hot sauce reviews<\/span><\/strong><\/a> that Torchbearer Sauces is one of the better hot sauce makers on this planet, but when you realize that there are no less than 5 different Torchbearer sauces used in Hot Ones, it speaks for itself. The brand from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania is known for the cool cartoonish labels, but also for their often creamy and very hot sauces. Our 10 questions have been answered by owner Vid, so let’s just dive right in!<\/p>\nWhen & what was your first hot sauce experience?<\/strong><\/p>\nDuring a going away party right after high school, everyone was eating fried chicken and a friend decided to break out some ridiculous extract sauce. Said friend and I doused our chicken with it and the spicy food addiction immediately took hold. Thankfully, while the heat was welcomed, I understood (especially with that less-than-delicious sauce) that flavor was the real secret.<\/span><\/p>\nWhat made you decide to start your own brand?<\/strong><\/p>\nYears later, myself and my friend Ben (who would later become my business partner), each had a crop of habanero peppers we had no idea what to do with. Taking all those peppers and bottling them with some carrot, mandarin orange, and onion to preserve them, ended in the first sauce created for the company; Super Fancy Sultry #7. Family and friends couldn\u2019t get enough and we were convinced it might be time to try to sell our concoction.<\/span><\/p>\nHow did you come up with the name of your brand?<\/strong><\/p>\nI had a photography and video production company named \u201cTorchBearer\u201d that was too perfect to not use. I switched from visual media to sauce and TorchBearer Sauces was born.<\/span><\/p>\nWhat is your favorite ingredient to work with?<\/strong><\/p>\nDefinitely garlic. Near the beginning we created a completely mild garlic aioli called Oh My Garlic that made a huge splash and has continued, throughout everything we\u2019ve done, to be always in the top 3 most popular sauces. We even used it as the base in our best-selling hot sauce ever, Garlic Reaper. Garlic has always been our (garlic) bread and butter!<\/span><\/p>\nWhat does your working space look like?<\/strong><\/p>\nWe started in 2005 hand-filling bottles from a container with two spouts screwed into it, hand capping, hand sleeving, melting sleeves with a heat gun, labeling with a hand-operated crank labeler, and boxing and taping one case at a time to what you can see in the photos. We\u2019ve taken every bit of help, advice, government grant, and profits from shows and web sales to get this amazing warehouse\/kitchen we have now. It\u2019s truly incredible when you step back and think about it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t