Hi there,
Happy Harvest Season! No lie, my left foot, and hands are still burning as I type this, 24 hours after chopping up some ghost peppers. In years past, I learned my lesson of being careful going to the bathroom after chopping peppers, but now I know flip flops aren’t suitable footwear for chile chopping!
Some of my friends and family members spent the last two gorgeous New England Sundays outdoors washing, chopping, and then freezing a few hundred pounds of peppers for Craic Sauce production over the next year. I shared some pictures below if you’re interested in seeing some images from a hot sauce start-up in the busy month of September!
All over the world, different variations of chiles are ripening and being enjoyed (or even worshiped in the case of the hatch chile). The hatch chile is a special pepper in the Southwest that is sweet and smoky, with a slight grassiness that makes it taste like it’s freshly picked. In New Mexico, you can find hatch chile in everything from ice cream to sushi to beer as thisbon appétit article points out.
One of these companies that worships the hatch chile is Portland-basedLos Roast that makes a roasted hatch chile hot sauce. Their owner, who hails from New Mexico, drives the hatch chiles up to Portland and roasts them on these rad roasting vehicles that I wanted to share with you. The only question you need to answer is... Red or Green!
I was able to meet a few other sauce makers this month from Scotland (Tom’s Curious Sauces), Durham, NC (Julz Creations), and two SoCal companies (Mago Sauce and Gringo Bandito) whose sauces will be included in our Craft Hot Sauce Club Box.
Mago makes a great suite of sauces that range from a flavorful ghost sauce, green Thai pepper sauce, and their flagship sauce, which is a red sauce that blends roasted habs, Fresno chili, garlic, onion, vinegar, and salt. You can read about Mago below and try their sauces in our Craft Hot Sauce Club this month!
Another SoCal hot sauce company that has a great combination of flavorful sauces is Gringo Bandito. I first tried their sauces three years ago at Kitchen Café in Boston, and since then I’ve been searching for their sauces. What I didn’t know, however, was that the person behind the company was also the lead singer of one of my favorite bands growing up in the ’90s, The Offspring. Yup, that’s right, Dexter from the Offspring is behind Gringo, and he even wrote a Craft Hot Sauce Profile for you.
Try these amazing sauces and get the stories in our Craft Hot Sauce Club! We provide a discount for the subscription option which allows you to adjust how often you receive boxes. You can also order them one time if you want to try a few sauces!
Keep me posted on what you’re up to and what you’d be interested in reading more about, but in the meantime, check out some of the articles and stories below!
Clark from Mago Hot Sauce in Laguna Beach, California shares more about the SoCal hot sauce scene and gives advice for aspiring hot sauce makers.
Interested in trying new sauces like Mago Hot Sauce and other small-batch hot sauces? Check out the Craft Hot Sauce Club!
Gringo Bandito has been a must-have craft hot sauce in my fridge since I first tried it. Read more about their founding story straight from founder Dexter Holland of the Offspring!
Julie shares more about how she started her own hot sauce company and went through the processes to sell her hot sauces commercially. It was great learning about the Durham, NC small business community!
"For me, hot sauces weren’t really a thing growing up in Scotland (outside of the occasional dusty bottle of Tabasco left at the back of a cupboard). It was only when another local hot sauce maker called The Glasgow Chilli Guy started making his wonderful sauce Megadeth did I realize just how tasty they could be."
Pictures from a fun busy month starting the pepper harvest, our first Fall Mill No 5 Market, going to Chilifest in Sunderland, selling out for the first time at Lowell Irish Fest, and cutting a shit load of peppers with friends in beautiful weather!
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