Hop Sauce Fest 2015 Recap

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The weather could not have been any better for an outside beach event. The best attribute about this festival is that this is a tourist area that brings in a very young clientele. They do not seem put off by trying new things and with the added liquid courage, they seem intent in trying it all. With only 18 hot sauce vendors, and with no desire to drink the hops I was only going to truly enjoy myself if I got involved in some way. Seeing that Johnny McLaughlin from Heartbreaking Dawns, Steve Seabury from High River Sauces and Austin D’Almeida from Jersey Barnfire were working their booths solo I decided to help them briefly during a busy time of the Festival. I took turns at each booth and I totally had a blast shilling spicy products. Mind you the only time I witnessed it slow was in the last 45 minutes of the event. My favorite part of the event was definitely working those booths, but meeting and talking to my vendor friends is always a highlight whenever I attend these events.

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Spicy Product Makers Round Table – Part 2

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Part 2 of our interview with some of the spicy product makers in our Chilehead community continues where we left off. You can see Part 1 HERE. We elevate to more serious questions in this part including new spicy trends and tips for people who want to get into this industry. Unfortunately, the drinking that began well before the interview kicked off is now starting to take it’s toll with some of our participants. As the discussion continues we begin to lose a few of our makers to outside influences. In the end, I think we touched on some great points, and hope it is well perceived to those that have put in the time to watch it.

Our round table existed of Jeremy Walsh from Bigfats Hot Sauce, Ed Bucholtz from Born to Hula Hot Sauce, Steve Seabury from High River Sauces, Chuck Evans from Montezuma Brand Sauces & Salsas, Johnny McLaughlin from Heartbreaking Dawns and Joe Leicht from Flaming Joe’s, Inc. A big thanks to them all for giving us the time to do this. As well as a huge thanks to CaJohn for letting us use his place and private meeting room to house it in.

If we are lucky enough, we will get to do this round table discussion again with some other great spicy product makers at the NYC Hot Sauce Expo next month and/or the Bowers Chile Festival in September. If you are a spicy product maker interested in doing one of these and want to get yourself a seat at the next one, please let me know. Thanks and enjoy part 2!

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Peppers’ 2014 Delaware State Chicken Wing Championship

CPE - Steve Seabury and Johnny McLaughlin (edited)

Chip Hearn of Peppers of Lewes, DE invited me to participate as a judge in this year’s Delaware State chicken wing championship. He sent me the following information to share with our great community. I hope to see some of you down there. You can see the 2 gentleman above in the pic, they both will be in the contest, so come out and see what happens. Plus, award winning wing sauce maker, John Rizzoti of Rippin’ Red Wing Sauce will also be throwing down. Perhaps the man to be beat? Only time will tell!!!

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Heartbreaking Dawns on CNBC’s new Crowd Rules show

Crowd Rules with Johnny McLaughlin

Heartbreaking Dawns will be competing on CNBC’s Premier Episode of Crowd Rules. It airs Tuesday, May 14th at 9PM EST. Tune in and see what happens. Below is a sneak peek on the first episode in which Johnny appears, plus video too.

About Crowd Rules:
Each week, “Crowd Rules” features three small businesses that compete in front of an audience of 100 that votes to decide who wins a much-needed $50,000 prize. Entrepreneur and jewelry designer Kendra Scott, TV Newsman Pat Kiernan, along with a weekly guest industry expert, lead the examination of the small businesses in order to help a studio audience choose which company wins the $50,000. While the small business owners make their case to the panel of three, the real power lies in the hands of the audience – 97 strong – whose votes will ultimately decide which business is most deserving of the investment.

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REVIEW: Heartbreaking Dawn’s 1542 Chocolate Habanero Sauce

This is our last of 2 reviews for Heartbreaking Dawns. We reviewed their Strawberry Trail Preserves
on Black Friday to get everybody a chance to capitalize on the big sale they had going on. The preserves got a great review with ratings of 4,4, and 4 1/2 from our review team of Heynetboy, G and John Huber. Will they be as enamored with their 1542 Chocolate Habanero hot sauce? Only time will tell. I would like to thank owner and spicy culinary creator Johnny McLaughlin for allowing us to review his love and joy. I wish him nothing but the best for the near future, and with a baby on the way with his lovely wife Nicole, I hope the blessings are doubly wonderful. Now on with the review…

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REVIEW: Heartbreaking Dawns – Strawberry Trail Preserves

With Black Friday here I wanted to put up a review for my friend Johnny McLaughlin and to share this review with my audience because I personally think this is one of the better preserves out there to be had. In 2010, I created the Lenny Awards in memory of my departed Father and to reward best products of the year. I presented Heartbreaking Dawns(HBD), one for their Fiery Trail Preserves, presently my favorite product they make. Later Johnny followed that up with a very tasty datil pepper and mango preserve. To complete the trio he has introduced this strawberry one. This preserve is mixed with the world’s hottest pepper, the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, but it is a good mix that will bring out the flavor of the pepper and not too much of the heat you would expect. It is an enjoyable burn with a flavorful mix of fruit (strawberries and cranberries) that you will come back to again and again.

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2012 Weekend of Fire: HBD’s Brownie Brawl Buster

Yes, the pic is one of Johnny’s evil brownies. Actually it is the final round’s brownie with ILoveItSpicing and topped off with the new ghost scorpion chile pepper. This was by far the hottest Brownie Brawl Buster we have ever done. You will see how many contestants are in the final round 3 at the end. All the others dropped by the wayside. Johnny describes the contest up in your face style at the beginning of the video, then decides to up the heat on round 2’s brownies with a little Cauterizer. At the end of the video I stay on the 2nd place guy as he looks like he is about to lose it on camera, so I do not get the winner, but the pics at the end of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place guys are all there for you to see.

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Johnny McLaughlin’s Chilehead Karaoke Rockaria Party 2012

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