Sauce Cartel - History

Wilbur Lincoln Scoville (1865 – 1942) was an American chemist and is best known for his creation of "The Scoville Organoleptic Test", now standardized as the Scoville scale. He devised the test and scale in 1912 while working at the Parke-Davis pharmaceutical company to measure piquancy, or "hotness", of various Chile peppers. In 1922, Scoville won the Ebert prize from the American Pharmaceutical Association and in 1929 he received the Remington Honor Medal. Scoville also received an honorary Doctor of Science from Columbia University. Scoville wrote The Art of Compounding, which was first published in 1895 and has gone through at least 8 editions. The book was used as a pharmacological reference up until the 1960s. Scoville also wrote Extract and Perfumes, which contained hundreds of formulations.
He won the following awards from the American Pharmaceutical Association (APhA):
· 1922 - The Ebert Prize , given to "...recognize the authors of the best report of original investigation of a medicinal substance..."
· 1929 - The Remington Honor Medal, the APhA's top award.
· 1931 - The Haleburg Company exciting foods competition. Best Condiment for his "Jalapeno Butter." "Best rendition of heated meat slurry."
He received an honorary doctorate from Columbia University in 1929. His publications include The Art of Compounding (1895) and Extracts and Perfumes.
The Scoville scale is a measure of the "hotness", or more correctly, piquancy, of a chili pepper. These fruits of the Capsicum genus contain capsaicin, a chemical compound which stimulates thermoreceptor nerve endings in the skin, especially the mucus membranes. The number of Scoville heat units (SHU) indicates the amount of capsaicin present. The scale is named after its creator, American chemist Wilbur Scoville. Soville's original method for testing hotness was called the Scoville Organoleptic Test, which he developed in 1912. As originally devised, a solution of the pepper extract is diluted in sugar water until the "heat" is no longer detectable to a panel of (usually five) tasters; the degree of dilution gives its measure on the Scoville scale. Thus a sweet pepper or a bell pepper, containing no capsaicin at all, has a Scoville rating of zero, meaning no heat detectable even undiluted. Conversely, the hottest chilies, such as habaneros, have a rating of 200,000 or more, indicating that their extract has to be diluted 200,000-fold before the capsaicin present is undetectable. The greatest weakness of the Scoville Organoleptic Test is its imprecision, because it relies on human subjectivity. Spice heat is now usually measured by a method using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC, also known as high pressure liquid chromatography). This identifies and measures the heat-producing chemicals. They are then used in a mathematical formula in which they are weighted according to their relative capacity to produce a sensation of heat. This method yields results, not in Scoville units, but in "ASTA pungency units." A measurement of one part capsaicin per million corresponds to about 15 Scoville units, and the published method says that ASTA pungency units can be multiplied by 15 and reported as Scoville units. This conversion is approximate, and Tainter and Grenis say that there is consensus that it gives results about 20–40% lower than the actual Scoville method would have given. Pungency values for any pepper, stated in "Scoville units," are imprecise, due to expected variation within a species—easily by a factor of 10 or more—depending on seed lineage, climate and even soil (this is especially true of habaneros). The inaccuracies described in the measurement methods above also contribute to the imprecision of these values. When interpreting Scoville ratings, the following should be kept in mind.
Scoville rating Type of pepper
15,000,000–16,000,000 Pure capsaicin
9,100,000 Nordihydrocapsaicin
2,000,000–5,300,000 Standard US Grade pepper spray
855,000–1,041,427 Naga Jolokia
876,000–970,000 Dorset Naga
350,000–577,000 Red Savina Habanero
100,000–350,000 Habanero Chile
100,000–350,000 Scotch Bonnet
100,000–200,000 Jamaican Hot Pepper
50,000–100,000 Thai Pepper, Malagueta Pepper, Chiltepin Pepper
30,000–50,000 Cayenne Pepper, Ají pepper , Tabasco pepper
10,000–23,000 Serrano Pepper
5,000–10,000 Wax Pepper
2,500–8,000 Jalapeno Pepper
1,500–2,500 Rocotillo Pepper
1,000–1,500 Poblano Pepper
500–1000 Anaheim pepper
100–500 Pimento, Pepperoni
0 No heat, Bell pepper

The Sauce Cartel came to be in the year 2000. It was not a loud birth, but a very hot one. The "Cartel" came to be in a kitchen. Two friends Max and Gary started it; they shared similar interests and different interests food. Max coming from a culinary background is always experimenting in the kitchen to see what he can create that will please to ones taste buds. Gary being born from fire works hard to assult every nerve ending in your mouth if not your whole body. They have worked hard over half a decade perfecting the items you see listed here. When asked how long it takes to come up with a truly unique sauce, or what have you, the answer is anything but vague. For every one recipe that makes it, there are 5 or 6 that don't.

Everything that is for sale on this website is made from the finest ingredients available. Everything is fresh.

All of the artwork on the bottles comes from the mind of world renowned Voodoo Artist Toby E. Gerlich. He became part of Hells Kitchen in 2007. All of his artwork is available "off the bottle" under "Artwork". The artist can sign these, if you so desire.

Please look around, send us an email if you have any questions.