When a Fan Says It Better Than We Ever Could

Cheesy humor aside, Harmacy's is an accomplishment very well-deserved, Homero. And I'm not just virtue-signaling; I'm a hot sauce addict who became addicted to the stuff starting with La Victoria's Salsa Ranchera (the hottest one they make—and still do) back in—wait for it!—the late 70s when I used to play a real MLB stats-driven board game called Strat-o-Matic Baseball (which is still sold today).

My neighborhood league friends and I would take all the league players, do our trading, establish our teams, and play 182 games over a period of a couple of months. And at least half the time we would sit around a card table and eat tortilla chips and Salsa Ranchera by the jar. It's hardly a complicated sauce, but it gave my unsophisticated teenage palate what I wanted: Savory. Salty. Hot. Maybe that I'm (also and partially) of Mexican descent helped. I loved baseball so much back then that I became a scorekeeper for local Little League—and I'd take chips and a jar of Salsa Ranchera to the games because the chips and pico de gallo/Velveeta cheese sauce they served there was lackluster—and that's being generous. My mom was cool in that she'd always have a few jars stocked at home for me.

That is to say that I've for decades been addicted to salsas and hot sauces. However, there was always a very important missing piece that I never appreciated until I started discovering your sauces: Depth and breadth of the flavor profile that would make them much more applicable to cooking and alluring augmentation to old recipes as opposed to just chowing down on chips and salsa—a point you once noted in one or the other insta message or email exchange along the way. 

In fact—and this is not hyperbole—using your sauces just for chips is really cheating them of their broad-brush opportunity for making a real difference in everyday recipes that have taken on new life when they've been harmacied, if you'll allow that, with Brimstone, Ava Masala, and Chi-Chee leading the charge thus far. Your own recipes have been terrific inspiration and really help augment and expand your products' culinary reach. While I love your sauces on chips, they're too easy to go through in almost a single sitting, so these days I'm more likely to leave the "chowing down on chips" activity to things like Pace, La Victoria, or one of the store brands. 

From the day I learned about Harmacy—which if memory serves came from a FB clip from a couple of years ago now in which you showed your community what goes into one of the sauces, and I was drawn to three important things that I saw in your ad that I had not seen in other ads across the literally dozens of competitors I've seen in the hot sauce marketplace, many of which I see in markets like Gonzalez' Northgate Markets which brilliantly serve the Latino demographic here in SoCal:

1. The offerings: Harmacy's unique sauces that are carefully put together to represent distinct flavor profiles that beautifully augment what goes into recipes across the gastronomical spectrum. Some of your videos nicely display the art and the craft—and they're a joy to watch (I think I originally reached out with a long comment on insta about how you make Brimstone, and that got me started down the Harmacy path). I'd never seen sauces that reflect the unique qualities of the ingredients that take a different approach to hot sauce: Tahini, plums, kimchi, pineapple, orange, and of course the usual range of peppers, roasted or otherwise. 

2. The marketing: It bears repeating that the entirety of your approach reflects a lot of what I've come to think of your company and you as a person and sauce-boss: Passion-driven. Creative. Analytic. Articulate. Quality-focused. Carefully thought out ways to tell the world about what you're doing. Knowledge of your industry. Of internet marketing, product packaging, and maximizing sales. And of deliciously high-quality package design, from the quality of your labels (which I've noted before) to the quality, reusable jars that now occupy some real estate in my Tupperware cabinet. Let's also not forget that your image has become part of your branding, but seemingly by way of organic discovery and not of deliberate ego play: YOU and your signature spectacles are the brand's backing; it's even reflected in your fun little rubber stamp you plaster on every invoice. I love these kinds of things, because they really help differentiate Harmacy from others; they augment the product itself—again, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

3. The energy: As I've come to "know" you a bit through social media and our exchanges, I see that your personality, your values, and your work ethic/ethos contributes to the whole of your brand being greater than the sum of its parts. You mom clearly imparted in you the gift of Latino culture, part of which is community created over food—and passion/love that is literally poured into every recipe. You're a guy who's taken his talents and made something really cool of them. In terms of hailing a brand in an industry otherwise chock full of competitors, this aspect is huge.

In short, you seem to approach the industry differently, and that's something no doubt you gave a lot of thought to when you launched the brand. Like me, you have probably also been a life-long hot sauce consumer, so you've had a while to figure out what your business should look like and how to differentiate yourself in a competitive industry. That you gave up on your engineering education to make hot sauce is insanely cool. And inspiring. And, clearly, you're doing a bunch of things right: You just won a contest with sixty-something other challengers. The win speaks to your product first and foremost, but also to your connection with your community and your skill at outreach and marketing. You're a pretty smart dude.  

Anyway, you've also come to know me as anything but short on words—sorry, not sorry—and yeah, this got ridiculously long, but I'm very excited for your win and so let the keyboard clack for a while while I tapped this out. Let me just say what a pleasant surprise it was to get this email from you, Homero—and I appreciate the kind words. I may have mentioned it before, but were I in your neck of the woods, you'd likely find me knocking on your door to meet you and get a tour of where it all happens. And it's possible you'd hear me ask if there are any job openings—simply because what you do, how you do it, and the degree to which you create not only jars of culinary happiness, but your branding and marketing game is really strong, too. And you appear to make the making of hot sauce fun, too.

Señor Sauce Boss, I wish you all the continued success you and Team Harmacy can possibly stand. 

-Craig Deutsch"