The San Juan Hot Shop & Flavor Emporium

The San Juan Hot Shop & Flavor Emporium
Spice Is Nice But It's Gotta Have Flavor

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Christmas Ideas!

Happy early December everyone from Gilligan's Island North,


Just wanted to send out a reminder that even though you may not be able get to the shop to do your Christmas shopping, we have some great ideas on our website.  Our custom label program has gone nuts and we're having so much fun creating personalized labels for every occasion.   We have done some comical labels from grandkids to grandparents and for people giving customized bottles instead of Christmas cards alone, they send them a custom bottle as their card and gift all in one. You can send us a high quaility .jpg and think of a caption. We'll make up a proof and e-mail it back to you. We work with you to get the label just the way you want it. You can do 1 or 2 bottles at a time, or inquire on quantity discounts.
We also have our Hot Sauce of the Month Club which is very popular with people all across the country. Each month we send out 2 bottles of hot sauce (hand picked by Ed of course) and we include recipe ideas. We mix it up every once in a while and include a rub or other product we think our customers need to know about.  All the details of both of these programs are available on our website or feel free to shoot us an e-mail or give us a call.

Wishing you and yours a very happy and stress free holiday season.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Thanksgiving Wishes



As we close in on one of our favorite holidays, we wish you all a safe, warm, and relaxing holiday with family and friends.  It's this time of year we are able to re-stock our souls with the feelings about the ones we love in our lives.  Life seems to slow a bit, the days are shorter (and colder). This year, we want to thank all of our customers and guests to let us take this little shop to where it is today. We have the best Chiliheads in the world and we wish you all the very best.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Eddie & Genie Williams

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Pre-Thanksgiving Greatings from The Island

Hi All,

Hope this finds everyone getting into the fall season and ready to enjoy some time with family, friends and those people that mean the most to you.  Just wanted to share our latest achievement with our favorite Chiliheads as last Thursday evening we were honored with the "Buzz" Creative Marketing award by the San Juan Chamber of Commerce. We are truly blessed to live and be allowed to live our dream in the San Juan Islands.  (Don't ya' just love Ed's shirt?) Pepper Dude!

Don't know if you've been noticing lately but as we watch the Food Network (a lot) and the Cooking Channel (a lot) we can't help but notice the increased introduction of peppers and fresh spice ingredients these premier chefs are using. We are constantly having to tell people "it's not all about the heat, it's about the flavor".  But that's OK, our message is getting through. More and more people are chosing the healthy benefits of peppers and incorporating them into their meals. 

Of course we still offer the extreme heat sauces (the ones with flavor that is) and it's always fun to have a group of people walk in and ask us "what's the hottest one ya' got?"  Meet Your Maker from Heavenly Heat out of Tacoma is our hottest at 5 million Scoville Heat Units. Believe me, it's a one toothpick at a time additive.  And we still have our hot favorite "Z, Nothing Beyond" at 4 Millions Scoville Heat Units.  "Z" has a wonderful flavor and both of these sauces, used correctly of course, offer a great meal experience.  With Meet Your Maker, we use a 1 toothpick dip into a chili or stew for a fantastic flavor. It's got the Ghost Pepper, Ghost Pepper Extract and Ghost Pepper powder to earn its reputation. Fantastic packaging too in a black collectors coffin with a wax seal on the bottle. Nice presentation. Great flavor used sparingly. 

"Z, Nothing Beyond" is the 4 Million Scoville Heat Sauce and is made from the Red Savina Habanero that fools you. It starts off slowly with the banana, papaya, guava juice and passion fruit base, then the pepper takes you on a ride. It takes a full minute to build and we've even had guys hand the car keys to the wives and tell them "you're driving hon" from the euphoric effect they get. We never get tired of witnessing that!  

As you know, we sample our products every day and look forward to seeing you all when you make it to the island. We are currently researching the new products (and of cours the Butch T Scorpion is one on our list) so keep us on your watch list.  Can't wait for Spring and Summer to see our favorite Chiliheads and show off the new products!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and your families. Without you, we wouldn't be here! We are truly thankful for all you guys and we will be celebrating with a beer can Turkey.

Thank you everyone!
Eddie & Genie Williams

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Cow and Pig "Zombie" Update

Steve and Laurie sent us this picture of the Cow and Pig on Halloween night. They are resurrected as Zombies of course! Yay, they're baaaaaaack! Love these guys.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Happy Halloween! Cheesecake Bites This Weekend With Your Choice of Topping!



Hi All,

Well the Cow and Pig are at it again. (We should say Steve and Laurie are at it again).  When we drove by and saw the cow and pig buried with all hooves in the air, we just about ran off the road. So cute. And no, it's not the end of the Cow and Pig adventures.

Happy Halloween everyone.  If you're on the island this weekend, stop by to taste yummy mini cheesecakes with your choice of topping! (Cherry Pomegranate, Hot Pepper Raspberry Chipotle, Anna Mae's Smoky Sweet Chipotle Sauce, Peach Mango Habanero Sauce, Pineapple Habanero Sauce just to mention a few. We won't even get into the pepper jelly's.).  Yummy stuff.

Have a safe Halloween!

Eddie & Genie

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Happy Fall!

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the long delay since the last post. A lot has been going on this summer. Genie got to take a week off to visit the kids in So. Cal., and Ed is in Nevada visiting the kids there as well. Summer was fantastic and while the economy proves to be worrysome, we did eek out a slight increase in sales this year. Bottom line, we are happy! Thanks to all of our loyal customers and newbies we had the great chance to meet and see again this summer.

Last week we hosted the monthly Chamber of Commerce general meeting and we thought we would like to start sharing some of our favoritie recipes with you.  Especially since it's now comfort food season and we're getting ready for the holidays.  The first installment in this series will be the pulled pork sandwiches on mini sliders we did. It was a huge hit and the feedback was great. (next will be the mini cheesecakes with a Cherry Pomagranite topping) Here we go ~~

4-5 lbs. pork boneless butt roast (yes it's fatty but we'll show you how to make it work).
1/4 cup canola oil (veggie oil works too)
4 cups beef broth (it's o.k. to us bullion in water here too. Costco has the best beef boullion base).
1 white onion, diced
3 cloves garlic minced
1 bottle Lizano Salsa (guess where you can get that???) plus a little water.
Habbyflakes to taste ( a little goes a long way so start small and add until your desired heat level, yep we have those too! .  I suggest starting out with 1 tsp. (We use about 2 tbsp. however)
Mini slider buns (now available at most supermarkets)

Directions: 

In a large crock pot, add beef broth or boullion and start to heat. Heat oil in large skillet. Brown pork butt roast on all sides searing in the juices. (I like a nice brown color on all sides).  Remove roast and place in crock pot with beef stock/boullion.  In remaining saute juices, add onion and garlic and cook until limp.  Add mixture to crock pot. Cover and cook approx. 4-5 hours on med heat until pork roast shreds.  You may need to add more water to keep roast hydrated during cooking. At the end of this process, you don't want a lot of liquid left over. 

When pork is shredded, place pork on cookie sheet and cook in 400-425 degree oven until the pork starts to crisp. If you like carnitas, this is a great way to do that as well.  Turn moist pork often getting a crisping action for the entire roast.  Don't overdo it though.  When pork is done to desired crispness, return to empty crock pot and add 1 large bottle of Lizano Salsa with a little water and Habbyflakes to taste. (My suggestion, start small with the Habbyflakes. You can always add, but you can't remove the heat). Cook uncovered until pork roast absorbs all the Lizano liquid. (If there is a little liquid left over, that's OK. Use Wondra to thicken mixture as a gravy). 

Keep pork warm in crock pot, serve with mini slider buns and watch your guests rave! I usually serve this with some mixed vegetables and either hummus or ranch dressing. In the future, we'll share with you our hummus recipe that has a kick and is great with raw veggies. 

Don't forget, we are compiling our cook book and we want your recipes to include.  Of course you will get the credit so be sure to include your name and home town.

Thanks for allowing this business to continue to be a labor of love for both of us. We believe in our products and love sharing the health benefits and introducing new producers to you.  We think of you all as family and hope we can continue to educate, grow and be a major force in this wonderful industry.  Without you, we wouldn't exist.

Sincere Thanks,
Eddie & Genie

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Wow, what a summer

Hi All,

Sorry it's been so long since the last post. This summer season was nuts! In a good way of course. We had the privelege of meeting a lot of our fellow Chiliheads and were busy bringing in some really great new products. There are a lot of new producers and new products from our favorite producers. It's hard to put it all into 1 post so bear with us, we'll be talking about them throughout the fall season. 

First off, we have to re-post the pic of the Orca that spyhopped into a group of kayakers recently off Henry Island (north of Roche Harbor).  They said J34 Orca popped up, said hello and retreated back into the sea without creating much of a wake for the boaters. Wow, what an experience. Thanks to local Capt. Jim Maya for this great picture. No, it's not Photoshop. It really happened. Wow, we wish we could have experienced this. They are such beautiful creatures, we never get tired of seeing them. Although summer may be almost over, the fall is the most wonderful time to visit the islands.  Hope to see you all soon. Also a note to our loyal and favorite customers, we will be coming out with a special program soon. If you're signed up on our website, you'll be the first to learn about it. Great discounts! We'll keep you posted on the details and be ready to pick up some of your favorite products at really great prices. It's our way of saying thank you for a great first 4 years!
All the best to you and your families during this fall season and thank you for such a wonderful summer!
~~Eddie & Genie~~