Jorge and Irma Almazán's South Side house is easy to find this time of year, what with dozens of red chile ristras hanging from their carport and front yard, ready for transport.
Not that I need any reminders. Nostrils alone would have led me to the place.
For the last dozen years, the Almazáns have been selling ristras by the hundreds at Southern Arizona craft shows and on their Web site.
Web site? For a ristra maker? You'd better believe it.
"We also take Visa and MasterCard," says Jorge, who's turned his wife's hobby into a full-time job.
"I've always made things for the family for Christmas," says Irma, who's worked as a paralegal for the last 17 years. "One year I made garlic strings and chile wreaths."
Jorge took one look and said, "I'll bet you could sell them."
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The next year, she did just that, selling 40 red chile Christmas wreaths in less than a week's time to various offices in the complex where she worked.
That was enough to persuade the couple to set up their booth at the Fourth Avenue Street Fair the following year, their first juried show.
"First-comers never get in," says Jorge, who of course did. "We didn't even know how to put up a tent."
A "dry run" first at a craft show at Reid Park brought in $800 in one day. "It was a hell of a show," says Jorge, who figured they were onto something.
Continued success at the Fourth Avenue shindig confirmed it.
Since then, the couple have sold their wares everywhere from Patagonia to Phoenix, hauling them in an 8-by-20-foot trailer towed behind their Dodge diesel truck.
For a time, they even rolled out of state, as far as San Diego and Vegas.
"It was just too much work," says Irma, echoing a refrain she's sung to her husband more than once. The first came early on in their ristra-making "career."
"He was selling them faster than I could make them," says Irma. "I told him, 'Either you stop selling or help me.' "
And so Jorge also learned how to string and decorate the chiles, which are delivered every year to their house straight from farms in New Mexico.
"This year we are getting the chiles from Mesilla Valley because Hatch was flooded out," says Jorge. "They lost 80 percent of their crop."
The chiles are strung by their stems onto a wire about the thickness of a sturdy clothes hanger. Rejects are kept for cooking.
During the fall — prime season for assembly — as many as a half-dozen family members are pressed into stringing the ristras, which range from 3-inch party favors to the traditional 3-foot-long strings seen hanging from many a Tucson rafter.
Prices and products — all shown on their Web site — range from $8 for a 3-inch ristra to $55 for a chile wreath with raffia bow and corn husk flowers.
The Web site, up for the last few years, accounts for about 20 percent of their business, says Jorge, who monitors the site and does all the shipping and handling.
It's also how the Food Network discovered them a few years ago, says Jorge. "They came out with a camera crew, and we did a demo."
The piece, which concentrated on holiday wreaths, has aired four times, adds Irma.
Ristras can be bought plain or coated with apple wax for added luster. "You can cook those, too," says Jorge, who used to finish the decorative ristras with acrylic spray.
"We started feeling it was dangerous for us to be inhaling all those fumes," says Irma.
Right now, unadorned ristras with a topping of shredded corn husk seem to be the most popular, says Irma, who over the years has decorated her wares, particularly wreaths, with everything from Indian corn to yucca pods.
Garlic strings, however, seem to have fallen out of favor.
"When we started, it was half our business," says Irma, who used to store the garlic under her bed.
Today, says Jorge, garlic strings account for maybe 5 percent of their inventory, which numbers about 1,500 pieces a year.
The culprit: "Garlic lasts a long time," says Irma. "People get tired of it before it wears out."
Ristras, on the other hand, should be replaced, says Jorge, every two years or so. "They get old, the pods will bleach out and fall."
And as every good salesman knows, there's nothing like a guaranteed turnover.
● Jorge and Irma Almazán will sell their ristras at the Fourth Avenue Street Fair, Dec. 8-10. You can also contact them at their Web site, artesaniaalmazan.com, or call 889-1237.
