker A:I mean, it would work there, but the broth is so.
Speaker A:I love the lightness and bounciness of those.
Speaker A:And I know we add hot sauce to that.
Speaker A:I think it would work really well as the non sriracha option to do that.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:The flavors are more complimentary, I think, then obfuscating the base flavors of soup like a pho.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You'll find right as you do if you're dipping and going back to the back and forth.
Speaker A:Your mic's on too, Vince.
Speaker A:You're allowed to talk.
Speaker C:Well, I was waiting.
Speaker C:You know, Gene's.
Speaker B:Oh, Vince is here.
Speaker B:I forgot to introduce him.
Speaker B:My bad.
Speaker A:Hi, Vince Press.
Speaker A:How you doing?
Speaker C:Thanks for having us, Chris.
Speaker B:Appreciate it.
Speaker C:Good to see you again.
Speaker B:He's supposed to remind Me to introduce him?
Speaker B:No, he's the reason I'm here.
Speaker B:So without.
Speaker B:He's the guy who makes it happen.
Speaker C:You guys have a history together.
Speaker C:I don't think anyone's tasted liftoff on impossible chicken tenders though.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:And that.
Speaker A:So I eat vegan 98% of the time.
Speaker A:I've been not eating a little bit more just as sample.
Speaker A:Like I went to Flushing in December.
Speaker A:I didn't try because I wanted to eat.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:The most traditional stuff that was available in one of the most traditional, you know, Chinatowns in America.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And by the way, it was so, so interesting being there because when I was there I felt so comfortable because I was outnumbered, you know, 20 to 1 with, you know, Chinese people.
Speaker A:But I didn't have to worry about things being good most of the time.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like there's.
Speaker C:You did a tour or you did.
Speaker A:No, I just went.
Speaker A:We just stayed.
Speaker A:But we stayed in there and you could walk.
Speaker A:I'd stumble down to a place that was mind blowing.
Speaker A:That was a block walk away.
Speaker A:You know, I went to.
Speaker A:You went to Manhattan one day.
Speaker A:We came back at night when there was one that was like their windows on the street, they're open to like one in the morning and it was still like a solid seven and a half or eight in quality.
Speaker A: o the window on the street at: Speaker A:That's like, I would kill to have this here as a sit down that I would pay a premium for.
Speaker A:And I'm getting it for two, three dollars for a bun on the street.
Speaker C:At like 11 o' clock at night underneath the train.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's like.
Speaker A:But stuff like that, those are the things that change the way you think about things.
Speaker A:And like a sauce like this.
Speaker A:This is such a complete thought.
Speaker A:And that's the thing that's really impressing me.
Speaker A:It's not.
Speaker A:This isn't.
Speaker A:You don't accidentally make this because the depth of flavor.
Speaker A:And the thing you didn't mention was coconut because immediately I was smelling like toasted coconut.
Speaker A:But in no way did it smell.
Speaker A:It doesn't smell in any way.
Speaker A:Suntan lotion or like the stuff that, like when you do coconut the wrong way or use these things the wrong way, there's a lack of balance.
Speaker A:The first thing I smell is balance.
Speaker A:But all those things you mentioned are in the nose and the palate, and it's got heat, but it's like a nice.
Speaker A:Like, if you have any tolerance, it's like a nice mild plus.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A:Like, it's not mild to most people's palate.
Speaker A:I'd say it's a nice mild plus.
Speaker A:But I could slather something in this.
Speaker A:I would be just dumping this on just about anything because the balance is there.
Speaker A:And I think to the way you make sauces, and I want to talk about this for a second because I.
Speaker A:When I make sauces at home, I have a different approach because I like a certain style of making sauces.
Speaker A:But you're going for flavor forward with some vinegar as a brightener.
Speaker A:But it's not a vinegar sauce.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:And you season it with salt, but it's not a salty sauce.
Speaker A:It seems like really your goal.
Speaker A:And tell me if I'm getting the mission wrong, but it's really about flavor, balance, intentionality, and bringing this, like, this big, this kind of punchy, like, depth of flavor to every sauce you're making.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So, you know, we have aromatic components.
Speaker B:We have mid palate, you know, cheek feels another way of characterizing it and just harmonizing the flavors.
Speaker B:And we use coconut sugar and coconut water.
Speaker B:So we're not getting a super punchy, velvety coconut milk, which is.
Speaker B:Can be nice at times, but also not great in something you're putting in the fridge.
Speaker A:When coconut sugar brings that coconut, that kind of toasty coconut taste.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And that sweetness, like, this isn't a sweet sauce.
Speaker A:That's the other thing I really appreciate.
Speaker A:Appreciate about the general balance you reach is the sugar is used for balance, not for being a sweet sauce.
Speaker A:Because I don't like sweet sauces almost at all.
Speaker A:This tastes like the ingredients, and I do it say the galangal and the.
Speaker A:The lemongrass and the lime leaf really come through.
Speaker A:Like, this is aromatic, but there's also no doubt that is a chili sauce.
Speaker A:So one.
Speaker A:This is killer.
Speaker A:Fantastic.
Speaker A:I'm gonna have this in the fridge all the time going forward.
Speaker A:Going to use this all the damn time.
Speaker A:This is great.
Speaker A:So one, congratulations.
Speaker A:This is one I think is the best one I've ever tasted of your sauces.
Speaker A:I like a lot of your sauces.
Speaker A:This is awesome.
Speaker B:Oh, thank you.
Speaker A:So cool.
Speaker A:But having that on the show had to be, you know, getting that reception from those punch aromatics, and those things had to be very gratifying as well.
Speaker B:It was, you know, when I was.
Speaker B:When I was pitching different ideas, I was pretty much all over the map.
Speaker B:I won't say what the other ones were because we might do versions of those in the future, but that, you know, they, they have an interesting process.
Speaker B:And I do tell people, you know, because I get that asked a lot.
Speaker B:Well, how do you get on hot ones?
Speaker B:You know, that's a common question, but which I can get into.
Speaker B:But on top of everything else, every season they've got a certain arc they're trying to define.
Speaker B:And so they're probably, you know, sketching out something that's got different flavors and there's got to be contrast and not going to put three Sriracha knockoffs in a row on the show.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, I mean, there's, I mean, luckily there's only like, you know, 10,000 Sriracha knockoffs on the market.
Speaker A:So, you know, it's hard.
Speaker A:It's, it's so easy to run across one.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's one thing I'm pretty adamant about thus far about not doing is just trying to take David Tran's, you know, and he could talk about the origin story of it, you know, being whatever, before his time.
Speaker B:But, you know, pretty much he's the one who put it on the map single handedly.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Because it really does have, you know, cross across Southeast Asian influence.
Speaker A:And it is, you know, it has a lot of traditional flavors, but, you know, the sweetness is brought up high, the garlic's brought up high, and that's what everybody knows.
Speaker A:I mean, I've had lots of different versions of it.
Speaker A:But like, that version is, it's a, it's a sauce that everybody loves for a reason and people love bright, sweet, garlicky, identifiable flavor.
Speaker A:But I don't want to use it that much because if you use it, everything just tastes like Sriracha because it is such a dominant flavor and it's not, it's not infinitely usable.
Speaker A:And I love things that have wide utility and sometimes there are specific times like the, you know, the sauce we just tasted, you don't, you're not going to put it on like red sauce pasta.
Speaker A:Like you can.
Speaker A:And it would actually be kind of interesting.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:To be honest.
Speaker B:Well, you might do a different.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, red sauce pasta, you're not doing on the Sunday sauce.
Speaker B:That'd be a jar.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Minus the jarred Sunday sauce from Goo Goo Yamo sauce.
Speaker A:Shout out to Polly.
Speaker C:You're, you were astute and you know, the hot one, celebs, at least on, on this liftoff season, they actually called out the flavors that you did and as you said, it's rare because usually they're having the conversation, they're in the interview, they're either burning their face off because it's a number nine sauce.
Speaker C:We had three or four celebrities, including Lady Gaga and Bill Murray and Lisa and Questlove who actually called out what they tasted in the sauce.
Speaker C:And that doesn't happen that much on that show.
Speaker A:No, because it's a very articulate sauce.
Speaker A:And I say that with with reverence because to me, one of the best things you can be is you say, this is what it's going to taste like, and it really tastes like that thing.
Speaker A:You're not just using the words.
Speaker A:You've used quality ingredients to make it taste like that.
Speaker A:But when you're developing a sauce like that, I mean, the balance is something that's always, you know, gonna be a constant process.
Speaker A:But when you're going through all these tests, when you're picking those ingredients, how do you, how do you decide galangal versus ginger or, you know, this chili versus that chili to bring that base or the green chili blend or whatever's in there.
Speaker A:But how do you decide on that, like lime leaf versus just using lime juice or using, you know, peels instead of using leaf?
Speaker A:How do you work through?
Speaker A:Like, do you just start and then say, oh, this is too bitter, it's too brightly limey.
Speaker A:How do you, how do you personally like going through that process?
Speaker B:Well, you know, often.
Speaker B:And I don't think it's ne.
Speaker B:Well, I have to.
Speaker B:I can't go into the details on this one in particular, but I had an idea about a brief for it and I often start with that.
Speaker B:You know, what do you want people to think about this sauce?
Speaker B:Yeah, what are, you know, for example, Cherry Bomb was an interesting one where I just had an idea for these hot sauce shows I was just doing.
Speaker B:I was like, you know, I want something that's bright, that when somebody's been tasting spicy food all day long, how can I cut through that noise and give them something that they can enjoy?
Speaker A:And one I always remember enjoying, even though it was a little sweeter, it was a very balanced sweetness.
Speaker A:And one you could slather.
Speaker A:Like you could slather things in that, in the best possible way and really enjoy it.
Speaker B:And so, yeah, the layered experience is important to me.
Speaker B:Again, the arc of, of the sauce itself, you know, is it bite on is how much.
Speaker B:What are you getting up front?
Speaker B:Is there a mid palate to it?
Speaker B:Do you have a finish?
Speaker B:I like to have things that tend to have longer finishes.
Speaker B:So, you know, instead of, you know, I remember seeing 60 Minutes a long time ago where they had some, you know, flavor scientists on they describing the flavors they're creating and then that, you know, they're working for bigger commercial companies and try to try creating these sort of instantaneous things that be like, wow.
Speaker B:And they would just dissipate immediately.
Speaker B:To me, I heard that and I was like, well, you're just using your powers for evil because you're making people want to come back more and get that next chip.
Speaker B:And get that next chip.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Where I would like to get things that are more satiating.
Speaker A:Well, and I think that's the other thing too.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, like we're.
Speaker A:We're sipping on probably the worst thing to reduce heat from hot sauce, which is higher proof rye.
Speaker A:So like, when I'm, when I'm evaluating spirits, like in competitions, when I'm judging, you know, depth and complexity, those are the things I'm hunting for.
Speaker A:You can get those big flavors up front, but if it doesn't have evolution, it doesn't linger on the palate.
Speaker A:Like, to me, that's the thing that makes me want to go back for the next sip.
Speaker A:Not a vacuous, you know, not like an empty flavor.
Speaker A:I don't want an empty flavor.
Speaker A:Wanting me to go back, then I feel, it's almost like a desperation, like I'm reaching for the flavor.
Speaker A:I want to be so excited to go back in for the next sip because that was so interesting.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And especially something like this, you know, where it's.
Speaker B:I might want to just smell it a few times.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Knowing that drinking something like this high proof, I'm going to get fatigued.
Speaker B:I'm not going to be able to keep that experience for very long.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, after, by the time you get to the second one, it's not like you're trying it for the first time.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Shout out to Barrel Seagrass, by the way.
Speaker A:So Barrel, one of my favorite blending companies.
Speaker A:That's what we're tasting today.
Speaker C:It's delicious.
Speaker C:And I would have no problem continuing to drink this for the rest of the night.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Really good.
Speaker B:You can, but it wouldn't be as good as the first time.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So we're going to finish off with one more taste before we go to break.
Speaker A:So Vince just handed me another one of your newer sauces, which is Ghost Island.
Speaker A:So we're tasting Lift off, which was kind of your, you know, Thai Viet, you know, aromatic Southeast Asian sauce.
Speaker A:And now we've Got Ghost Island.
Speaker A:Tell me what your intention was on it.
Speaker B:Well, so first off, I wouldn't call that one of our newer sauces.
Speaker B:We've had some version of that for about 10 years.
Speaker A:Geez, really?
Speaker A:Has it been that long?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But the earliest version was a bit more of a jerk profile and quite a bit hotter.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And so a lot more all space, a little bit more in time, a little more hard edge to it.
Speaker B:I decided to tone that down a little bit and went with the yellow mustard seed and a more of a West Indies curry vibe, which still has quite a bit of allspice to it, but not jackhammer stringent.
Speaker A:So were you aiming for, like, I would say, vaguely Trinidadian Jamaican, was it?
Speaker B:Yeah, that's a fair to say.
Speaker B:You know, I. I think there's a.
Speaker A:Lot of crossover, obviously.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:There's one of my benchmarks for, you know, a sauce that was made in the US and I think there was making it elsewhere now.
Speaker B:But, you know, I was always a fan of the.
Speaker B:What's it called?
Speaker B:Inner Beauty.
Speaker B:So I was like, well, I want to kind of do something that's like my own take on us on that style.
Speaker B:Not a knockoff and it isn't, but it has some of the same elements to it.
Speaker B:So just a beautiful blend where you have the mango and those chinense chilies, including the ghost pepper, which spikes a little bit.
Speaker B:But I believe there's Vitale and Scotch.
Speaker A:Bonnet in there as well, I was going to say.
Speaker A:So I didn't know if that was the technical term for a Scotch bonnet because.
Speaker A:And not.
Speaker A:I don't say this with a negative.
Speaker A:Oftentimes, you know, people don't use Scotch bonnets because they're not as available as habaneros are.
Speaker B:That's true.
Speaker A:But they do have a.
Speaker A:Even though they have a very.
Speaker A:They have a similar kind of profile.
Speaker A:They have that fruity, Some of those aromatics.
Speaker A:They have a.
Speaker A:A similar kind of heat profile.
Speaker A:They have a little bit of that.
Speaker A:That acrid heat in the best possible way that you get with the habaneros and the highers.
Speaker A:But so you.
Speaker A:You mentioned a term that was.
Speaker A:Is that a category of peppers?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So, like, you have your.
Speaker B:There's several different splits in the tree there of biologically of peppers.
Speaker B:And the habanero and Scotch bonnets are in one that's called chinenza.
Speaker B:If I'm saying that, I could probably be butchering the pronunciation.
Speaker B:Pronunciation.
Speaker B:I think it's like some misinterpretation of them being from China or something.
Speaker B:Like that.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Then there are anims, which is most of what we see.
Speaker B:You know, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, hatch, you know, green chilies are all anims.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Is that like.
Speaker A:That's like Pabuanos as well.
Speaker A:Is that within that same world?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So the.
Speaker B:The peppers that are the shenans tend to be out of the Caribbean, or, you know, there are some out of like.
Speaker B:Like the beauty Lochia out of India, which may or may not.
Speaker B:You know, this is some anecdotal evidence that maybe those were taken straight from Trinidad to Bangladesh a long time ago.
Speaker A:Well, that makes sense.
Speaker A:Right when we're talking about the.
Speaker A:In, you know, West Indies crossover.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:Your Caribbean, your Trinidadian Jamaican, which is really where a lot of that, you know, Indian influence came in, obviously through colonialization, which does create amazing fusion.
Speaker A:A lot of devastation as well, which, you know, colonialization such that it is.
Speaker A:But these hybrid flavors that come from that also bring an amazing depth of flavor.
Speaker A:And it's interesting tasting it on its own.
Speaker A:Like, the spike of the pepper is the first thing that hits with the mustard.
Speaker A:When I taste it on, like, a nugget, I'm actually getting the mustard in the sweetness first, and that's why I kind of want to taste it both ways, both straight and on something.
Speaker A:Because the substrate you're tasting on does affect how you're.
Speaker A:How you're enjoying it, too.
Speaker B:Well, absolutely.
Speaker B:And, you know, that's why I like to try sauces, you know, naked on their own first.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Of course, doing evaluations and development.
Speaker B:But then this one, I can't even look at a Jamaican beef patty with.
Speaker B:Fellas have that.
Speaker B:That sauce handy?
Speaker A:Oh, I am.
Speaker A:I'm very excited to have that on one of the.
Speaker A:Now, from the vegan side, there's only one brand that's making it, but it's, you know, it's the big Jamaican patty brand.
Speaker A:They make a beyond version of it.
Speaker B:I see.
Speaker A:Not bad, actually.
Speaker B:Then I suppose you could know you could go with, like, a samosa.
Speaker B:You know, it would be great with a.
Speaker A:That would be a delight.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But, yeah, the mustard on this is really present.
Speaker A:You get a little bit of that sweetness again, it's the same kind of thing where the sweetness is balancing.
Speaker A:The vinegar is there, the peppers are kicking.
Speaker A:You're at the warming spices are there, but it is not a punch in the face of warming spices.
Speaker A:It's not an allspice punch.
Speaker A:The mustard is the first flavor of the spices, but it does round into the allspice and the time and the other things in the background.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm really happy with that recipe.
Speaker B:One of the things that we've done, you know, different private label versions for folks based on that same exact recipe.
Speaker B:And pretty much that works with any peppers you're.
Speaker B:You put in it, it'll still carry.
Speaker B:Even if you made it with bell peppers, it would still be a very tasty sauce.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I also, I also like that, like, the vinegar is there as the.
Speaker A:As the acidity.
Speaker A:But I'm not a huge fan of when a sauce tastes like apple cider vinegar because I find that kind of distasteful as a profile in a.
Speaker A:In a hot sauce.
Speaker A:When it tastes like apple cider vinegar, I think as an ingredient, it can be really effective.
Speaker A:But I'm really glad it doesn't taste like apple cider vinegar.
Speaker B:Yeah, it just hasn't.
Speaker B:There's a nice roundness to.
Speaker B:To the apple cider vinegar that I.
Speaker B:So I tend to use it a lot, but not as like a, you know, a pure thing.
Speaker B:It's usually like, you know, less than 30%.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Even when it's a higher amount.
Speaker B:So then we put some citrus, you know, we have some citrus in there as well.
Speaker B:So the lime juice does some of the carrying.
Speaker A:Yeah, but like, they're not as identifiable.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You know, the mango and pineapple.
Speaker A:Like, I know there's fruit in there, but it's not like it doesn't scream mango.
Speaker A:This isn't a mango sauce.
Speaker A:This is a, you know, this is carrying the profile of where it is.
Speaker A:Like, it's not a mango hot sauce.
Speaker A:It's not a pineapple hot sauce.
Speaker A:This is a complete thought of a sauce using those as balancing ingredients.
Speaker C:It's interesting.
Speaker C:You tasted.
Speaker C:We were at a festival in Syracuse, Pizza and Wingfest over the weekend and Wing Nuts out of Buffalo, who has just been blowing up.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's so weird, like, because that wasn't there when I grew up at all.
Speaker A:And now that's like a big deal.
Speaker C:They served wings with their own sauces, which are fantastic, but they all.
Speaker C:They also serve wings with Liftoff and Ghost island at their tent.
Speaker C:And we're waiting to get the report, but it seemed like they both went over very well because they're just so different on wings.
Speaker A:No, I could see that too, because, you know, that little bit of fried flavor, those other things would go really well.
Speaker A:And I'm kind of interested, like, from you, like, when you're scaling these.
Speaker A:So be lasting before you go to break when you're Scaling these for heat, to me, this is like.
Speaker A:Like a good solid medium, you know, medium maybe, maybe medium plus, but like solidly, solidly spicy.
Speaker A:You can eat a good amount of it, but you're going to know you're having a hot sauce.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:How do you personally grade.
Speaker A:Do you grade the sauces?
Speaker A:Do you try to indicate that?
Speaker B:Yeah, that's one of the things that's always a bit vexing, you know, because folks like to talk about Scoville heat units, but they're.
Speaker B:They're so abused that I kind of shy away from that because, you know, there's not a lot.
Speaker B:The methodologies for specifying on the bottles is all over the place.
Speaker A:Well, and also it's like it is a number, but it doesn't.
Speaker A:Even though it is a.
Speaker A:It is kind of a thing you can measure.
Speaker A:I mean, it is, but at the same time, the experience of eating it, the heat experience doesn't necessarily match the number.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So aside from the first part about it being not reliably measured or reported, then you also have that important part of the context, like, okay, is there more or less sugar in this?
Speaker B:What is the.
Speaker B:You'd be surprised how the finish can change your perception of heat as well.
Speaker B:So if I have something that's really chunky, like I have some onions and I sprinkle chipotle on them and they're chunky, I'll get that immediate contact on the outside.
Speaker B:But if I let it stew for a while, that capsaicin can migrate through and it'll be seen milder.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:In your mouth and, you know, more vinegar again is going to be like burn after eating is intentionally very vinegar forward, no sweetness whatsoever.
Speaker B:Ash to ashes.
Speaker B:One of our other sauces is, you know, similarly hot, but it gives you that moment of, wow, this tastes really great because it's got a little bit of sweetness to it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so the.
Speaker B:How they hit your mouth is very different.
Speaker B:When it comes to grading things, though, in general, we're just kind of going with like, you know, mild, medium, hot, extra hot.
Speaker B:And I'd rather over report the heat a little bit.
Speaker B:In most cases, I don't think I've I nailed it with the liftoff.
Speaker B:We're probably going to update to call it a medium with how it turned out.
Speaker B:But to be interesting, one of the few cases would I do that, because here's my philosophy or my observation of people.
Speaker B:If you give someone who likes really hot stuff something that's a little bit too mild, they're going to be somewhat Disappointed.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:If you give someone who wanted something mild something that's too hot, they're going to be super pissed off.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's completely fair.
Speaker B:So no one's going to agree.
Speaker B:People can't even agree on the order of, of the heat level of hot sauces.
Speaker B:If you put two people and say, grate these by heat.
Speaker B:Yeah, they can't do it.
Speaker B:And so, and some part of that is just to how it hits them differently.
Speaker B:It could be order.
Speaker B:You have to do randomized trials.
Speaker B:I don't know if you've ever done any.
Speaker B:You probably almost certainly have.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If you do brown bag wine tasting, for example.
Speaker B:And I remember with Lorraine Helms years ago taking her course at the Museum of Rochester Museum and Science Center.
Speaker A:Great local wine educator.
Speaker A:Lorraine is a.
Speaker A:She teaches WSET classes, has taught a long time at Ritual.
Speaker A:A friend and just a really cool person.
Speaker A:And if you want to learn about wine, one of the best people to take a class from.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:So this was called Wine Values of the World.
Speaker B:So it was like, you know, inexpensive wines from around the world.
Speaker B:And this is quite a ways ago.
Speaker B:So those were like, you know, $10ish, which they aren't exactly that anymore.
Speaker B:But there was a case where either accidentally or on purpose, the number three and the number five wines were the same.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker B:And it's like you look at your notes and go, yeah, I didn't think the same thing about that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so you have to realize that you may be.
Speaker B:Admit to yourself that you may be an unreliable narrator.
Speaker A:I'd say almost always.
Speaker A:And speaking of unreliable narrators, we're going to go to some advertisements and we'll be right back.
Speaker A:And we're back with the second part of our conversation with Gene Olczyk from karma sauce.
Speaker A:Karma sauce.com karma sauce.com for all of your hot sauce needs.
Speaker A:And also you can catch many of the sauces on hot ones, including the Los Calientes line that you can find in many products, including Pringles and other things.
Speaker A:At least the labeling.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But it is amazing to see where things have gone.
Speaker A:But what I wanted to kick off with, I enjoy making hot sauces myself.
Speaker A:And I kind of have a profile that I make, and oftentimes it leads me to creative flavors that I have never tried to make before.
Speaker A:In the past, I'd say my most successful sauce was a habanero sauce that I made with a lot of roasted ingredients would be like roasted carrots and squash.
Speaker A:And this will sound familiar to some of your sauces not that I stole some of your ideas from using squash and carrots and other things and sauces, but I kind of did.
Speaker A:I used that and then I added some starter to, you know, make sure I got fermentation.
Speaker A:I do fermentation sauces almost exclusively.
Speaker A:So lactic fermentation sauces, because that's what I like.
Speaker A:And I'll do it for a while.
Speaker A:And then I often add.
Speaker A:I had a lot of vinegar and salt because my profile.
Speaker A:I like a salty, vinegary sauce.
Speaker A:I grew up in Buffalo.
Speaker A:I liked Frank's.
Speaker A:I like, you know, crystal.
Speaker A:I like, you know, I like punchy vinegary sauces.
Speaker A:But I wanted to develop ones that had, you know, more rounded flavors and depth.
Speaker A:And last year I made a couple that my.
Speaker A:My buddy found a local farmer that grew these very small, I think he called them Vietnamese peppers.
Speaker A:So they're about this long and they're kind of shaped like Christmas lights.
Speaker A:Like they're like, go to that rounded tip.
Speaker A:They're very short.
Speaker A:I would say they're, you know, an inch and a half long, maybe at most a lot of seeds in the middle.
Speaker A:Fascinating little peppers.
Speaker A:I'd never seen them before.
Speaker A:I don't know if you've.
Speaker A:You've seen ones like that before.
Speaker B:Not that usually the ones I see are a little bit more torpedo shaped, that maybe a little longer and bigger, but also quite seedy.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, Del Arbol chilies and cousins are all over the world.
Speaker B:You know, it's when I talk to.
Speaker B:I'm support the Chili Pepper Institute in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and my friend John Hart is quite the chili aficionado.
Speaker B:And we talk chilies every once in a while.
Speaker B:And one of the.
Speaker B:The things that comes up is as you go around the world, you'll find, you know, because peppers have been around, spread so, you know, like wildfire.
Speaker B:As soon as the Portuguese landed in India with them, they, you know, they got all over the place faster.
Speaker B:It took less time for them to go all across Asia than it took them to get from, you know, Belize up to northern New Mexico.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So 1,000 years versus like less than 100.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, due to shipping.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:But there are peppers that are very much, very similar to the ones in.
Speaker B:In Mexico, say in Papua New guinea or elsewhere, where, you know, locals have their own origin story about those chili peppers.
Speaker B:Because they're so central to the culture.
Speaker B:They have been for hundreds of years.
Speaker B:They're sure that they just came out of the ground right where they live, you know, when it's irrefutable that, you know, these are.
Speaker B:Did not exist pre Columbian anywhere in Asia or.
Speaker B:Or, you know, Europe.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:But the stories are great.
Speaker B:Yeah, they are.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So this first one.
Speaker A:Let me have you taste this one was using the.
Speaker A:So I had green ones and I had yellow ones.
Speaker A:So this was.
Speaker A:I did natural fermentation for a while in a brine with garlic, so that's part of the base.
Speaker A:I grilled lemons, used miso, but that's really.
Speaker A:The main flavors is like lemon, miso, garlic.
Speaker A:There are some other accenting flavors as well, but that's really what was driving it.
Speaker A:But you see kind of the profile.
Speaker A:I like that big vinegar hip.
Speaker A:I like the salt.
Speaker A:But for me, I want to max out vinegar and salt to the point where, like, for me, that's a great pizza sauce.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You get that.
Speaker A:It has to be really good pizza, though.
Speaker A:But you get that spike of heat.
Speaker A:You get the miso.
Speaker A:I wanted to make it savory and really interesting, so I was really happy with how that one turned out.
Speaker A:But I like that we.
Speaker A:We carry similar sentimentality about building sauce that lingers in different ways.
Speaker A:I wanted to have that savory linger with the acidity.
Speaker C:It's really.
Speaker C:It's really good.
Speaker C:It reminds me.
Speaker C:And I love.
Speaker C:I love punchy.
Speaker C:Like, my favorite condiment is almost the Thai fish sauce with fresh chilies, which I know has a name, and I'm going to butcher it if I say it, but it's just so in your face and so salty.
Speaker C:And that.
Speaker C:That's really good.
Speaker C:And it's an interesting color, too.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Kind of pale.
Speaker B:And it's not.
Speaker B:It's a vinegar sauce, and it's chili forward, but it's not super, super puckery.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's my goal is I want to make something balanced.
Speaker A:But for me, this was an idea.
Speaker A:This was an opportunity to expand kind of my flavor base in the sauces.
Speaker A:I hadn't made one with miso before, so I really wanted to go for that vinegary, savory.
Speaker A:I probably used a mushroom seasoning to season.
Speaker A:I want you to try on your way out, which is really cool.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So that's got that little umami.
Speaker A:It's not a little, but this one has a lot more because this one had a bunch of cilantro in it.
Speaker B:So it's green, it's got.
Speaker B:It's salty, it's savory.
Speaker A:This one I put tomatillos in.
Speaker A:So this one, I wanted to go towards that Verde kind of flavor.
Speaker A:But I wanted it to be definitely a hot sauce.
Speaker A:Not.
Speaker A:I wanted to be cilantro forward with the tomatillos as the background, not you.
Speaker A:They're obviously there, but it carries a similar profile.
Speaker A:It's just a green version of that same pepper.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker A:So reason I brought them up, not to.
Speaker A:Not to be, like, flagellating myself, saying, I did a really good job making these sauces.
Speaker A:I did.
Speaker B:You did.
Speaker B:They're good.
Speaker A:But the reason I brought it up was, like, different philosophies and sauces.
Speaker A:But the last two we tasted before were very specifically of a place when you're expanding into cultural flavors and cultural sauces.
Speaker A:How often are you going outside of what your.
Speaker A:What your known ingredients are, what your known palate is, and how do you go through that exercise of learning about the different cultures that come with these sauces?
Speaker A:Because that's a.
Speaker A:It's a big deal to be respectful about the flavors and where things come from.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker B:And, you know, I'm kind of a pluralist.
Speaker B:You know, I sort of.
Speaker B:My dad was born in Poland, and.
Speaker A:No, not with old check as a last name.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So, you know, my Debbie Downer is in the.3 in the last three years, I got confirmation that my.
Speaker B:My uncles were murdered in Moth house and Goosen concentration camp.
Speaker B:So that's.
Speaker B:And I have Polish citizenship now.
Speaker B:So a lot has happened in the past three years.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, after he passed away in.
Speaker B: In: Speaker B: didn't even know survived the: Speaker B:So it's a long story.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But, you know, so I don't necessarily think about.
Speaker B:I have broad influences, but I am not trying to copy anyone.
Speaker B:I'm not.
Speaker B:You know, I may say, well, this has got a Thai vibe to it, but I'm not trying to say, look at me.
Speaker B:I'm making an authentic Thai sauce.
Speaker B:That's not the way I think about it.
Speaker B:I have influences, and I try to be respectful.
Speaker B:I also try to make sure I'm not.
Speaker B:I don't want to say stepping on it.
Speaker B:I'm thinking real time here.
Speaker B:So I am not trying to cop anything specifically.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's a tough balance, and that's.
Speaker A:That's where I like to fall as well, because, you know, Vince and I have had a lot of conversations about, you know, enjoying cultural foods.
Speaker A:I think both of us are aggressive lovers of cultural foods in a way that, you know, I'd say goes beyond what a lot of people like.
Speaker A:I truly, deeply adore cultural foods.
Speaker A:It's part of how I understand food.
Speaker A:And as somebody who wrote about that stuff, who didn't grow up in those places, it was always a tough balance.
Speaker A:And I spent three years working with small minority on restaurants in Rochester.
Speaker A:It's a very tight rope to walk where I had to be very conscientious.
Speaker A:I've, I, I'm sure I did when I first started writing.
Speaker A:I, I haven't in, like, well over a decade of being involved in food and drink use the term authenticity.
Speaker A:Because I'm not the arbiter of authenticity.
Speaker A:I can say what I like, I can say what my understanding of traditional is, but I'm not the arbiter of authenticity.
Speaker A:And when I learn about a culture, I like to learn the history.
Speaker A:I like to learn about colonialism.
Speaker A:Not from a.
Speaker A:You know, I want to understand how this flavor came to exist because it lets me understand that flavor and that those, the people and lets me enjoy it in a different way.
Speaker A:So, like, when you're doing a West Indies sauce, were you already familiar with those kind of flavors or.
Speaker B:For sure, yeah.
Speaker B:And it's just sort of like, well, there's an influence there, but I'm not saying I'm going to copy that thing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So authenticity doesn't really register with me.
Speaker B:It's more agreed trying to be original about things.
Speaker B:And a lot of what I do has no basis in anyone else's ideas.
Speaker B:Like Cherry Bomb.
Speaker B:There's nothing like that that exists.
Speaker B:Certainly if I'm doing something like.
Speaker B:Like probably Los Calientes is probably one of the most conventional things I've done where it's like, okay, we're going to do this kind of taco sauce.
Speaker B:It has this sort of, you know, west coast vibe to it.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:As.
Speaker B:As part of the brief.
Speaker B:But sometimes I'll just play around with the idea of harmonies.
Speaker B:Now, oftentimes it's more complementary things as opposed to contrasting things.
Speaker B:So one of the tools I play around with, not infrequently, but just for what ifs, because there's so many things in the world I don't necessarily know about, because there's so many different ingredients that you can play with, you may not have heard of.
Speaker B:Can you use pine needles in a sauce?
Speaker B:Well, yeah, you can, but there's a database out of New Delhi called FlavoredB, where you can go and play around with and find things that have similarities.
Speaker B:Now, that's one direction.
Speaker B:That's one type of overlapping between herbs and fruits and vegetables or whatever else things you might think about using in a food dish of some kind.
Speaker B:But it doesn't necessarily carry the.
Speaker B:That cover the contrasting things which it also can be worked.
Speaker B:That's a little bit more of an on your own sort of figuring it out, at least as far as references go.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then there's, I mean there's been so many books in the last like couple years from what I would consider to be the true experts in the field of flavor.
Speaker A:Like was it Ariel Johnson's book Flavorama that came out a couple of years ago and I'm forgetting the gentleman's name who's one of the like, you know, seminal modern experts in flavor and aromatic science.
Speaker A:I am forgetting his name.
Speaker A:He has ties to Dave Arnold and you know, that whole world of.
Speaker B:Yeah, there's so much to know.
Speaker B:I, you know, I'm an amateur, you know, I'm just self taught a little bit here and there.
Speaker B:So I don't claim to be an expert in that space.
Speaker B:I just like to play around with it.
Speaker A:Yeah, I find it completely fascinating, which is like why when I've, when I taste things that I've never had before, it makes me really excited.
Speaker A:Like in Buffalo I had Burmese food for the first time and it blew my mind because I, I've had similar things, but I never had some of those flavors before.
Speaker A:And when I started to have, you know, West African food and learn about that, you know, it, you know, it, it expanded my understanding of the roots of Caribbean food and New Orleans food and Southern food, but also the punchy flavors that were more traditional.
Speaker A:Like just like, oh, this is so fascinating and intense and it just made me want to taste more and learn more and then sometimes create my own thing.
Speaker B:Yeah, there's so many.
Speaker B:We have such really a narrow exposure to what we can sample.
Speaker B:I can give a couple of examples where I had to stop over in Lima and we ended up because of the weather, coming back from Mendoza, going for like a 12 hour layover because we almost certainly would end up sleeping on the floor in Atlanta if we'd gone on to the original flight based on the weather.
Speaker B:So Samantha Bajkus, and I apologize if I'm butchering her last name.
Speaker B:She's a local chef out of Geneva, does great tours around the world, including Peru.
Speaker B:And I said, I just sent her, you know, message and said, hey, I'm here for the day in, in Lima.
Speaker B:Can you got any advice?
Speaker B:And she just pointed me to a local chef there who had just a great class and took us around the.
Speaker B:The produce market.
Speaker B:And I've never been anywhere where I looked around and saw all these different fruits and vegetables and had no idea what so many of them were.
Speaker B:I was like, what.
Speaker B:What even is that?
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:Yeah, I forget what my second point was, but that was.
Speaker B:That was a big one.
Speaker C:He cooked for you, I think, didn't he?
Speaker B:He did.
Speaker B:He gave us some classes on some traditional Peruvian sauces and.
Speaker B:Which were pretty wild.
Speaker B:Again, it's the ahi amarillo chili pepper figures on that.
Speaker A:Those are so cool.
Speaker B:But I didn't count on is, you know, the animal crackers and saltines and condensed milk that would figure into some of the sauces.
Speaker B:So it was pretty wild.
Speaker B:This guy had worked in one of the top rated restaurants in the world, which there are quite a few of in Lima.
Speaker B:And it makes sense.
Speaker B:It's kind of a.
Speaker B:For seaside town.
Speaker B:It's a little gray and dreary at times, but it's not San Diego.
Speaker B:But they had some just fantastic food there, even though we had that short layover.
Speaker A:That's really cool.
Speaker A:Oh, and the book I was mentioning is by Harold McGee, one of the other, like, modern, you know, flavor and aroma people who have done the work of understanding those things deeply.
Speaker A:Like you mentioned, you know, that database of flavors.
Speaker A:But that's enough about Nerdery.
Speaker A:I mean, we'll have more, but let's taste a couple.
Speaker A:Let's taste a couple other things before we close out.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Speaking of riffs on tradition, that's a mole sauce.
Speaker C:Nice concocted.
Speaker B:Well, that's a long story and I don't agree with that assessment or the name necessarily.
Speaker A:So what happened other than the fact that you put it on the label?
Speaker B:Well, here's the thing.
Speaker B:I was a member of a Facebook group and I said, hey, you know, it would be fun.
Speaker B:I reached out to the administrators and said, wouldn't it be fun if you had a contest where you could pick.
Speaker B:Where people could pick three theme ingredients for a sauce and then whatever won that poll, I would just design a sauce around those theme ingredients.
Speaker B:So we did that here.
Speaker B:I had to use a little English because we won't use any tree nuts in our sauces.
Speaker B:So I faked that a little bit with our local butternut squash seed oil, which has a very nice nutty characteristic to it.
Speaker A:And then they are delightful.
Speaker A:By the way, I love butternut squash seeds.
Speaker A:They're really tasty.
Speaker A:And the oil that comes from is fantastic.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So Greg, you know, in Geneva, works Wholehearted Foods, Stony Brook Farms.
Speaker B:Oil available all over town.
Speaker B:And their pepitas right there.
Speaker B:So they're really delicious.
Speaker B:Other.
Speaker B:Their pumpkin seeds are really good.
Speaker A:Yeah, those.
Speaker A:Those are really good.
Speaker A:I love those products.
Speaker A:They're fantastic.
Speaker B:And they actually, he work, you know, works in concert with Martin Farms in Brockport, where we get our squash from.
Speaker A:So, yeah, this is.
Speaker A:So I would say, as a mole.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So what I'm looking for is complexity.
Speaker A:You know, I'm not looking for chocolate.
Speaker A:I'm looking for complexity.
Speaker A:I'm looking for depth of flavor.
Speaker A:I'm looking for the nuttiness.
Speaker A:I'm looking for a little bit of that.
Speaker A:Not astringent, but I'm looking for that, you know, drying thing of.
Speaker A:Of, like, cacao or something like that, those darker, almost burned flavors, you know, because there's, like, moley isn't one thing which we're very reductive about.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's like mole popolano and mole.
Speaker A:Negra is what a lot of people know, which is, like, it's one thing, but there's, like.
Speaker A:It's just sauce, and there's, like, you know, 100 different versions in Oaxaca that people eat.
Speaker B:I think when you don't really get the vibe until you, you know, like.
Speaker B:And that's one of the things I dislike is when you go to a place and say, oh, yeah, we have this chicken mole.
Speaker B:And then so they just pour some brown sauce on top of some grilled chicken.
Speaker B:You know, it's not the vibe at all.
Speaker B:And so the sauce doesn't really get its full character until you, you know, whether it's turkey or something else, until you've really kind of simmered in that for, you know, all day long.
Speaker B:And you have.
Speaker B:You have that kind of stocky element to it.
Speaker A:I do like that you use that.
Speaker A:You mentioned turkey as the proper bird for that, which is way, way, way more traditional to use turkey for that versus chicken.
Speaker B:So I'll be usually disappointed in moles, and I almost never order.
Speaker B:Like, my test for the.
Speaker B:For the restaurant is, okay, do you have a good pozole?
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's my.
Speaker A:Which, Yeah, I love porcelain.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I do like that the dried chilies come through.
Speaker A:You get that toasty flavor.
Speaker A:You get a little bit of that darkness on the back, but the front still has some of that brightness, too.
Speaker A:Like, it's still a hot sauce.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker A:It's not a mole sauce.
Speaker A:It is a hot sauce.
Speaker B:It is not.
Speaker B:You know, it's a funny thing I call it.
Speaker B:And it's also, you know, the second part of the story is that the name was also subject to vote.
Speaker B:So if I had my way, I don't want to offend the person who won, who won the vote because they are a friend, but I would not have called it that.
Speaker B:Yeah, we got one customer complain.
Speaker B:This is not a mole sauce.
Speaker B:It's like.
Speaker B:Yeah, I know.
Speaker A:Well, yeah, agreed.
Speaker A:But I say it carries a respectful, respectful tie to those flavors.
Speaker A:And especially with the ingredients you chose, it still carries that respectful tie to it.
Speaker A:Like we talked about, it is not a mole.
Speaker A:But is it identifiably inspired by that and is it respectful of that?
Speaker A:100%, absolutely.
Speaker A:That's really cool.
Speaker A:So what are you throwing at me next, Vince from the cooler?
Speaker C:Do we want to.
Speaker C:You want to notch it up?
Speaker A:You go ahead.
Speaker A:You go ahead and jam me.
Speaker A:Jam me up.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:I'm glad you mentioned we're going to.
Speaker B:Heat this number 10 or not.
Speaker C:On a side note, Buffalo has a number of Burmese, like three or four Burmese restaurants.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:Shockingly more so while you're picking out the sauce.
Speaker A:It's a very interesting.
Speaker A:It's a very interesting phenomenon.
Speaker A:Now I'm going to get the numbers wrong.
Speaker A:So I was talking to my friend Andrew Garno who runs the substack Four Bites.
Speaker A:He used to be the food writer for the Buffalo News.
Speaker A:Food writer and editor.
Speaker A:So he was, you know, he talked to me about it and I think he mentioned I'm going to get the numbers wrong.
Speaker A:So I'm not going to mention numbers, but I think he mentioned that, like the population of Buffalo has become, like, significantly percentaged Burmese.
Speaker A:Like I think it might have been double digits, percentages.
Speaker A:And that this population of Buffalo is actually going up because of the Burmese population.
Speaker A:Just like in Utica, the Bosnian population bolstered it and kept the city, you know, alive.
Speaker A:Yeah, in a way.
Speaker A:And has kept, you know, kept things going.
Speaker A:And now you're getting second generation Burmese, I mean, Bosnian things happening in Utica, which is a testament.
Speaker A:We don't always say that, but I say a testament to the choices of, you know, bringing the communities, you know, the refugee communities to locations and centralizing them so they have that community base to be able to grow and hopefully become an important part of a community.
Speaker A:That's happened in Buffalo and it's happened in Utica, which is very heartening, at least to me.
Speaker A:So what do I got here?
Speaker A:I have, who, Diablo.
Speaker A:So I'm going to go ahead and assume this is.
Speaker A:Has some perhaps Hawaiian influence.
Speaker B:I wouldn't say that.
Speaker B:It's kind of okay.
Speaker A:I was going by the name alone, though.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:I'm drawing a blank now.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:It's where I refer this all the time.
Speaker B:It's the.
Speaker B:You know, the.
Speaker B:The pork with the pineapple on the spit.
Speaker A:Oh, al pastor.
Speaker B:Al pastor arrives.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker B:But it's got a bit of a heavy bite, that one.
Speaker B:So it's probably a little bit above most people's comfort level.
Speaker B:Yeah, we have a very mild version of it.
Speaker B:So smoked chili, pineapple, onion, lime, fairly substantial cumin hit in that.
Speaker B:And we use a little bit of marjoram as well for the herbal note on it.
Speaker B:But it would be very at home to amp up your tacos, al pastor.
Speaker B:Or a, you know, God forbid, a pineapple ham pizza or something.
Speaker B:My daughter's a fan, but I actually.
Speaker B:We were at the fancy food show a few weeks ago, and there were.
Speaker B:We don't have video of this, but it was hilarious.
Speaker B:I saw.
Speaker B:We were just walking the floor, and there was a gentleman in the Italian SE section.
Speaker B:He was.
Speaker B:Pulled a couple of small pizzas out of the oven.
Speaker B:One was clearly a margarita.
Speaker B:The other one was a white thing, and it had cubes on it.
Speaker B:Could be the size of a.
Speaker B:A pineapple.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:They were covered in cheeses.
Speaker C:It looked like pineapple, but it.
Speaker B:It looked like pineapple.
Speaker B:And I said, oh, what do you got here?
Speaker B:Is that a pineapple pizza?
Speaker B:And he.
Speaker B:The look on his face, I swear he was ready to jump over the counter and start swinging.
Speaker C:They were potato.
Speaker A:Oh, that.
Speaker A:That works really well too.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I 100 see what you're saying, that this would go well with al pastor because it does have some earthiness.
Speaker A:You know, mimicking.
Speaker A:Mimicking some of the earthiness in something like that.
Speaker A:Which al pastor would be achiote.
Speaker A:Bringing some of the earthiness.
Speaker A:This has some earthiness.
Speaker A:You know, looking at the.
Speaker A:Looking at the ingredients, I like that the main ingredient on this.
Speaker A:I mean, definitely assertively hot.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:So I would say.
Speaker A:And I had a couple dots, like, it's.
Speaker A:It's a solid hot.
Speaker A:Like, I wouldn't call it extra, extra hot.
Speaker A:It's a solid hot.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, for me, that would be on a 10 scale.
Speaker A:I'd probably bring it up to meaning 10 is, like, not just hot, but like 10 is, like, wild.
Speaker A:I mean, it's a solid seven plus, like a seven and a half.
Speaker A:Like, it's.
Speaker A:It's assertively hot.
Speaker B:Yeah, I could see that.
Speaker A:Maybe a seven.
Speaker A:Like, it's assertive.
Speaker A:The flavors are all there.
Speaker A:And I'm trying to.
Speaker A:I'm trying to see what.
Speaker A:What thing in there, because weirdly, I was almost getting like a.
Speaker A:So I was getting a celery.
Speaker A:A celery thing, and I'm getting.
Speaker A:Seeing celery seed as the last ingredient, because that really brings that.
Speaker A:There's that certain thing about celery that's hard to define.
Speaker A:I'm not sure how to define that.
Speaker B:It is like a savoriness to.
Speaker B:It's not exactly umami, but it's got something about the nitrates or whatever's in.
Speaker A:There that it's like a watery savoriness.
Speaker A:And it's a weird thing to say, but it's.
Speaker A:It's almost.
Speaker A:It's hard not to pick out celery when it's used in an ingredient base.
Speaker A:At least I find it very easy to pick out.
Speaker B:It's very.
Speaker B:Very little of it because it's.
Speaker B:It's quite potent.
Speaker C:So, yeah, here's the little.
Speaker C:Really enjoyable, which is the.
Speaker C:The milder version, which is.
Speaker C:People love.
Speaker C:You can come.
Speaker A:I mean, that's.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's nice and aggressive.
Speaker A:Texturally, a little bit of a lighter sauce texture wise than your other ones.
Speaker A:Some of the other ones, like, the liftoff is a very thick.
Speaker A:You know, I don't that pasty, but like, it.
Speaker A:It has a lot of ground, regular ingredients.
Speaker A:That seems like a little bit of a thinner body to it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:There's some apple in there as well.
Speaker B:So you're getting the pectin in there to kind of carry it, but then it's sort of.
Speaker B:It does have a little bit of a lighter body.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:All these sauces, and I've been a fan since I started working with Gene, but the viscosity in the sauce and the mouthfeel is just unlike any other sauce.
Speaker B:So I thought you were a fan before then.
Speaker B:Or was that letter you sent me all lies?
Speaker C:No, I said long before I put it.
Speaker A:I mean, some of it was lies.
Speaker B:I would have rolled out the tape.
Speaker B:I would.
Speaker C:Did I send you a letter?
Speaker C:Is it actually a letter, or was it.
Speaker B:Roll back the tape.
Speaker A:Do you have.
Speaker A:Did you put lipstick on and kiss the letter just to show your adoration?
Speaker C:I should have done that rather than an email, which you didn't even respond to.
Speaker C:I think somebody else responded to it, but I'm glad it worked.
Speaker C:I'm glad it worked.
Speaker B:I have people.
Speaker A:Oh, that is really nice.
Speaker A:Yeah, I see.
Speaker A:I See where it's going.
Speaker A:And you know, the choice of using gochugaru in there too.
Speaker A:It's a chili that has a lot of flavor.
Speaker A:It has that sweetness and has that, you know, bright red chili flavor.
Speaker A:It's not like wildly identifiable in here because it's not the dominant chili.
Speaker A:Isn't the dominant thing the heat on the other one?
Speaker B:Yeah, it's, it's a much, much milder version.
Speaker A:And even though even that one, like the heat, that pepper isn't the dominant flavor, you know, the other things are the dominant flavor.
Speaker A:The, the pepper, the hot pepper use in there is bringing the heat, but it doesn't, it is not dominating the flavor profile.
Speaker B:So that's, you know, one of the things you can do as a deliberate choice.
Speaker B:Again with the chinense peppers are going to be.
Speaker B:Are generally much, much hotter than what you can get with a most anims.
Speaker B:But if you use dried tenants, you tend those high notes, the floral, the, the fruitiness kind of is very subdued.
Speaker B:So you can get that heat without, you know, running over everything else.
Speaker A:Yeah, so we're going to go, we're going to blow my face off now.
Speaker A:So let's go ahead and blow my face off with.
Speaker A:So that was, that was a solid hot one.
Speaker A:The hoo Hoo flavor.
Speaker A:Now we have ones that are going hotter than that.
Speaker A:Correct.
Speaker C:Well, I was gonna just go, this is my favorite sauce.
Speaker C:Ashes to ashes.
Speaker A:Love it.
Speaker C:Which may not be.
Speaker C:I mean, it's neck and neck between this and burn after eating.
Speaker C:And Gene can explain more, but this has that sweetness to it.
Speaker B:I think this is much more of a pleasant experience, at least momentarily.
Speaker C:It's best in class.
Speaker C:All natural, no extracts.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And it's, it's just a killer sauce.
Speaker A:Do you have both or do you just have that?
Speaker A:Let me do both.
Speaker A:So I'm going to do them back to back and let my palate get mold.
Speaker A:So when we get there.
Speaker A:So I'm going to try straight, then we're going to try on something else.
Speaker A:So this will be the, the general topic.
Speaker A:So you've gone through, gone through a lot of expansion.
Speaker A:So I remember when you were talking last, you were growing a lot of stuff, but obviously like your volume has gone crazy.
Speaker A:So how are you sourcing ingredients nowadays, you know, to, you know, you're selling a lot more volume.
Speaker A:And also seems like, have you opened like a.
Speaker A:More of a production facility as well?
Speaker B:Well, we expanded in the space where we are on Canal street, you know, right in the Susan B. Anthony neighborhood.
Speaker B:You know, A couple of blocks from her house there.
Speaker A:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker A:I, I love, I like that area town a lot.
Speaker B:So yeah, we were at 3,000 square feet.
Speaker B:Now we're almost around 15,000 square feet.
Speaker B:We basically went from a corner of the first floor to like almost the entire first floor over the past.
Speaker A:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker A:I'd love to, love to come take a tour.
Speaker A:I love learning about, absolutely learning about how that stuff works both from a production standpoint and just looking at how people lay out their facilities.
Speaker A:I just found very interesting as somebody's been in now automation for over a decade, like you start to see things like that differently.
Speaker A:And it's weird how now like I was so bad at debugging machines and now I can just walk up to things.
Speaker A:I'm like, that could be more efficient.
Speaker A:That could be more efficient.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So for the karma sauce branded stuff, it's a little bit more programmatic.
Speaker B:We can, we have very, very high local content in that.
Speaker B:In terms of the squash that are local, the apples, the vinegar.
Speaker B:I was growing peppers up till last year at our own place, but the sauce business just became too much.
Speaker B:I had my brother in law who was working with me for a time, has a nice farm out in Dundee so I ended up transferring my equipment from the farm to him and he's been growing peppers out there for us.
Speaker B:We also work with growers now and have been for quite some time in Pen Yan and Dundee.
Speaker A:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker B:So they were doing our starts on it.
Speaker B:I got a recommendation from, you know, Cornell to Judson Reed, their solanaceous crop expert.
Speaker B:Kind of pointed me to this Nelson Hoover who does a lot of trial work for them at his place.
Speaker B:And he's just, you know, one of the best growers of vegetables in the Finger lakes.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:He turns red when I say that.
Speaker B:But you know, he's not listening, I don't think.
Speaker A:Well, and that's also.
Speaker A:That's a great, it's great to do it as much as you can.
Speaker A:It's not always possible.
Speaker A:You obviously can't get a lot of local pineapple.
Speaker B:No, no.
Speaker B:So we're not as hyper local as, you know.
Speaker B:The whole thing started as the locavore challenge which was very, very hyper local.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:I can't use any olive oil this, this month and I'm gonna go to the Syracuse and find to find some salt there or wherever that's local.
Speaker B:So it's making my wife a little crazy with my kind of nordic food lab.
Speaker B:Hyperlocal ideas.
Speaker B:With the 25 mile radius we have, you know, September in Rochester, it's pretty easy to find a lot of local produce.
Speaker B:I mean, we have it all summer long.
Speaker B:But especially then when you have your fall crops coming in, there are still tomatoes.
Speaker B:There's all kinds of things happening you could take advantage of.
Speaker B:And that's when the inception of the, of the company came about.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And with, you know, when we get to some of the stuff with hot ones, it's a little trickier.
Speaker B:And some of the bigger, you know, if someone comes at up with an idea they want to do commercially right now, and it's June, it's July, it's problematic.
Speaker B:If you want to use lemon drop peppers, that's not something that's available.
Speaker B:You can't just go out and say, I'm going to go to the lemon Drop, I'm going to get fish peppers.
Speaker B:I'll just go to the fish pepper store now.
Speaker B:You know, chili darwal, you know, some of the anchos poblanos, commercial peppers like that you can work with.
Speaker B:You can get them, you can import them.
Speaker B:But for example, one of the reasons, again, although I appreciate the higher salt content, so let's.
Speaker B:Our house style is pretty much a lower sodium, like a 2% salt style.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And that's not something you can purchase.
Speaker B:If I want ghost peppers, the ones I can buy that we're not growing here in New York are going to be a mash with 12% salt.
Speaker A:Oh, that makes complete sense.
Speaker A:One, because of storage, you can get it ripe and have it stable for a long time.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And then there's no, you know, the decomposition, the fermentation is extremely slow.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I just did the ashes to ashes.
Speaker A:So if you see me on the video for the clip, I definitely.
Speaker A:My eyes are watering a little bit, my nose is running.
Speaker A:So I'd say when we're talking about heat, this is definitely on the hot plus side of things.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Aggressive.
Speaker A:The sweetness, you're right, is there up front.
Speaker A:The apple cider vinegar is present, but I did really like the, you know, the garlic still came through really nicely on this.
Speaker A:Like you're not missing the flavors.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's just, you know, it depends on your tolerance there.
Speaker B:It means very, very hot.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:For sure.
Speaker B:You have that like 100 milliseconds to say, wow, that tastes pretty good before the heat starts hitting you.
Speaker A:This is a second wave one.
Speaker A:I'd say the whole first wave of flavor, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is hot.
Speaker A:And to me it was the second, you know, the first wave, I would say registered very similarly to the last one, you know, like that 7ish.
Speaker A:And then the second wave is really where the burn comes in.
Speaker A:That's where you get into that like eight and a half, you know, eight and a half, nine, like big kick.
Speaker A:And I was doing just, it's like three dots.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So this is, this is a pretty aggressive.
Speaker A:You know, I'd say eight and a half is a good place for this because it's not extract.
Speaker A:And I kind of, I don't, I'm not going to talk about those because I think that's a bit much.
Speaker A:But on a lake.
Speaker A:This is a very hot pepper.
Speaker A:This is seven pot pepper.
Speaker B:Looking at the label, it's the one that was developed by Troy Primo.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Down in Louisiana.
Speaker A:So when you're describing the flavor of that pepper, how do you describe just the pepper flavor in that?
Speaker B:I mean, it is just.
Speaker B:If you try one straight up, it has got just brutal heat.
Speaker B:It's like almost acrid.
Speaker A:Yeah, it does have a little bit of an acrid heat to it.
Speaker A:And more than the habanero heat.
Speaker A:It's just amped up by a good amount.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:If I find it, I need that little bit of sweetness to make it palatable.
Speaker B:If you do it straight ferment of just 90.
Speaker B:Well, I've done some.
Speaker B:So I do have a back burner fermentation project which I won't go into.
Speaker B:I'm not ready to publish the methods and theories of that just yet.
Speaker B:But if you take that sugar away from that, it becomes a lot less approachable.
Speaker A:That makes sense.
Speaker A:Which I'm about to taste a less sugared version.
Speaker A:This is the burn after eating.
Speaker A:So I like that.
Speaker A:The first ingredient on this, a very specific pepper.
Speaker A:The brutally hot pepper.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that was on Hot Ones.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:That was designed specifically for the number nine.
Speaker B:Spot on Hot Ones.
Speaker A:That makes sense.
Speaker B:So I, you know, it was more of a, tended to be a challenge with some interest.
Speaker B:So in addition to the chilies, you have a little bit more of a novel experience because of the ajuan seed and the asafoetida.
Speaker B:The hang powder.
Speaker A:Aspetida is a tough, it's a tough ingredient to have in your cabinet because you really got to be careful or else everything in your cabinet is going to smell like asafoetida.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You keep it like that in truffles or saffron.
Speaker B:It's like double jarred.
Speaker A:I have, I have mine double bagged in a container and Then double bagged.
Speaker A:I really like it.
Speaker A:But it is, it's so identifiable asafoetida.
Speaker A:And it's hard to describe because it has this almost pheromone kind of smell to it, which is very, it's very enticing when used in balance with other things.
Speaker A:But on its own, it is very potent.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:We use.
Speaker B:It's tricky because the market is, you know, it has to be compounded because it is so strong.
Speaker B:It's like a resin from I think a giant fennel in Afghanistan or so.
Speaker B:I may be technically wrong about that, but that's but close to correct.
Speaker B:And it usually there's gluten in it, so we, we use the gluten free version for that.
Speaker B:It's one of the only things that has a gum in it that we make because they use a gum Arabic to cut it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which makes sense because it would be really difficult to use in small parties.
Speaker B:You could use it to like, you know, if you have a, a violin, you could probably, you know, a little rosin on your bow kind of thing.
Speaker B:It would be very smelly bow, but.
Speaker A:Yeah, that would be a very specific kind of performance.
Speaker A:Seems a little avant garde.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think the other interesting ingredient here now it says hang powder, rice flour.
Speaker A:Is that toasted rice flour or is that just straight?
Speaker B:That is in the compound, I believe.
Speaker A:Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So it's kind of keeping it powdery.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's.
Speaker B:So that's what.
Speaker B:That's one of the ingredients they used to cut the, the asafoetida with to make it carryable and blendable into your foods.
Speaker B:Otherwise it's just be like I said, like a solid resin.
Speaker A:Yeah, that makes sense because although I would love to taste something that had like that northern Thai, like toasted rice powder in it, I think that would be fascinating.
Speaker A:I'm not sure how it would turn into a sauce.
Speaker A:I don't know if it would become, you know, a certain kind of viscous because of that, but it's one of those flavors that is like so alluring.
Speaker A:You know, that crunchy toasted rice powder where you get into those, like, those kind of things that you can almost taste the texture even though you aren't getting the texture.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So part of also on this one is the budget of chilies in it to other types of solids.
Speaker B:So the acafetida is very strong at small amounts.
Speaker B:So you can think about essential oils or asafoetida or what was about to say the asafoetida Is also thymol is a strong component, so it almost has like a thyme VI to it.
Speaker B:It's typically just used in baking, but it's a different thing.
Speaker B:So that.
Speaker B:That'll be much more immediate and.
Speaker B:And sharp.
Speaker B:And that tang will get you, like, right away.
Speaker B:Let you know, this vinegar, which actually I like.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I mean, you taste my other sauce.
Speaker A:This hits the vinegar profile that I would probably get to.
Speaker A:I would jam the salt up significantly more.
Speaker A:But this vinegar profile is very similar to mine, actually.
Speaker A:It hits a very similar acidity.
Speaker B:And to achieve that, since it will be.
Speaker B:It's not fermented chilies, at least not in whole.
Speaker B:Yeah, in part it is, but the vinegar that we add is not the stuff.
Speaker B:Well, actually, now I want to say you can't buy it off the shelf, but now they sell something like it at Home Depot.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Which.
Speaker B:This is a 20% acetic acid vinegar that we use.
Speaker B:So it's very strong.
Speaker B:So we're able to really achieve the ph we want to hit with that with a lot of chili solids.
Speaker A:So it's very, very thick, but less volume of vinegar.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So you're short of straight acetic acid, which is also dangerous to handle.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I. I'm amazed they sell the 30% stuff at home Depot because you could really do some damage to your eyes if you splash it on your face.
Speaker B:So if you go to Home Depot and for buy it for weeding, just be very careful.
Speaker B:Get some glasses.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Interestingly, like to me, the Ashes to Ashes profiled hotter on my palate than this one did.
Speaker A:And I'm not sure why I'm not.
Speaker A:You know, it's.
Speaker A:They're different, right?
Speaker B:They are.
Speaker B:They're very different.
Speaker A:And this carries on the tongue more.
Speaker A:This, you know, it hits my palate in a different way because of the acid versus the sweetness.
Speaker A:Like, it carries in the palate differently.
Speaker A:It waves differently.
Speaker A:This is sharper heat, but less overwhelming to me.
Speaker A:But that's why I love tasting this stuff, because I love the describing that sensation of where does it hit on the palate?
Speaker A:And all those choices that have been made turn into different results, which is really cool.
Speaker C:The order of events probably has something to do with it, too.
Speaker C:Had you tried the burn first, you wouldn't have been set up as much.
Speaker B:Usually the first one you try will seem hotter than the second one because you become.
Speaker B:This happens all the time.
Speaker B:If you go to one of these hot sauce shows, you'll find that your tolerance will go up during the day.
Speaker B:And I had A big problem with this.
Speaker B:When I was developing simultaneously the first hotter version of Ghost island and Cherry Bomb, I was working on them on the same Sunday afternoon and Cherry Bomb in the morning and then Ghost Island.
Speaker B:And as you can imagine, as you're experiencing, development on the super hots is tough because your fatigue comes in a lot faster.
Speaker B:You only get so many tastes super fast.
Speaker B:And then, so I was trying that, then I went back and I tried Cherry Bomb.
Speaker B:I was like, wow, this is delicious and it's not even hot.
Speaker B:Hey, honey, try this.
Speaker B:You know, and she's like, wanted to kill me because I told her it wasn't hot.
Speaker B:And to me at the time, it wasn't.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:So I do have to say this.
Speaker A:I like this one quite a bit.
Speaker A:This, this hits kind of my profile of a sauce.
Speaker A:Really enjoy it.
Speaker A:It does have a good balance of flavor like that a lot.
Speaker A:I like the Ashes to Ashes, but this is one I would use more often.
Speaker B:It's so funny because I actually, last time I used that, I did enjoy it, but for a pretty long stint I hadn't tried it.
Speaker B:And I'm like, why would anybody want that?
Speaker B:What are you crazy?
Speaker C:You're going to have to make more of it.
Speaker C:Because I think there's not too much of that in the world left.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So we were, a few years ago, we were at some IT tech show with my lead salesman, Don Maxwell, and he had, you know, he had worked in IT space and so we were at this thing just because he knew someone there.
Speaker B:And the woman working the door was a huge fan of that sausage.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And somehow we won.
Speaker B:There was a raffle and we like won the two top prizes and we were sure that the fix was in.
Speaker B:Like, we didn't bribe her, but I don't know what's going on.
Speaker B:We better get out of here fast.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'd say, you know, now that it's lingering, it's an aggressive, bright up front heat.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's lingering on my tongue.
Speaker A:Less on the top of my palate, even though I swirled it around.
Speaker A:But I gotta say, consistently interesting sauces top to bottom does not surprise me in the slightest, having had many of them over the years.
Speaker A:But let's go ahead and get the plugs out one last time.
Speaker A:This might actually come out in two parts depending on how I feel at the moment.
Speaker A:So plugs again for where can people find karma and you know, what people should expect to find around generally, like, what are the main lines and where should people expect to Find.
Speaker B:Well, the main ones like if you're looking at Wegmans, Ghost Island, Bad Karma and Liftoff or what you'll find there now.
Speaker B:And that's just about every Wegmans in the, in, in their, in their store portfolio.
Speaker B:You know, Lorries Natural and Nibilax and Redbird Market Park Lee, places like that are going to have quite a bit more to offer.
Speaker B:Again, you can go to our store finder@karmasauce.com and check out Cook's World has a good selection.
Speaker B:Yeah, Cooks World is great.
Speaker B:I love to use.
Speaker B:I shop there regularly for other things that aren't caramel sauce because I know a guy.
Speaker B:And then Whole Foods locally as well.
Speaker B:But again, you're getting more.
Speaker B:The shorter version of available products there.
Speaker B:But yeah, just check us out.
Speaker B:I always feel bad about naming stores.
Speaker B:I know I forget stories.
Speaker A:No, that's why the store locator exists on karmasauce.com Vince, did we miss anything that we need to mention before we close out?
Speaker C:I don't think so.
Speaker C:It was really deep and we had a successful venture to the fancy food show, which just had people and flavors from all over the world and spice and global flavors were at the forefront of everything.
Speaker C:Everybody selling snacks and cheeses and dips and spreads.
Speaker C:So, you know, spicy and global.
Speaker C:We have it covered.
Speaker C:And that was a good.
Speaker B:That reminds me, I just remembered that second thing which was at the show before that, where I got to try a sauce made from Horn of Africa savory melons, which was like, you know, cross between a cucumber and miso kind of a vibe to it, which was.
Speaker A:And it wasn't a bitter melon, it was a savory melon.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I don't have.
Speaker B:I didn't get to try it in its raw form to really inspect it, but it was kind of.
Speaker B:They were cool.
Speaker A:Oh, cool.
Speaker A:I'll have to look at.
Speaker A:I'll have to look that up.
Speaker A:That sounds fascinating.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, that's awesome.
Speaker A:So my palate is burning, but we're going to close out.
Speaker A:So, Gene, thanks for coming over.
Speaker A:Vince, thank you for arranging.
Speaker A:Check out karma sauce.com and also check out lunchadore.org for all of the shows on the Lunchadore podcast network.
Speaker A:Shout out to Polygoliamo, who we mentioned during the show, done some amazing interviews with business owners, Rochester Creatives, interviewed the gentleman who started Jolt Cola, and I think it's the Karma drink.
Speaker B:Karma Water.
Speaker A:Yeah, Karma Water.
Speaker A:And also interviewed the new owner of Cook's World recently.
Speaker A:Those are great.
Speaker A:Episodes.
Speaker A:Check those out on the launch of our podcast network on the Pauliguamo show and also stay tuned for our coverage of the Fringe Festival.
Speaker A:We'll also have a live fringe event at the downtown branch of the Rochester Public Library.
Speaker A:Live podcast recording.
Speaker A:Nobody's gonna know what the topics are before the show starts, including the hosts.
Speaker A:It's gonna be a whole fun time.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker A:So thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Food About Town Podcast.
Speaker A:And will we bet.
Speaker A:Yeah, we'll be back next time when my mouth isn't burning.
Speaker A:Thanks for listening to the Food About Town podcast.
Speaker A:If you aren't already subscribed, what are you waiting for?
Speaker A:Go to your podcast app of choice and make us your favorite podcast by subscribing and leaving a review if you can.
Speaker A:Music for the podcast was created by the fabulous Torres Savant.
Speaker A:You can hear more of his work@taurusavant.bandcamp.com and make your presence known by seeing him perform live.
Speaker A:Food About Town is a proud member of the Lunchadore Podcast Network.
Speaker A:Oh no, here comes McKenna.
Speaker A:This has been a presentation of the Lunchadore Podcast Network.
Speaker A:There is no doubt in my mind that my mouth is burning after eating.
