Written by Jak Jeckel Pepper Sauce Owner Aaron

We love food, hot sauce and beer, it’s that simple. Taking a look around the vast world of hot sauce we could never quite find the flavor and heat level that we were happy with so we began experimenting with different homemade recipes just to satisfy our own tastes. Personally we were never big fans of vinegar and salt recipes, or sauces that destroyed taste buds before we could actually taste the food itself.  So this led to two guys, who have absolutely no culinary experience whatsoever throwing a bunch of ingredients that we liked into a blender for over a year. 

In 2011 a medium heat non-vinegar chipotle sauce arose from the ashes of countless broken down blenders, bullets and juicers. Now, we could go into the cliché of how everyone who liked it loved it, and everyone pushed us to try and sell it, but the truth is that we basically just took a look around the market and really didn’t find any brands that offered a non-vinegar based sauce, and in 2012 Jak Jeckel Gourmet pepper Sauce was born.

Jak Jackel Pepper Sauce and Our Most Popular Sauce

Jak Jeckel Pepper Sauce is a gourmet pepper sauce manufacturer based in the foodie city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Co-owners Aaron Mulka and Christopher Bower started the company in 2012 with the sole purpose of creating rich, flavorful, complex gourmet pepper sauces, working with the belief of FLAVOR FIRST rather than blistering heat.  

Our sauces are developed to enhance a foods flavor profile and give greater depth to your favorite dishes as well as push past the norm with our non-vinegar approach. We still consider ourselves a “small Batch” company making around 10,000 bottles a year, which we are looking to eclipse in 2016.  We make, bottle, label & distribute everything ourselves out of a commercial kitchen in Bucks County, PA; as well as create all our own graphics, labels and marketing.

We have also created a program that helps military personnel stationed away from home and overseas, get a little taste from home. Our Hot Sauce From Home program is designed to give family and friends the ability to send our products anywhere in the world and we cover 100% of the shipping, whether that be to an individual or a whole company we have sent our sauces to Afghanistan, Japan, Italy, Korea and all over the United States to military addresses.

By far our most popular sauce is our Gourmet Pepper Sauce which was our original flagship flavor but we could never overlook the “step children” because our Winter Cinnamon, Detroit Style Coney Sauce and Red Gram’s spicy butterscotch mustard are quickly becoming favorites and hot sellers.

Our Interesting Findings About the Industry

One thing that we found amazing about the hot sauce industry, it is like a little family, industry wide. We couldn’t believe how friendly everyone is and how fun the events are. Formally being a part of the craft beer industry, we quickly noticed the same traits the hot sauce community had in common with the craft beer industry, this is one of the biggest reasons we keep doing what we’re doing!