I Swear I'm Not A Drug Dealer: Making A Living Selling Spice

Or take true cinnamon, also called Ceylon cinnamon. It's sweeter and makes for better baking, which makes it a must-have for high-end bakeries and Mexican chefs, but you've probably never heard of it because it's not grown at the same scale as Chinese cinnamon (the kind you get in the supermarket). Grocery stores don't bother with these rare spices, due to the cost difference and limits on mass marketing. Think a grass-fed ground Angus burger versus a Big Mac -- everybody knows the former is better, but McDonald's moves a lot more of the latter.

But it's not all for people who wear ascots and refer to themselves as "gourmands." One of my colleagues in New York fields big tamarind orders from Buddhist groups, and he never knew why. One day he asked, and it turns out they use it to polish statues the old-fashioned way. There's also camphor, which makes smokeless gunpowder -- historic ammunition makers still ask for it, in order to make authentic duplicates. At least, that's what you assume when a guy dressed like a redcoat runs into your shop rattling a musket. It's probably best not to ask him too many questions.

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That's not to harp on Indonesia -- I've been to similar markets in India, Turkey, and Brazil. Plus, no matter how good your system is, some tainted spices will get through. According to the FDA, 12 percent of all spices have dirt, feces, or something equally disturbing in them. In many places, spices are dried outside, where birds and mice eat them, poop on them, and probably hump atop them. That's one reason customers buy from someone like me -- actually being there means I can vouch for the quality of the spice. I finally did find a seller near Jakarta, one whose family had owned spice farms for several generations. They invited me over and showed me everything was on the up and up. So that's where I go, rather than the rat orgy.

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I've been doing this for years, so most of the customs workers know me. As long as I have the paperwork and everything checks out, I'm all set. But that trust was hard-earned. I made some rookie mistakes on my first bulk order. Instead of saying I was a spice importer, I said I was a spice dealer. Sounds way cooler, right? Really grabs attention. Yeah, yours and the customs officials. Indonesian suppliers grind their nutmeg, so my shipment was all powder. Fun fact: Ground nutmeg is a shade of brown remarkably similar to some kinds of heroin. They brought in the dogs.

After their furry friends detected nothing but fond Thanksgiving memories, the officials asked, "Does anyone know what nutmeg tastes like?" The poor souls. Pity their bland and flavorless pumpkin pies. They wound up calling my customers -- a chef, a local spice company, a small store -- before finally letting me go. But if I had screwed up a single line on that paperwork, I could've endured several hours of getting-to-know-you searches while the local nutmeg expert drove over. Which would take a while, seeing as how he doesn't exist.

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Saffron goes for more than $1,500 a pound, making it literally worth more than its weight in gold. That's because it's a bitch to grow. It only thrives on a scalable level in a few countries -- Spain, Italy, Turkey, Iran, and India -- because it needs such precise climate conditions. Most of the world's saffron is grown in Iran, which you may recognize as basically the country that America restricts trading with. They do make a partial exception in the case of saffron, because Axis of Evil be damned, we're not sacrificing Masala Monday.

There's no buying in bulk, because saffron's sky-high demand is matched only by its ludicrously low supply. Even in the best-case scenario, farms only harvest a tiny amount of the crop. Those little red tendrils come two per flower, and that's it. You need 250,000 flowers for an ounce of saffron. If you're ordering saffron for your restaurant, you'd better know precisely how much you need. Much like the big spice companies, I only sell Saffron 1/20th of an ounce at a time.

It's simply not the kind of thing you stock up on, unless you're an eccentric billionaire or a doomsday prepper who can't live without a good paella.

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Meanwhile, other spices have become so expensive that India, a top producer, has a huge smuggling problem. For example, smuggled Iranian saffron is far cheaper than the legal stuff, so the Indian mafia runs a Saffron ring so expansive that police arrest three smugglers a day, on average. Mules cross the border any way they can, and because the return on investment is so high, they're about as expendable as a stormtrooper wearing a red shirt. So in a way, the dumb jokes that kicked off this article weren't entirely wrong. People do still die for spices.

Evan V. Symon is a personal experience team member and interview-finder guy at Cracked. Have an awesome experience you want to share with us? Hit up the tip lines at tips@cracked.com!

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