- A hobby that started during the pandemic has turned into a moneymaking business for a Mesquite man who has a Texas-sized love of hot sauce. As photojournalist Sal Rios shows us, most of his ingredients come right from his own backyard.

COLE MOULTON: So I make small batch, handcrafted hot sauces. This is the Carolina Reaper. This used to be the hottest pepper in the world up until recently. I like to grow my own stuff, just because I know exactly what's going on with all my stuff. When it comes to the super hot peppers, they're a little bit harder to source and they're a lot more seasonal.

Once the fermentation process is done, the sauce can come together pretty quickly. That's been fermenting almost for 30 days. I think what makes a good hot sauce is something that has a bit of heat, but doesn't overpower what you're eating. The consistency is a little bit thicker than your typical hot sauce. Mm. That one's real good. You get real smokey chipotle right upfront. All the other spices, smoked spices kind of come in and then kind of finishes on that kind of peachy, slight peachy hint.

So next up, we got the Mad Cow. I like to refer to it as a great everything sauce. But essentially, this is the ghost pepper and garlic ferment with some Texas sweet onions, some chipotles and adobo, red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar. And this is one is super hot, so bear with me here.

And now it's starting to heat up a little bit. We're in the process of moving to a commercial kitchen, where we're going to be able to produce bigger and bigger batches of hot sauce on a more regular basis. You know, I essentially am doing what I do because I love it. And I want to essentially be the go-to hot sauce company here in Dallas.

- It's pretty cool. If you would like to try the hot sauce, you can head to the Mesquite farmers' market this weekend.