STORY
A True Hot Sauce Story
I HAD NO CLUE WHAT TO DO NEXT WITH MY LIFE.
I’d lived all over the world and done every crummy job under the sun.
But at 35 I had come full circle.
Back to Brighton. Teaching English. Bloody miserable.
I was forced to admit that despite all my adventuring I hadn’t actually achieved much.
It wasn’t toaster-in-the-bathtub time.
But something had to change.
I needed a purpose.
SAUCY DREAMS
THREE SUMMERS PRIOR (2008) I was tending bar at a little dive near the beach in Barcelona.
The regulars were local oddballs, daytime drinkers, young expats, and a few of my mates.
Booze was cheap and the tunes were good.
On each table stood a bottle of Tabasco.
WHY ALWAYS TABASCO?
I NEVER got it. America had a million hot sauces.
Why did Europe still only have Tabasco??
I spent that summer dreaming up a new hot sauce to end the vinegary monopoly.
I broadcasted my scheme to anyone who'd listen.
The barflies cheered me on, my friends nodded in approval. I was all fired up.
BUT THEN...
I met a girl and forgot all about it.
SAVED BY THE SPICE
THREE YEARS ON, now at Brighton rock bottom, the idea crept back out of my subconscious.
Its time had come and I had nothing to lose.
I packed my bags and went to Mexico.
SATURATION OF THE SENSES
FROM DAY one I knew this was the place for me.
I went everywhere, gorging on street food, getting lost in markets, and revelling in seedy cantinas.
Random tip-offs took me on wild goose chases.
All the time I was relentlessly sampling as many sauces as I could. I was in heaven.
The locals schooled me on chillies: which were the hottest, which were the tastiest, who had them.
So many slugs of sauce were dripped and licked off the back of my hand it was branded with a red burn.
I wore that scar with pride.
A PLAN IS FORMED
AFTER A MONTH soaking it all up, I now had a plan.
I wanted to create a sauce that had punch and personality, could be slapped on anything, and came in printed glass like Mexican beer bottles.
The chilli packing most heat and flavour is the habanero, so I headed to its homeland - Yucatan - to try and get this Tabasco-slaying sauce made.
On my travels I kept hearing about an old nun who made sauces somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
I managed to track her down and she welcomed me with open arms.
A NUN ON A RUN
She told me all about her project helping the Mayan Mexicans local to that part of the country.
These people had lost touch with their ancient farming heritage and fallen prey to poverty, booze and drugs.
She provided them with the tools to start farming their ancestral lands again.
Levi. Habanero farmer & Man Utd fan.
Righteous from the roots up.
THE NUN BOUGHT PEPPERS DIRECT from the farmers and made traditional sauces at her little makeshift factory.
Profits went back into setting up the micro-farms, helping more Mayan Mexicans reclaim their heritage, independence and self-respect.
I couldn’t help but be inspired by what the nun was doing, especially as I was trying to find a sense of purpose in my life too.
THIS IS THE ONE
SHE PUT ME in touch with a Cuban guy who could help me create my recipe.
El Cubano was a mysterious character who didn’t say much.
I later found out that, before escaping Cuba in a dinghy, he was Fidel Castro's personal rum maker.
Anyway, he made me 3 samples - all of which were top-notch - but one was definitely numero uno.
NOW THIS WAS A REAL FUCKIN HOT SAUCE.
THE CUBAN, myself, and the nun's three spice maidens brewed up the sauce at her little factory.
We filled 500 bottles (screen-printed with #1 on the front) and I shipped them back to London.
The very first bottle of #1 HOT.
SELLS LIKE PROVERBIAL HOT SAUCES
#1 Sauce was an instant hit. It sold out FAST.
I headed back to Mexico to make some more.
We added a chipotle sauce I dubbed #1 SMOKY.
It all sold out.
I was soon back in Mexico again.
We created a milder sauce called #1 MELLOW.
THE THREE AMIGOS WERE A HOT SUCCESS.
NO DINERO
Moving me and the sauce between Mexico and UK ate up the slim profits I was making.
Plus, despite the nun being a star, her set-up had big limitations.
SO I made an uncharacteristically pragmatic decision and gambled on relocating production to Spain.
I knew a Californian in Granada who made great hot sauces.
CARLOS was a short guy with an even shorter fuse (and a black belt in karate.)
But he was cool and said he could help me.
I crowdfunded enough capital to start production.
Sadly, it just wasn't the same sauce.
#1 Sauce not-made-in-Mexico tasted like Modelo beer brewed in Manchester. In other words: shite.
After three runs I canned it.
Broke. Broken. I went to Dubai to earn some cash.
Made in Spain. Not the same.
OLDER. NO WISER.
I MADE a few quid then spent a few years roaming, working as a freelance copywriter.
Now every man and his dog was making hot sauce.
It needled me.
None were as good as my Mexican #1 HOT.
THE URGE became too hard to resist.
I headed back to Mexico.
BACK TO THE SOURCE
This time I bypassed the Yucatan and the nun.
I opted to work with a manufacturer in Mexico City.
I gave them a bottle of the original Mexican #1 HOT.
They not only recreated it - they made it BETTER.
THIS WAS THE SAUCE I ALWAYS WANTED TO MAKE.
GLASS-HOLES
I bought 3000 5-oz woozy bottles.
Now all I had to do was get them printed.
How hard could that be?
I went to Algarín, the printing district of Mexico City.
I found two brothers who agreed do it in a week.
SEVEN DAYS later I went down there to find them swigging tequila and giving me the mañana line.
The (badly) printed bottles finally arrived at the sauce factory 3 weeks late in a convoy of Ubers.
Some looked so fucked-up I couldn’t help but laugh.
Bottles printed badly by pissed-up Mexicans just added to Number One Sauce folklore.
I was stuck with them now anyway.
THE RESURRECTION
The guys at the sauce factory got the whole job done in just a few hours. Legends.
I shipped it all back to the UK.
#1 HOT is being slapped all around the UK again.
And Mexico City has become my home ;)
GOING NATIVE
In 2021, during production, I was at a bar with some new amigos; we were hitting the mezcal hard.
Through the crowd I spotted a local beauty and somehow slurred my way to getting her number.
Now we live together and have an 18-month old son.
HOW'S THAT FOR A BIT OF SAUCINESS?
Thanks to César Campos for product shots.
Words and pics by Arlo Tickner, #1 Sauce founder.