"I’ve always loved to cook," says Joe Stewart, owner of Dat’s Nice Hot Sauce. "The Datil peppers fascinated me because they were spicy hot with a sweet tang!”  

After a few years of struggling to find the best way to incorporate the delicious Datil peppers into his life, Joe began a journey when he started growing his own Datil pepper plants in his backyard in St. Augustine, Florida. After harvesting his first batch of Datil peppers, his first idea was to make some of his favorite foods using the peppers, just to see how they spiced up a meal. It didn’t take long before his old recipes became family favorites. 

After encouragement from family and friends to try his hand at Datil pepper hot sauce, Joe went all-in! He bought all the necessary ingredients and began blending them up in his kitchen. By 2010, Joe had his sauce in bottles and was shipping them around the country.

Read more about Dat's Nice by reading their craft hot sauce storyhere! 

If you aren't familiar with the Datil pepper, we did a feature on the pepper here:The Datil Pepper, St. Augustine's Treasured Pepper.