Shaquanda—Andre Springer's drag persona—didn't know she was stumbling into a whole damn business when she first starting mixing food and drag. In fact, when she first brought her hot sauce to her performances, she was only doing so to "do something a little different." (At the time, she and a friend were primarily making batches just for friends and family.) Instead, she found herself at drag festival Bushwig in 2014, fielding off people who were looking to buy bottles of the stuff. They didn't understand she wasn't selling a product—she was performing.
"I was handing it out on crackers on a shopping cart [during the show]," Andre told me recently. "It was just supposed to be a cheeky way of being like 'Ha! I’m performing right now! Try it! Taste it! I’m performing in your mouth!'” But it quickly became a lot more than that.
If people wanted bottles of the stuff after just one taste, why not give them more? The collaborative art project turned into a food business. "It is the most authentic portrait of myself, kind of combining my food world and combining drag and the story of the cuisine I grew up with."
While Andre can't quantify how much hot sauce he's exactly sold since 2014, he's now making north of 300 bottles per week in a Harlem kitchen to meet demand. The sauce is sold across the city (and in one California spot) and recently sparked enough buzz to land itself on Hot Ones, as well as in BuzzFeed and Bon Appetit, to name a few publications. Oh, and Andre will be in attendance at this year's Eater's Young Guns summit.
This week, Andre debuted three new additions to the line: umami, springy, and smokey sauces. Along with the original uber-popular Hot Pepper Sauce that's been selling throughout the city for years, the bottles show the transitions of Shaquanda's drag, each reflective of her moods and her looks. Here's how Andre turned it all into a brand.
How did Shaquanda come to be?
I started doing drag…17 years ago? My grandmother was a chef in Barbados and I worked in restaurants and bars since I was 19 years old, so my love of food has always been a thing. When I worked in a bar on the Bowery, I came up with the name; I drew inspiration from a combination of ladies and guys that I grew up with and from my grandmother, my mom, and my sister.
When did the hot sauce come into play?
The idea kind of came about with my partner Dominic when we went to art school together. We’d always collaborated and would make fun T-shirts every year for my birthday which were all based off my drag. We were looking for something new to do and I thought of jerk rub. I started pondering how we would package it and gift it to our friends. Then we went to Barbados one year and Dominic was so excited about the hot sauce and was like “Can you make this instead?”
I said “Yeah, of course I can.” [Laughs] I’d never really made hot sauce before, but I’d made chutneys and pickles with my grandmother. When it came to hot sauce, we always would just buy the trusted brand that our family would always bring back up from Barbados.
So the ingredients are familiar, but how many batches did it take to come up with the perfect combination for your Hot Pepper Sauce?
A hundred and change over the course of an entire year? It started with the ingredients that are pretty basic around Barbados for a hot sauce: mustard, turmeric, onions, scotch bonnet pepper, vinegar. Sometimes there’s a little variation, like horseradish—you’ll find that in a couple recipes. I wanted something that was nuanced and familiar. Something with the story of Brooklyn, as well.
I stuck with the Barbadian formula but I nuanced it with tomato paste and apple cider vinegar, lemon juice. I used demerara sugar instead of white sugar, and I used sea salt because I was thinking of the Caribbean. So it is a different flavor, but it is very familiar of Barbados. People who eat it say, “That’s different, but that’s Bajan.”
Have you gotten any specific feedback about the sauce that's really stuck with you?
Yes! The flavors that are in there are articulated, but what’s always interesting to me is when people say to me “Oh, this is fruity. Are there pineapples in here? Are there mangoes?” [Laughs] I’m like “…there aren't!” Each batch is different, though, depending on what Mother Nature brings us, so you can talk about it the same way you can speak about wine. Each batch, each crop, is gonna have special differences in it, so that’s what I always enjoy—hearing from people.
This is you on the label, right?
Yes! That’s a picture of my face.
Why was it important for you to be on there?
It’s based off my drag character, so it only felt fitting to really put my face on there. Plus, I have a really good cheeky smile. Why not bank on it?
What's coming next for you? Can we expect more hot sauce?
Yes! I have three new sauces coming out. The first one's called "oooohmami," and it's extra premium—black garlic, blackberries, blueberries, and caramelized onions with balsamic vinegar. It’s very robust, very, well, umami. It's inspired from the times I’ve been in drag and walking through some areas of Brooklyn hearing the papis scream “ooooh, mami!” [Laughs]
Then we have the MX Green Fast sauce, that one’s my beach and sea. It has oregano, cilantro, lime juice, lemon juice, and a mixture of chili peppers and banana. Super refreshing, very bright, perfect for any kind of mermaid party you’re gonna have. The third is my two-day after drag, where I have stubble on the bottle. That one has a little bit of smoke, it flows out a little bit hotter, with a little kick of smoked paprika, roasted red peppers. The bottles show the transitions of drag, the different looks. They show me!
You can learn more about (and buy!) Shaquanda's Hot Pepper sauce here.
