Dave’s Spice Journey

I had a taste for spicy food in my teens growing up in San Jose CA but it was traveling the world where I had the fortune to try foods of many cultures. Most of them all have their unique versions of spicy condiments.

 In 2017 I started making sauce from my backyard veggies in New York.  I’d make a couple dozen bottles as gifts.  This happened over a few years, not really knowing anything about food safety and acidified foods….luckily no one got sick!! THEN……….. in 2020 when the pandemic hit, I quickly moved to LA where my wife was working at the time.

About six months later my buddy Andrew and his family moved from NY to LA.  Shortly thereafter the two of us were smoking his family out of their house with our first test batches!!!! No joke...

And then Project Hot Sauce really got going

What followed kept us busy for the next 6-9 months.  Taking a Cannery Course and Food Managers certificate class.  Starting a kickstarter campaign.  Partnering with a local farmer and securing a commercial kitchen. Creating a visual identity and testing different packaging ideas over and over and over!

When my job on Broadway (The Book of Mormon) reopened in 2021, I returned to NY.  Over the next 18 months Andrew also got a new job and I was going coast to coast quite frequently to cook batches.  With the majority of our customers in NY it meant shipping inventory constantly which at the end of 2023 made no more sense.  After reorganizing, I’m starting fresh in NY!! This does mean jumping through all the NY State regulations but so far it’s going smoothly.

The Project Hot Sauce relaunch is September 2024. Stay tuned!