About
Who Runs This Site, and the Rules
Sommelier of Hot Sauce is a Bárbaro Mojo publication. It is written by Mario Cruz, who founded Bárbaro Mojo in Miami in November 2020 with his son Kevin and his wife Ali, after a 2015 Noche Buena pig roast where Kevin wanted more heat on the lechón and they built a sauce on the family mojo. The company makes five Cuban hot sauces, hand-bottled in Miami, and has taken seventeen honors across seven blind-judged competitions since. The full story is on barbaromojo.com.
Why a maker runs a tasting site
Because six years of festivals teach you more about hot sauce than any amount of reading, and most of what we learned is not about our own bottles. It is about how to taste, what a base does, why the People’s Choice ribbon goes to balance and not heat, and which other makers are quietly excellent. A company blog is the wrong place for that. This is the right one, as long as we are honest about who is writing.
The rules
- We say when it is ours. Every page carries the line at the top; every note about our own sauces says “this is the maker talking.”
- We do not score our own sauces against other makers. Our label, heat scale, and pairings get their own notes; the Makers page is for everyone else.
- We say who paid for the bottle. Bought it, or the maker sent it. We do not accept payment, product-for-placement, or affiliate commissions from other makers for a note.
- Discount codes are ours and are labeled. SOMMELIER10 is a Bárbaro Mojo code, 10% off, one use per customer.
- Numbers are sourced. Heat numbers are the Bárbaro Mojo Cuban heat scale (1 to 10). Scoville figures are independent lab results. Award claims match the awards page, which lists every competition and placing.
Contact
Mario@BarbaroMojo.com, or the contact page. Makers who want a bottle tasted: subject line “Sommelier.” Retailers and restaurants: the wholesale line sheet comes through the same address.