You Might Enjoy: The Best Idea Yet
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Let me ask you a trivia question. Which iconic hot sauce was launched by a Vietnam War refugee who smuggled gold into the United States inside cans of condensed milk? Was it A. Frank's Red Hot, B. Cholula, C. Tabasco, or D. Sriracha? The correct answer is D. Sriracha. David Tran fled Vietnam with no visa, no money, and just $20,000 in gold bars hidden inside food cans.

He used it to build a hot sauce empire out of his van without spending a dime on advertising. Stories like this are what you're going to hear on The Best Idea Yet, a podcast that uncovers the surprising origins of the products we use every day. From Sriracha to the Super Soaker to Google Maps, they explore how these bold ideas went viral.

You're about to hear a clip from the Sriracha episode of The Best Idea Yet. You can hear the full story by following The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Our story starts in Soc Trang, South Vietnam, a province nestled in the lush Mekong Delta.

It's hot and dusty in the dry season and hot and wet in the rainy season. The year is 1970 and David Tran is 25 years old, the third eldest of nine kids. As a teenager in the 1960s, David worked a retail job along with his older brother selling chemicals in Saigon. But the Vietnam War, it was happening more or less in their backyard. So as the war escalated,

David went back home to Soc Trang to finish school and avoid getting dragged into the front lines. One night, David's trying to get some sleep. Suddenly, there's a loud knocking on the door. It's the military police. They've been going house to house looking for young men of draft age to join the South Vietnamese Army. And now, it's David's turn.

But in a way, David gets lucky because instead of heading to the front as a combatant, he actually gets the biggest break of his life because David is made a cook in the army. He's stationed mainly in Saigon, which is sheltered from battle for most of the war. At night, he can hear the bombs and the gunfire, but honestly, they seem pretty far away.

And by day, he gets to visit the markets to buy ingredients for the meals that he's serving. And those Saigon markets, they are bursting with aromas that, frankly, we could probably smell from this podcast studio. Jack, can I interest you in a little cilantro? Maybe some clove? A little cinnamon? Maybe a bit of star anise, Nick? Yeah, it's like the whole McCormick spice cabinet, Jack. Dave?

David serves as an army cook for five years. But then on April 30th, 1975, Saigon falls to the North Vietnamese army and suddenly the war is over. The US-backed capitalists in the South have lost. Now this sets a whole bunch of changes in motion. The communist government takes over, Saigon gets renamed to Ho Chi Minh City, and obviously people have big feelings about all of this. But for David, he's just relieved the war is over. ♪

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

This brother owns some farmland just northeast of the city, and guess what he grows there? Alfalfa! Tons of alfalfa! No, it's got to be chili peppers, right? It's chili peppers. It's chili peppers. David helps his brother farm the chilies and bring the crops to the market. But soon, they discover a problem most farmers face on the regular. Market volatility.

Market volatilities, yetis. During harvest season, your crop is everywhere and the price is super low. During scarce times, the price might be high, but you just don't have enough product. And it's exactly this situation that devastated American farms during the Great Depression.

And it's why the U.S. government has been paying farm subsidies to farmers since 1933. David and his brother don't have the option of subsidies, but they do have a different secret weapon. Interesting. Thanks to their time working in chemical retail, David knows how to use a couple basic food preservatives. Yes. Which means...

He can take their chilies and turn them into a shelf-stable, long-lasting sauce. It's like that scene in every movie, Jack, where like some random character's got a random town that suddenly saves the end of the day. Like, I think that's half the characters in Goonies. Yeah, they get past the booby traps because the girl can play the organ.

Yeah.

The business is so small, so young, so bare bones that they repurpose Gerber baby food jars left behind by American soldiers. I'm sorry, Jack. Pause the pod for a moment. David's first company relied on old, used, recycled baby food jars from G.I. Joe? That's what I'm saying. And the entire operation becomes a family affair. David's father-in-law washes the jars and David processes the peppers. And Jack, this may be my favorite visual of all, but once the sauce is made, David then delivers it by bicycle

to each of the markets throughout his neighborhood. You can hear the clink of the baby food jars while he's riding his bike over the potholes. Well, after three years in, David's small business is actually a modest success, even under communist rule. And if life had remained stable for David, we probably wouldn't be talking about it today. Good point. But then something happens that pushes David hard to make an unthinkable decision.

So even as David Tran and his family are building their modest hot sauce business, life in general is getting harder. David and his whole family are of Chinese origin. And though they've been living in Vietnam for generations, the new government is stoking anti-Chinese sentiment all across the country. For thousands and thousands.

thousands of Vietnamese people of Chinese descent, rations are now limited. The government starts seizing businesses and seizing assets and forcing people to work as farm laborers. It's horrible. David decides enough is enough. So in 1978, he's able to get his wife and kid and then her parents on the refugee boats taking people out of the country. Until finally, months later, it's time for David to join them. Wow.

It's December. Dusk is falling over Ho Chi Minh City. David shivers as he steps onto a soot-covered bus. Instinctively, he reaches into his pockets to guard his money. Only he's left all his currency behind.

Luckily, he has something more valuable hidden away in his luggage. Oh, and it's not a chili sauce recipe. More on that in a bit. The bus rumbles away from the city and towards the seaport. He and a handful of other passengers board a tiny little sailboat to escape the country. The small boat is how you get to a much, much bigger boat, a massive Taiwanese-owned freighter called the huifang, which means gathering prosperity.

But for the 3,000 people aboard the Huifang, prosperity seems really far away. The ship is crowded. There aren't enough bathrooms. The rough seas make passengers sick. Everyone is hungry and exhausted. And no one knows exactly where they'll be allowed to dock.

So on Christmas Eve, 1978, the Hui Fang arrives in Hong Kong, but authorities won't let them dock for almost a month. They're refugees in a boat with 3,000 people and they're just floating. Jack, I got annoyed at Delta the other day because we were taxing for like 13 minutes. And then finally, in mid-January, they're allowed to disembark. Wow. Together with thousands of shipmates,

They file into a refugee camp in a converted airport. And despite all the hardship, David is thankful. His wife and kid have made it to a different refugee camp in Indonesia, and David has one more thing going for him.

Now, yetis, you remember that Jack said a few minutes ago David couldn't take any money with him when he left the country, right, Jack? Yeah, it's true. Yeah. In fact, taking more than $10 out of Vietnam was prohibited by the Vietnamese government. But refugees were allowed to bring food. Interesting. So David brings a bunch of cans of condensed milk. But if some inspector were to crack open those cans...

they wouldn't find any dairy in there. Oh, what would they find in those little cans he hid away? $20,000 in gold. Yetis, for context, that's about $90,000 in today's money. And David has to sit on this treasure for the next eight months in the camp until he can be reunited with his family. Don't touch those condensed milk cans. This guy's a risk taker, but it's a calculated risk.

Let's hope it pays off. You just heard a clip from the Sriracha episode of The Best Idea Yet. To hear the full story, follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus. Start your free trial in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.