From Family, Fire, and Frustration to SpiceQuest: My Journey

The following is part of the "origin story" for SpiceQuest, as captured in a podcast interview with Mookie Spitz on Bald Ambition. Listen to the full podcast here.

I've been obsessed with spice for as long as I can remember. Since I was about three years old, I was always trying to get my hands on anything spicy. My parents would literally have to rip things out of my hands before I burned myself. As I grew up, like a lot of spice lovers, I constantly sought it out—asking for the spiciest dish at Indian restaurants or telling Thai restaurants to give me "the real number five."

When traveling across Europe during college, I'd find great peppers at restaurants and secretly sneak them into little baggies like a thief. I was that person with cupboards full of hot sauces and spicy beef jerky, always looking for something to turn up the heat on whatever I was eating.

But I never thought this obsession would become a business. It wasn't until my life took an unexpected turn that the seeds of SpiceQuest began to take root.

A Reset Button

A few years ago, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and moved in with us. I decided to simplify my life, spend more time at home with him and my two small children, and essentially hit the reset button. After running several businesses for quite a few years, this change forced me to step back and think about deeper questions: What's the meaning of life? What do I want to do? How do I face this difficult situation with my father?

During this period of reflection, I found myself cooking more and tinkering in the kitchen. Spice was always around me, and one day I decided to make something just for myself. I wasn't setting out to start a company—far from it.

The spark came from something I had stumbled upon in Italy: vials of spices numbered from one through seventeen. It was rather messy, but it inspired me to think, "Why has no one ever made spice really easy to understand in a very accessible way for consumers?" That was the question that set everything in motion.

The Problems Begin

I started by thinking about the experience at the dinner table. If someone is on a spice quest, how would they administer spice in a way that was holistic, fun, and efficient?

First, I focused on the numbering system. Why seventeen? We have ten fingers, and everybody understands one through ten. This seemed like the logical range.

Then I obsessed over the packaging. How would people interact with these spices? Would they be in a row? Laying on their back? In a cigar box that swings open? I wanted to create something special for that moment when you walk up to a dinner table, or you're at a restaurant, or at home—how does this thing get brought out and revealed?

I tried everything—mechanical things, electric things, designs with lights and music. I was completely focused on the presentation to the person at the table before I had even figured out what kind of containers I'd use or where I'd source the spice.

The Grinder Crisis

After settling on the box design, I faced an even bigger challenge: how to deliver the spice itself. I ordered every grinder imaginable—probably 50 or 60 different types of grinders, shakers, holders, and tubes. Every night, I'd fill them with mild spices like paprika and just look at them, testing how they worked.

What I discovered was that most existing options were terrible. With tubes, you either had to scoop the spice out with a spoon or use shakers like the ones you find at a pizzeria. The problem with shakers, especially for the hotter spices (my 4-7 range), is that you'd create "a nuclear cloud" that would have people crying, coughing, and running for the doors.

I realized I needed a grinding mechanism that would contain the spice and deliver it in a controlled way. But finding the right grinder was its own challenge. The large grinders on the market were too big—if I put ten together, the box would have weighed 10 pounds and been the size of a lunch pail. The smaller ones were made of cheap materials, and the few high-quality options cost about $25 a unit, making the economics impossible.

There was nothing I could source off the shelf to solve my problem. I had hit another wall.

Economics and Scale

The economic reality of creating physical products quickly became apparent. I had learned this lesson before in my bright life club soda business—how important the cost of goods are in building a viable business.

I was very conscious that even if I wasn't trying to build a business initially, I still wanted something that wouldn't be cost-prohibitive. If I created 10 of something (remember, my goal was 10 grinders in a set), it couldn't cost $300. I wanted to be able to give it as a gift to family members.

This forced me to think about scale. To make the grinders affordable, I'd need to produce in larger quantities, which meant I couldn't just sell at local farmers' markets as I had initially planned. The minimum production requirements pushed me to think bigger about who else might buy this product. The goalposts kept moving without me even realizing it.

The Science of Spice

As I worked on the physical product, I was simultaneously diving deeper into the world of spice itself. I had naively thought there were maybe 20 or 30 types of chili peppers to choose from. Turns out, there are about 4,000 different varietals, of which the average consumer knows maybe half a dozen.

I also ran into problems with heat measurement. The Scoville Heat Unit, which measures capsaicin levels in peppers, is supposed to be standardized, but I found massive inconsistencies. Every Carolina Reaper product claimed to be 1.5 to 2.2 million Scoville units, but my lab tests couldn't find a single one over 1.2-1.3 million.

This led me to Dr. Paul Bosland, essentially the godfather of chili peppers and creator of the Chili Pepper Institute in New Mexico. When I explained my findings, he laughed and confirmed this was common. The world record peppers that set those high Scoville ratings are exceptional specimens—not representative of what's typically available.

But Dr. Bosland also introduced me to something even more fascinating: the flavor profiles of peppers. Just like wine, peppers have complex characteristics—earthy, fruity, sweet. They can hit the front of your mouth or the back of your throat. They can come on fast or linger. This opened up a whole new dimension beyond just heat levels.

Creating a System That Works

After 18 months of tinkering, testing, and learning, SpiceQuest finally began to take shape. The core concept became clear: a system numbered one through ten that allowed people to control both the intensity and flavor of spice in an unprecedented way.

The grinders became the silver bullet—the unique value proposition. They allowed people to have physical control over how much spice they added, preserving the freshness of the peppers until the moment they're crushed onto food.

When people hold one of the grinders in their hand, something changes in their demeanor. They feel that control I wanted to communicate even before they've dispensed any spice. That tactile experience is something I never explicitly designed for, but it's become central to what makes SpiceQuest special.

The Cultural Dimension

What's been most surprising since launching is discovering how spice transcends boundaries. Among the 8 billion people on Earth, perhaps 30% regularly consume some form of chili pepper heat—that's a huge market that knows no gender, religion, political affiliation, or age. I have 8-year-old kids and 80-year-old grandmothers who both want to consume it.

Unlike wine with its class associations or coffee with its snobbishness, spice is accessible to everyone. There's no elitism. Every culture has its own relationship with spice—Korean, Indian, Mexican, Nigerian—each with different expectations and preferences.

I've also discovered the incredible health benefits of capsaicin, from cholesterol reduction to metabolic effects. I've received touching letters, including one from a mother who claimed our Number 11 helped her son overcome depression through its endorphin-releasing properties.

Beyond the Core Kit

Today, SpiceQuest has expanded well beyond that initial core kit (numbers 1-10) that forms the foundation of the brand. I've been traveling around the country discovering rare and unique peppers with wonderful names.

I've connected with small-scale growers selling thousands of pounds of peppers daily in Facebook groups—varietals that never make it to the mainstream market. I've been ordering, dehydrating, and testing these rare peppers, making them available as limited editions through SpiceQuest.

Many of these peppers are "unstable" varieties that might only exist for a few growing seasons before disappearing forever. Some might never exist again, making them genuinely rare and special.

I'm now working on an African kit featuring spices from Nigeria and Morocco, and even experimenting with a pepper made with grasshoppers, inspired by Oaxacan culinary traditions.

Looking Back and Forward

What started as a simple desire to create something for my dinner table has become a journey of discovery. When people ask if I'm worried about being copied, I laugh and say, "I'd like to see them try." Not because it's impossible, but because it would take an extraordinary act of courage to take on all these challenges.

The reality is that this has been much harder than I ever anticipated. From sourcing and testing peppers to designing grinders to figuring out how to fill thousands of units—the complexity is immense. There's a reason nobody has done this before.

But that's also what makes it special. The mistakes, the learning, the human touch—these are what led to the breakthroughs that created SpiceQuest. And while the journey has been challenging, it's more exciting and invigorating now than when I first started.

What began with a simple "what if" has opened my eyes to a much bigger world. And regardless of where this journey ultimately leads, when an unexpected path turns out to be this positive, you've already won.