Scenes from Shopify HQ, Part 2: The Hot Sauce Library

If you work in Shopify’s HQ in Ottawa, one of the perks you get is catered lunches every day. Better still, you get a choice: there are usually two different lunches to choose from, and you’re always free to mix and match. Today’s lunch choices were shepherd’s pie (more accurately, cottage pie, since it was made with beef and not lamb) and sushi.

Another perk is access to Shopify’s library of hot sauces. It’s a fine collection, and various Shopifolks have been adding to it. I’m going to have to bring back some sauces from my next trip to the southern U.S..

The Shopifolks have been spicing up their lunches with these sauces and while some of them have proven to be zesty and delicious, a number have been discovered to be the sort that are produced solely for creating pain and not enhancing the flavour of food. We kept these sauces, but added some warning labels on post-it notes.

The worst by far in our set are Widow (pictured above, labelled “Don’t be stupid”) and Mad Dog’s Revenge (labelled “Liquid ‘You’re screwed’ / Not a sauce or condiment – SKIN IRRITANT”).

We have a couple of sauces made from the naga jolokia pepper, a.k.a. bhut jolokia or “ghost pepper”. This pepper has been rated at over a million Scovilles and the sauces based on them are nasty, nasty stuff.