Dave, the Hot Sauce Guy
Dave, or Whoever Is Behind Dave’s Gourmet Hot Sauce
In Dave’s Review of Daves, I rate the bearers of the second most popular male name in the US.
I’m going to start with a story.
The year is 20-something-teen. I am throwing a birthday barbecue for myself, and I have an important announcement to make. Standing in front of the vegetarian chili-like substance, I hold up two bottles of hot sauce, one in each hand.
“Listen up,” I say. “This is a bottle of Dave’s Chipotle Hot Sauce. THIS is bottle of Dave’s Insanity Hot Sauce. Do NOT get them mixed up! The chipotle is pleasant and warm. But if you pour the Insanity all over your chili, you will die.”
I mean every word. I get a laugh. Which is why it only gets funnier when, ten minutes later, I accidentally pour Dave’s Insanity Hot Sauce on my chili and nearly burn my tongue off.
I feel like this story captures the essence of the best Daves:
Well-meaning
Takes action to help others
Action does not go as planned
I feel an obligation to eat foods named Dave. Look how hard this hot sauce is trying to reach me, Dave, the target audience. And if you are going to name a food Dave, hot sauce is the way to go. I’m not buying Dave’s Barrel Aged Whisky. You wouldn’t go out of your way for Dave’s steaks. Dave’s a nice guy, but you wouldn’t trust him with a ceviche. Even the cookie company goes with “David” for a more respectable vibe.
(At this point let me say that I am not being compensated in any way for talking about a real hot sauce that you can buy.)
So who is the Dave’s on Dave’s Gourmet Hot Sauce?
Image generated by Midjourney V4, from the prompt “photo of Dave, the founder, on the label of a bottle of Dave's Hot Sauce”. The AI knows what hot sauce looks like and what a “Dave” looks like, but not what words are.
I refuse to do any research on the subject. Instead, I am going to go with the late-2022, early 2023 trend and ask an AI. Here’s a photo of what an art-both thinks Dave looks like.
Honestly? The robot nailed it. Look at those glasses, that goofy grin, that maybe/maybe-not beard. One of the most powerful AI engines available to randos on the internet has a definite opinion of what “Dave, hot sauce guy” looks like.
Which is more than the real bottle does. Unlike a lot of hip artisanal brands, Dave’s does not come with a photo of the founder on the bottle, or even a pithy little bio. They don’t tell us that he started the company with his brother, making hot sauce in the bathtub. They don’t tell us that he visited Mexico once on a company retreat and thought, “this is good, but I can do better.” Dave’s dog is not listed as a consultant.
My theory is: they don’t need to do any of those things, because the name Dave says it all. You know that he’s going to try hard. You know he takes hot sauce seriously, but not TOO seriously. You’re willing to give it a shot.
…
OK, I lied, I need to know. I am Googling Dave.
His name is Dave Hirschkop.
Dave of Dave’s Gourmet looks pretty much like you’d expect.
And yes, he’s a real person. And yes, he has a cute marketing story about how he made the hottest hot sauce he could when he started a taqueria in Virginia - before moving to San Francisco to make it big in the hot sauce world. He was inducted into the Hot Sauce Hall of Fame in 2015.
He looks more like a Dave than I ever could have imagined.
The one thing I was wrong about is this: he’s really serious about how hot his hot sauce is. My birthday party mishap was not a fluke: Dave’s Insanity hot sauce rings in at 180,000 Scoville units, compared to under 5,000 for Tabasco. It has since been exceeded by Dave’s Ultimate Insanity Hot Sauce at 250,000. Why do we even have that bottle?
This has been a journey of discovery for me, although not a very long one. There are a lot of lessons we can take from Dave’s Gourmet, but I think the most important one is: you can never assume that a Dave is not capable of seriously injuring you.
In a well-meaning way, of course.
Dave of Dave’s Gourmet is rated 60% Dave, 40% David.
He’s pretty serious for a Dave, but at the end of the day, it’s hot sauce.
p.s. I don’t want to ruin the purity of the Dave rating system by rating the actual hot sauce, but Dave’s Roasted Red Pepper Chipotle may be my favorite hot sauce of all time.