For the hot heads on the board, next time you are on the Hill, check out Uncle Brutha's (Eastern Market area, on 7th Street, SE very close to Montemartre). Large collection of hot sauces, spice rubs, BBQ sauces, and other hot head related products...his house made Uncle's Brutha's hot sauces are award winning for bringing the heat AND the flavor.

Uncle Brutha and his family are one of those cool small business success stories. He started making his own hot sauces at home, then started selling from a stand outside Eastern Market and has now opened his own store. And he and his family are super nice to boot.

I've found some good products there. My favorite hot sauce find is Hula Girl chipotle-habanero sauce. I like to use that in my turkey chili. I can also get the Dave's (of Dave's Insanity) dried chiles/chile powder collection (6 sections in one canister). They have it cheaper than Dean & Deluca, and it's a lot shorter trip .

I usually keep a bottle of the Uncle Brutha's sauce on hand (fire sauce #10), but I find its usefulness limited. It's good when I use it, but I don't use it that often.

A hot sauce shop was a brilliant idea for that block.

I tend to go with Uncle's green hot sauce, which I believe is #9...smoked turkey sandwich with a smear of mayo and #9 very tasty!

I've tasted the green but have not purchased any. Turkey sandwich sounds like a good for use for it. Any other suggestions?

I use the green in eggs, chilli, guacamole and on top of steak. #10 is also great with steak and to spice up tomato sauce.

Guacamole sounds like a good use for the green. Thanks!

I'm sad to report that Uncle Brutha's has become the latest victim of the Eastern Market fire a year ago. It's just so depressing how the effects of the fire continue.

That's too bad.

Do you think the market is getting significantly less traffic? That surprises me now that the new building is and has been open for a good while.

The excellent Ezra Klein talks about it here. If y'all don't read Ezra's blog, you probably should. He's our hope for the future.

Uncle Brutha's is going to be open until the end of the month, so there's still time to go pick up some hot sauce.

Gosh damn! That really sucks to see.

Admittedly, I don't make it down to Eastern Market that often - it's quite a hike on the Orange Line. I'm lazy, I only rarely make it to the Falls Church farmer's market and that's right down the street. But every time I went to Eastern Market I'd go to Uncle Brutha's and I've even made it a point to drag out-of-towners down there for perusing his wares.

I love the green #9 - we put it on tacos and, honestly, I put it on lots of other things too (hamburgers, for instance, with a bit of mayo). I'm glad to see we'll still be able to get it but I'm going to miss going through all the other stuff checking out what he has.

Guess I'll be traveling down there before the end of the month to stock up!

There is an article in this month's Hill Rag that cites something along the lines that while weekend traffic at Eastern Market is at pre-fire levels, the weekday traffic is way off...and now there is even more competition with the opening of Harris Teeter.

But honestly, as much as I love Uncle Brutha's hot sauce, I always thought the Hot Sauce Emporium was an extreme niche store. The article makes references to him have a stand at the Market, like pre-emporium days...and he will make way more money marketing his own product to super markets and restaurants etc. It is a shame though