With the Collector’s Corner weekly posts it was suggested that the HSB add a section with images of actual collections. So if you have a hot sauce collection you’d like to show off, send it to nick ‘at’ hot sauceblog.com and your collection will be posted for all collectors to drool over.

A big thank you to all the collector’s that have sent in images of their collections so far, keep them coming!

Graham was kind enough to send in a bunch of pictures of his collection with over 200 bottles and his pepper garden with 27 different varieties of peppers!

A little about Graham’s Collection:
There are over 200 in the collection….I have to build more shelves as I have about 50 bottles in boxes I have yet to put up. Been collecting for about 4 years and everyone I know picks one up for me on their travels since I have most of the ones that are commercially available from hot sauce stores. Still waiting for my Tabernero - hopefully get the original label but one never knows, have had it on order for a while.

I sent you all the pics from various angles, I have a total of 4 shelves on the wall. One bottle that is not a sauce but a beer is Chile beer, my wife thought it was so cool when we watched a show on it…she arranged for 12 of these to be shipped to a Bar we go to just on the inside of the US border , since we are in Canada we can’t import this stuff…most expensive 12 pack in history was about 120 US..It was a surprise birthday gift, we went shopping and stopped for wings and beer in Lewiston NY ( Apple Grannies great wings BTW )…I looked around the whole family was there and they proudly gave me the box. That beer will forever remind me to be careful for what I wish for !

I also grow my own peppers and this year decided to make my own sauce…My garden had 27 varieties of peppers last year and this year it is going to grow. I have to start making some more sauce with peepers that did not make it into the smoker for the chipotle sauce.

At any given time I have between 20-25 bottles of hot sauce in the fridge. I have kept in the same place for many years. It has been my designated hot sauce area.

Day in day out the fridge goes through it daily rigors. It gets full, emptied, cleaned, you name it. And for the last few years it has serviced us well. Now, whether this next episode was due in part of my holiday imbibing, or the fridge exacting some sort of revenge for making it responsible to hold such a deadly cargo I don’t know. But now unfolds the course of sequences that left me bloodied and covered in hot sauce.

1) I open the fridge wide to get something (probably a beer)
2) I kneel down to see what is on the lower shelf
3) As I gaze inside, the door starts to close
4) I find my wares
5) I start to stand
6) My backs hits the closing door shelf as I stand up (this is where the hot sauces are kept)
7) I pull the shelf up with me
20-25 bottles of hot sauces come crashing down onto the tiles of the kitchen

It was one of those moments I won’t forget anytime soon. A symphony of 5oz bottles filled at various amounts comes crashing down. There were casualties. The most dire was an unopened bottle of Blair’s Mega Death. The rest were covered in Blair sauce shrapnel and there was one cracked Mad Dog cap. As Blair creates, he destroys as well. In true grand fashion! There was sauce everywhere. (I did save a bit though and that is subject to an addendum of my Duff’s Wing Review).

In the process of cleaning up sauce and glass and reorganizing my collection I managed to get a piece of glass caught in my finger. I thought nothing of it until I gave my right ring finger a squeeze and was gushed by a stream of blood right over my face (good thing for glasses). I spent the next half hour cleaning everything up. Including the periodic squirts of blood. In the end I ended up with:

1) One smashed Blair’s Mega Death
2) One bloodied face and finger
3) One good hour of throbbing pain all over my hands cleaning up said sauce
4) One good story

Out side of this one incident my fiance and I had a wonderful holiday and we hope many up the HSB readers did as well. Wishing everyone all the best for the New Year, and watch out for those pesky fridge doors.