A SMALL DISCOVERY · THE KITCHEN
Love
Potion.
A five-gallon bourbon barrel, fermented peppers, a series of bottled sauces, and one batch that has been aging for almost four years.
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A condiment habit
I love condiments, and I like making them from scratch. I’ve made infused oils, different ketchups and mayonnaises, salsas, pickles, nut butters and plenty of hot sauces.
I like hot sauce with a lot of flavor. Heat is part of it, but I’m much more interested in what the peppers and other ingredients actually taste like.
The one I couldn’t buy
Years ago I heard about an artisan barrel-aged Sriracha and wanted to try it. It was sold out by the time I found it, and the maker wasn’t producing it anymore.
So I started thinking about making my own version, with a different recipe and a fermented base. Eventually I found the keystone of the endeavor, a used five-gallon bourbon barrel.
Love Potion No. 9
I tried several different fermented hot sauce creations that became bottled sauces I sold under the Awesometown Pepperworks name, in a series I called Love Potion.
One batch stayed in the barrel for twenty-one months. That became Love Potion No. 9.
It was good and had a very complex flavor. Something like a deeper and more complex Tabasco. Interestingly, It wasn’t my favorite sauce of the bunch, though.
The next batch
I have another batch aging in the barrel still. It’s been there almost four years. I haven’t opened it yet.
THE ARTIFACTS
Out of the barrel.
These are the actual photographs of the barrel and numbered sauces. The December 18, 2018 marking on the barrel is from the distillery, not the date the pepper sauce began aging.
The used five-gallon bourbon barrel I bought online.