A Montreal hot sauce maker is getting a major boost from some A-list celebrities after being showcased on a popular YouTube show watched by millions.
It’s not every day that one of the biggest movie stars ever takes something you put your heart and soul into and says he likes it, but that’s exactly what Mark Cregan recently experienced when Will Smith said he enjoyed the taste of Mark’s Hot Sauce Fermented Kimchi.
“I never thought at, like, 10 years old that the Fresh Prince would be eating my hot sauce, something that I made,” Cregan beamed in an interview with Global News.
A longtime restaurant worker, Cregan created Mark’s Hot Sauce in Montreal 10 years ago. His Fermented Kimchi sauce is being featured on the current season of Hot Ones, where host Sean Evans interviews stars while they eat chicken wings slathered in spicier and spicier sauces.
The show is a huge hit.
More than five million people heard Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton express his affinity for Mark’s Hot Sauce.
“Oh, I like this one,” Hamilton told Evans on the May 30 episode.
“Lewis Hamilton is one of my idols,” Cregan said with a big smile on his face.
Cregan moved to Montreal from Toronto to study biology at McGill in 2007. He uses fermented hot peppers in all his sauces.
“I have a science background, so fermentation and all that kind of geeky sciency stuff, I’m super into,” Cregan said.
Legendary supermodel Heidi Klum spouted the benefits of fermentation after eating Cregan’s sauce on the show.
“I think the fermented Thai chilli really gave it a really interesting flavour profile, mixed with the tanginess of the kimchi,” Cregan told Global News.
Getting on the show is a holy grail for any artisanal hot sauce maker. Cregan’s Barbados-style sauce was featured in 2020. A handful of Canadian brands have been featured since Hot Ones started in 2015.
“I sent them a bunch of samples, and they loved the kimchi one. I think it worked really well in their lineup this year,” he said.
An appearance on the show means an order of tens of thousands of bottles, because they’re sold on the website of the Heatonist, the Brooklyn hot sauce store that created the show.
The publicity is opening markets his brand had never been in before.
“We’re working right now on a big shipment for a store and distributor in France,” Cregan said.
Mark’s is only the third spiciest sauce out of the 10 on the show this season. Cregan is thinking he’ll concoct something ferociously fiery and try to get on again.