# Sawce — Complete Site Reference

> Sawce is a swipe-based hot sauce discovery app ("Tinder for hot sauces") that matches users with craft hot sauces based on their flavor profile and heat tolerance. Founded by Ron Fartley, former owner of the award-winning hot sauce company Fartley Farms (ZestFest Golden Chile winner). The Sawce website at sawce.app serves as the marketing site, blog, recipe hub, and heat education resource.

## Core Pages

- [Home](https://sawce.app/): Landing page for the Sawce app — swipe-based hot sauce discovery
- [About](https://sawce.app/about): Sawce's mission and Ron Fartley's background in the hot sauce industry
- [Heat Guide](https://sawce.app/heat-guide): Visual Scoville scale guide with 6 tiers matching the app's heat system
- [Contact](https://sawce.app/contact): Get in touch with the Sawce team

## Heat Tiers (used in the Sawce app)

The Sawce app uses a 0-10 heat scale grouped into 6 tiers:

| Tier | Level | Scoville (SHU) | Example Peppers |
|------|-------|----------------|-----------------|
| None | 0 | 0 | Bell pepper, banana pepper |
| Mild | 1-2 | 1–2,500 | Pepperoncini, poblano, Anaheim |
| Medium | 3-4 | 2,500–8,000 | Jalapeno, serrano, chipotle |
| Hot | 5-6 | 8,000–100,000 | Cayenne, Thai chili, tabasco pepper |
| Very Hot | 7-8 | 100,000–350,000 | Habanero, scotch bonnet, bird's eye |
| Extreme | 9-10 | 350,000+ | Ghost pepper, Carolina Reaper, Pepper X |

## Data & Exploration

- [The Flavor Gauntlet](https://sawce.app/hot-ones): Interactive data explorer built with Svelte and D3 analyzing every Hot Ones sauce across 29 seasons. Features 10 visualization panels: Heat Climb (Scoville by position), Da Bomb Spotlight (radar comparison), Flavor Density Heatmap (10 dimensions × 10 positions), Interactive Sauce Radar, Curve Breakers scatter plot, Pepper Fingerprint treemap, Flavor Evolution sparklines, Season DNA strips, Maker Map (US geography), and Price vs Heat scatter. Includes season picker, sauce detail cards with flavor profiles, and compare mode.

## Blog

The Sawce blog covers hot sauce news, reviews, maker spotlights, pepper growing, and food culture. Notable series include:

### Spiciest Dish in Columbus, OH
Over 140 restaurant reviews where the team ate the spiciest dish on the menu. Each review covers the restaurant, the dish, and the heat experience. Available as a dedicated page at [sawce.app/spiciest-dish-in-columbus](https://sawce.app/spiciest-dish-in-columbus).

### Sawce Weekly
A weekly curated newsletter covering hot sauce industry news, new releases, awards, flavor science, and community happenings.

### Hot Sauce Features & Reviews
Individual reviews of craft hot sauces from makers like CaJohn's, Torchbearer, Bravado Spice, Hank Sauce, and many more.

### Categories
Blog posts are categorized including: Columbus, OH, Spiciest Dish, Reviews, Recipes, Growing Peppers, Hot Sauce News, and more.

## Recipes

49 original recipes spanning:
- **Hot Sauces**: Original recipes like Fartley Farms' award-winning sauces (e.g., Factory of Sadness, O Fartuna, Fartbreak Kid)
- **Dips & Sides**: Buffalo chicken dip, habanero queso, ghost pepper party mix
- **Main Dishes**: Spicy breakfast sandwiches, quick hot chicken, spicy mango chicken tacos
- **Seasonings**: Habanero jerk dry rub, spicy la kama seasoning, Korean ssamjang

Each recipe includes prep time, cook time, servings, difficulty level, ingredients, and step-by-step directions.

## Feeds

- [RSS](https://sawce.app/rss.xml): All blog posts

## Technical

- Built with Astro 5, deployed on Vercel
- Content is static (pre-rendered at build time)
- Blog and recipes use Astro Content Collections with Markdown