It was 1981, at a family get-together in Brooklyn. I was 12 years old,
my older cousin Steve dared me $5 to eat a hot cherry pepper - that was my earliest memory of 'the rush' you get
from spicy food. And it grew from there. Extra wasabi with sushi... extra peppers in Thai food... extra hot sauce on Mexican food.
Always ordering things “as spicy as you can make it” and testing my
limits. Friends would get me hot sauces as gifts, I'd be eating
spicy chili and *adding* 12-Million-Scoville extract to it.
People would ask, 'Do you even taste the flavor of the food
anymore?' Yes - when you've developed a high tolerance,
you can enjoy the food *more*, as the heat isn't a distraction, it's
a complimentary sensation to the colors and aroma and taste. I love
the rush.
With music, I've always felt such excitement in discovering new
bands, new sounds. It inspired me to learn and make music, to
develop it, and eventually share it, give others the enjoyment I
experienced from it all. It's the same for anything that inspires -
art, music, entertainment, knowledge, food, everything. When you're
passionate about something in life, it follows a process - you love
it, then you make it, then you share it. It was like this with
music, it's the same with hot sauce. Love it, make it, share it...
For years I've had ideas, recipes, flavors that I wanted to share.
'Brimstone' at
Hound Entertainment introduced me to the masters at
CaJohns Fiery Foods. I flew out between Guns N' Roses
shows in Las Vegas to
CaJohns' headquarters in Ohio where with 'Cajohn' Hard and chef
Steve Lawrence we played mad scientist in the kitchen and brought
these flavors to life.
In 2013, after years of saying ‘someday’ I finally got to hold
bottles of Bumblefoot hot sauces in my hands, a line of six sauces.
We brought them to
ZestFest food festival in Dallas Texas, and three of the six
sauces won 1st Place awards in their categories.
In 2019, I've re-released the sauces through my own company, featuring
favorites of the previous sauce line - the award-winning all-purpose
THE SAUCE (previous titled "Normal"), the
award-winning zesty BBQ style sauce
Bumblicious!, and the thermo-nuclear extreme-heat use-with-caution sauce
BumbleF**KED.
I hope to see a growing number of stores, pubs & restaurants, food
trucks, and international re-sellers carrying the sauces. If
you know one, or are one, please reach out to me at
HotSauce@Bumblefoot.com!
I'll be attending foodie events with the sauces, and bringing them
with me on tour whenever I can - will keep an updated schedule of
events at
bumblefoot.com - hope to see you!
Final thought
– cousin Steve never gave me the $5. I still joked about it with him
when he'd see me loading hot peppers onto my turkey sandwich at
get-togethers decades later. He passed away unexpectedly, before these hot sauces
had come to life. To the man who tricked me into eating my first hot
pepper and started me on this journey, these hot sauces are
dedicated to you.
Thank you!
Ron 'Bumblefoot' Thal
AVAILABLE AT
www.UnitedSauces.com |