The past few weeks haven been an absolute whirlwind and we've only just had a minute to sit down and reflect on this years NYC Hot Sauce Expo. This year marks the 10th Annual NYC Hot Sauce Expo and feel absolutely honored to have been selected to be vendors.
If you've never attended the NYC Expo, you're missing out. Even if hot sauce isn't your thing, the NYC Expo is just a fun time. Aside from unlimited hot sauce tasting from 50 of the world's best hot sauce makers the expo hosts spicy eating challenges, opportunities to meet people like Sean Evans, the host of Hot Ones, former Interim UFC Lightweight Champion Dustin Poirier (who was promoting his own line of hot sauces) and on and on.
The expo is a 2 day event and kicks off by announcing the winners of the Screaming Mimi Awards. There are a lot of hot sauce awards around the world, but the Screaming Mimi's are arguably one of the most prestigious. Last year, when Hook & Arrow was only about 6 months old, we won 2 Screaming Mimi Awards for our Cayenne, Garlic Hot Sauce, 2nd place for the Louisiana Style Category and 1st place for the Newbie Category. We can't express how humbling it was to win these awards and be recognized by such and elite panel of judges.
This year, we're happy to announce that once again we came home with 2 more Screaming Mimi Awards for our Cayenne, Garlic Hot Sauce. We won 2nd place for the Louisiana Style Category and 2nd place for the Newbie Category.
Building a brand from the ground up is a lot of work on a slow day. Even if you have a great product it takes so much work to get going. A lot of what we do goes unseen and on more than one occasion we've both questioned if we're doing the right thing by starting this brand. So, winning awards as prestigious as the Screaming Mimi's validates all the hard work, sleepless nights and self doubt that it took to get to this point.
To everyone who has supported us in some way since we launched whether you bought a case or just offered some feedback, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!! It truly means a lot and keeps us going when the doubt creeps in.
-Sam & Henry