DEFCON Interview:
17 Questions NYC HOT SAUCE EXPO 2015 VENDORS
John Dilley
Defcon Sauces
INTERVIEW BY ALLEN FRY (www.twofrys.com)
Foodie and Hot Sauce Blog NYC/BRONX
FOR THE NYC HOT SAUCE EXPO 2015
1. John, what is the inspiration to make
hot sauce and spicy food for your business?
We're having a ball. This industry
is truly unique, as are the customers. I think it's the industry itself that
gives me my inspiration. 10 years ago, when we first started up, I had no idea
there were so many awesome friends that I hadn't met yet. When we joined the
Hot Sauce Manufacturer ranks, we were taken in almost immediately. It's this
camaraderie that makes me proud to be a part of something like this. In talking
to the manufacturers that have been around a lot longer than us, their help and
guidance in the initial years has proven invaluable. Being part of this
industry is the inspiration in itself.
2. What is the road that led you to open
Defcon Sauces?
I had been making wing sauces since
the very early 90's, after having an order of wings once and thinking to
myself, "Hey, I could make something that tastes better than this", and the
gears of the mind began to spin. I would serve them at our rather large
Superbowl parties. It's a great venue to serve them at, I mean, come on, a
bunch of drunk idiots eating wings. They will be completely honest, and they
were. Early on the stuff pretty much sucked, but after a few years of tweaking,
I finally got it right. By 2004, I was selling the wing sauces to friends and
family for parties, and over a couple beers with a buddy of mine, he suggested
I start up a company.
I looked at him like he had 2
heads, "I'm a finance guy, what the Hell do I know about starting up a food
company?" His answer was simple, "Well, if you don't try, you'll never know
if you're missing out on an opportunity". Well, that pretty much did it for me.
I took this idea home to the Awesome Wife Unit, Maggie, and told her the idea.
Her only question was, "How much is it going to cost?" Well, my answer was
very simple, "I don’t have a clue". Needless to say, about 5-6 months later,
Defcon Sauces, LLC was born, and we've never looked back.
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| Allen of Two Frys and John from DEFCON Expo 2013 |
3. What is the secret of your success
selling Hot wing sauces?
We're not normal. At the larger
trade shows, you have a ton of vendors there, with very simple booths, and
normally a company t-shirt and jeans. There is absolutely nothing wrong with
that. But we don't go by the same rulebook. Early on, we decided to make
ourselves stand out, in a way no other company that I knew of had. Our booths
were friggin' light shows, with laser projectors, enough blacklight to get a
tan, plasma generators, strobes, etc, with a dude (myself) dressed up in Mad
Max meets the Matrix retro-future wear.
When we appeared on the scene, it
was like an explosion. Many of the veteran vendors saw us as just another flash
in the pan. However, when we started winning a TON of awards at the larger
shows, well, they came to realize, we're like Herpes, and we're not going away.
Flash is great, but you have to have good products to back up the bling, we do.
4. What is the most satisfying thing about
what you do, bringing the heat to people?
When they hand me cash, LOL! I
think it's hearing someone, who has never heard of us before, try their first
sample, and say stuff like, "My God, I can't believe I never heard of you guys,
this stuff is great!", and we now have a customer for life.
5. What is the number of hot wing
sauces/products Defcon Sauces has available and some of your hottest selling
names?
We currently have eight, we will
have nine as of the 3rd Annual NYC Hot Sauce Expo, when we unleash
the brand new CURBSTOMP Wing Sauce upon the public. If you also count our very
limited edition ZERO, which is only available sporadically, I guess we would
have ten.
We have four (soon to be five) Wing
Sauces, which are based on traditional Buffalo-Style flavors:
The Defense Condition #3 is our
mild, with just a little Cayenne pepper
The Defense Condition #2 is our
medium, with a good dose of Cayenne pepper
The Defense Condition #1, where we
mix Cayenne and Habanero peppers
The Cluckwing Orange, Cayenne,
Habanero and Trinidad Scorpion peppers
And the CURBSTOMP, soon to be
released at the NYC Hot Sauce Expo, with a mix of Cayenne, Habanero, Trinidad
Scorpion and Carolina Reaper peppers. Yeah, it's evil!
Then we have our rather well-known
Habanero Horseradishes:
Habby Pony – Our mild Horseradish
Habby Horse – Our hot Horseradish
And then our dry rubs:
Smokey Dust, a mild Buffalo-style
powder with a hint of Chipotle, great on popcorn and steak
Contaminated Soil – A mix of 8 of
the hottest peppers available, good in tequila
We have some other stuff in the
works, always do, but that discussion is for another day.
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| DEFCON Booth 2014 Expo NYC, Wings Sauces and Horseradishes. |
6. What is your favorite type of fruit
and/or vegetable?
Not really into fruits I'm afraid,
but when it comes to vegetables, I'm old school. I’m constantly coming up with
different ways to prepare some of my favorites like Broccoli, Lima Beans,
Collard Greens and Black-Eyed Peas.
7. What is your favorite type of hot sauce,
extreme or mild?
Depends on the time of day, I’ll do
a mild in the morning and then amp up the heat as the day progresses.
8. What is your favorite type of BBQ sauce,
spicy or sweet?
Honestly, I don't use much BBQ
sauce, as I prefer dry rubs. There are some good ones out there I must say
though. Tom's Roid-Rippin Mesquite is quite good, as is Cajun Island's
Blackened Bourbon Sauce, which is more of a glaze. There are a few whose names
escape me at the minute, but those 2 are my most used.
9. What are some of your favorite small batch
hot sauce companies?
There are a bunch of them, each
with their own twist on reality. Silverleaf, Race City, Heartbreaking Dawns,
Cajohns, High River, Hoboken Eddie, and many more. Each has their own spin on
things, which is why I love this industry. Small batch is where it’s at.
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| 2014 Seasoning Offerings from DEFCON, Be sure to get Contaminated Soil. |
10. Defcon Sauces, how many events do you
attend each year?
I do a bunch of Farmers Markets on
the weekend, and we cater a number of parties (nothing like having your own
wingman at a party), but actual hot sauce events, we've throttled back quite a
bit in the last few years. It used to be that you HAD to go to the Albuquerque
show and Zest Fest in Texas. However, a bunch of regional shows have popped up
in the last few years. For one, the regional shows cost a LOT less to do, and,
at least in my view, much more personal. The fact you don't have to buy
airfare, lodging, freight to and from, drayage, car rental, massive booth fees,
etc, well, saving a few thousand dollars is always a good thing, right?
We will be at a handful of shows
this year, including the 3rd Annual Hot Sauce Expo in Brooklyn, the
2nd Annual Kempton Pepper jam in Kempton, PA, and the 20th
Annual Chili pepper Festival in Bowers, PA. That's really about it. Between
farmers markets (which are amazingly lucrative), private events and town
festivals, we're always doing something.
11. John, what is the hottest hot sauce you’ve
ever tried?
Pure Capsaicin crystal. In the
immortal words of Joe Piscopo in Johnny Dangerously, "Once". Heat is nice, but
when the heat tastes like the inside of a chemical drum, the heat doesn't
matter anymore. There are plenty of chemical extract products on the market,
but most of them have the bouquet of a Monsanto plant, and the flavor profile
of a tailings pond in August. I think the market is steering away from the
stupidly hot stuff, and moving in a direction where flavor is much more
important that blowing your face off. Will there always be a Chilihead Nation?
Of course there will, however, in the broad scope, a vast majority of people
can't handle that kind of heat, and will steer clear of it.
There will always be a place for
the novelty sauces, but I think the market share is shrinking. I know that at
least in my experience, most people want stuff to taste good, not just be
mind-numbingly hot.
12. Do you believe that hot sauce is good for
you and others health?
Absolutely! It's proven that it is.
From prostate cancer to sore joints, capsaicin is one of Nature's little miracles.
13. What are your plans for Defcon Sauces in
the future?
Besides Global Domination? I just
see the same we've been doing all along, slow and steady growth. We are having
a great time being part of this industry. As I told the Awesome Wife Unit,
Maggie many years ago, "Once this is no longer fun, we will close the door,
look back and say, man what a ride". However, there is still plenty of tread
left on these tires, and the road stretches to the horizon.
We will come out with new ideas for
products, and at the same time will always enjoy selling our old reliable goods
to the masses that have been blessed with good tastebuds. Defcon Sauces is an
experiment, an experiment which allows us to go in any direction we choose to
go. We have made a true mark on the industry, and will continue to do so.
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| DEFCON Lineup snap we took at their 2014 Expo booth NYC. |
14. How many times have you been a vendor at
the NYC Hot Sauce Expo?
This will be our 3rd
year. We've been at every one of them, and they have grown to epic proportions.
Steve Seabury, who heads up the show, must be commended on his work. His labors
have really come to fruition, and in a VERY tough geographical location, in the
heart New York City. We love doing this show, as the vendors are treated as VIP's,
something lacking in a few of the other larger shows. He keeps the show costs
way down as well. For those coming from far away states, keeping costs down is a
key factor to whether or not you're going to do the show or not.
When I'm doing a show I have to fly
out too, if I'm going to have to drop $5000+ for a show weekend (all costs
included, even beer), I want to make sure I can make the money back, and that's
a lot of $6 bottles to sell to make it up. I think that's a fact some other
shows overlook, the fact that many, if not most, of the vendors at these events,
really scrape together funds to do the larger shows. If the show bombs, which
they occasionally do, it's a MASSIVE punch to the wallet of these small
companies. Over the years, I have received dozens of calls from new companies,
asking which shows I would suggest doing. My first response is stay as local as
possible at first, and with the number of regional shows popping up around the
country, this is becoming more and more of a reality for them.
Throw in the fact that many
manufacturers, the company is in addition to their regular job, like myself,
and the Awesome Wife Unit, Maggie (Hell, I haven't had more than 4 days off in
a row in 10 years), the vacation days are beyond luxury items, and to have them
used up to lose money after busting your butt for 2-3 days at a trade show,
well, it just sucks. This is explained in depth by a number of guests I've had
on my radio show, DEFCON-versations. To hear it from a number of other
manufacturers really brings the fact home.
15. How do you like the amount of fans and
vendors that this great event brings together in one place?
It's an amazing asymmetrical
cross-cut of the populous. The NYC Foodie is a rough person to impress. Mix
that with the fact, there are only about 45-50 vendors, hand-picked by Steve to
be the best of the best of the industry, well, I think some call it kismet,
other call it f**kin awesome. I didn't talk to one person that had a bad time
at either of the first two shows. The show is run to make sure both vendors and
attendees have a good time, and aren't merely walking ticket sales.
16. How can our Two Frys readers order
your sauces and products?
There are a few ways. The easiest
would be go to the website, www.DEFCONsauces.com.
If you're looking to see where to get our stuff locally, go to the website, and
click on "Where Else To Buy". This lists most places we know of that carry our
stuff. There are many more, these are just the ones we know of. If you're local
to NJ, stop by a Farmers Market. On Saturdays, I hop between Metuchen, NJ and
Allendale, NJ every other week, and on Sundays, I set up camp in Chester, NJ.
I'm finishing up the calendar of events on the website, so it'll be available
soon.
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| Defcon Award winning sauces. |
17. Any closing comments for our readers about your products and what they should try?
Interesting question. Considering
all of our products have taken multiple awards should definitely say something
about the quality of our products. Our wing sauces are our biggest seller, for
obvious reasons, they're very good. As with all types of our products, we offer
levels of heat, which allows many more people to enjoy Defcon products. My
personal favorite is the Defense Condition #2 Wing Sauce. It's got a nice
little cayenne kick, and you won’t hurt yourself consuming a large pile of
wings. I like the Habby Horse, our hot Habanero Horseradish on deli sandwiches,
pastrami, or prime rib. With the Dry Rubs, I like the Smokey Dust on popcorn
mainly, but it also holds up quite well on pork ribs, while the Contaminated
Soil, having a good-sized heat kick, is very good in a Bloody Mary, or rimming
a tequila shot, but also is awesome on beef ribs.
I suggest people give our stuff a
shot, as we are proof that good stuff comes out of New Jersey every once in a
while.
DEFCON Creator out……
Thanks to John the DEFCON Creator for the Informative interview, Allen at Two Frys
