Inside Brooklyn’s hot sauce headquarters Heatonist, I met up with Noah Chaimberg and Tyler McKusick; the world’s first hot sauce sommeliers. If you haven’t already (and shame on you if not,) read about them here.
To all of you pain junkies who have a masochistic agenda just short of causing respiratory failure when choosing hot sauces, I have one lesson to share with you; taste is important! Small-batch companies are more readily able to experiment with atypical ingredients, and their risks are redefining how and when we use hot sauces… Like for breakfast and on pancakes!
Here are 5 of the craziest flavors the sommeliers had me taste:
Bravado Spice Co.- Ghost Pepper & Blueberry
An awesome well-balanced blend of freakishly hot ghost peppers and blueberries, but it’s neither too spicy or sweet. Also a great excuse to add hot sauce to your cocktail, a stack of pancakes, or lamb.
Queen Majesty- Red Habanero & Black Coffee
Queen Majesty is a Brooklyn,NY based brand. They ingeniously infuse black coffee into this sauce by cold brewing it with white vinegar and then using the vinegar to make the sauce. I picked up notes of coffee in the middle and end of my spoonful, but got a kick of habanero straight through.
Dawson’s Chocolate Chili Sauce
The union between chocolate and chili is not new, but the people at Dawson’s have created an effortlessly rich and decadent blend with just a hint of heat, you’ll want to smother this on ice cream, cakes, waffles, strawberries, girlfriends, boyfriends, strangers.
Torchbearer Sauces- The Rapture
The Rapture is pain junkie approved because of the sensory-impairing, mind numbing heat produced by 16 Trinidad scorpion peppers. This is the hottest sauce Heatonist currently carries. I quickly reached for a nearby squeeze bottle of mayonnaise to compromise the burn.
Sweet Heat Gourmet- Key Lime Pear Hot Sauce
Citrusy, spicy, refreshing. Simple as that.
