About HotSauceFever.com

cataloging them
as a fine wine or rich ale
a dignified burn

We're a growing community of hot sauce enthusiasts and reviewers, rating our favorites and adding to the fiery lineup. There is a widespread passion for chilis and spicy foods. There are all kinds of local bottlers, chasing the perfect blend of flavor and heat. Much like a beer or wine, there are subtleties and an array of tastes that encompass the experience. It's not just about the ghost chili extreme, and the competitions that test your resolve and physical limits. Though..that is fun too.

Our goals are to:

  • Allow anyone to review hot sauces
  • Curate and build up the ultimate hot sauce reference / list / database
  • Provide expansive guides on growing hot peppers, and more
  • Support the chilihead community, sauce creators, and chili growers

Site Design and Development

This site was created by a developer and designer, with the help and support of friends. As the developer/founder of this site, I want this to be a site I can take pride in to the smallest detail, that is up to the latest standards, and is viewable on all devices. It should stay classy and up-to-date. The design was created thanks to the kickass designer Danny Day. You can check out his portfolio at danielday.me. You can view my web development blog and portfolio at joshuawinn.com.

Entering all the data for the initial list of sauces was a lot of work too. Big thanks to Joe and everyone who helped to help start this site off with content. As this site was being built, Joe and I were also all growing hot pepper plants. Check out some of the photographs on our Hot Sauce Fever Flickr photostream.

The website is using the Yii PHP Framework, which was great for initial prototyping and sticking to clean MVC code. The build was created responsively with fluid widths and media queries. Try resizing your browser width smaller and watch it adapt. We're working on making the smallest mobile version as accessible and speedy as possible on phones, so you can easily look up entries or add reviews on-the-spot. The initial build started from the HTML5 boilerplate, and has been created for modern browsers with HTML5, CSS3, and jQuery.

New Features: We've Got Some Great Ideas

Future Plans

We have a lot of ideas on the backburner, that will be completed over time. For now, we're focusing on the core features and seeing what feedback we generate. More community features are in order, as are more helpful guides and content. The idea of expanding to include other languages is also on the table. On the to-do is allowing users to log in with their Google or Facebook account, making it easier to sign up and log in. Because, who wants another username and password for a website?

What about Advertising?

We are working on our search engine optimization campaign to build a regular flow of traffic. There can be a tendency to put the cart before the horse in regards to ads. First and foremost, are the goals listed above, within a site that showcases the care put into the design and development. When the time comes to incorporate some advertising or referral-based revenue, we will make sure that it integrates into the site cleanly, while matching the style and theme. We're not going to just plaster the site with ads.

Contact

Please fill out our contact form with any inquiries, questions, or comments.