This sauce is made with only our custom hot pepper blend, apple cider vinegar, and sea salt. Aged in Widow Jane Rye barrels for a minimum of four years, the whiskey-soaked charred oak and long aging adds mellow smoky, vanilla undertones to the fruity hot pepper mix for the perfect blend of heat and flavor. This sauce has more complex flavors than our original sauce and makes for a wide variety of uses - try blending it with barbecue sauce or fruit chutney, spicing up your Bloody Mary mix, or adding to melted butter and brushing it on your grilled chicken or fish.
Sam’s Serious Hot Sauce had its debut decades ago at the Waterfront Ale House in NYC, where it was awarded the Best Hot Sauce by the NY Press. Used in several menu items and generously poured over dishes by devoted customers, it’s made from a handpicked pepper blend of chocolate habaneros, Thai bird chilis, Poblano, serrano, jalapeno, bishop’s crown, and many more - grown exclusively on Eckerton Hill Farm, PA. We then mellow it out with tomatoes, carrots, garlic, vinegar & salt. Lots of heat with lots of flavor! A must have addition to any hotheads collection
Sam’s Serious Gun Powder is the same blend of hot chili peppers as our sauce. The peppers are washed and sorted by size, then put in the smoker over fruit wood to dry. There is absolutely nothing, but a pure pulverized pepper blend. No salt, spices, flavorings…..the peppers say it all!! This is an extremely versatile product that can be used to add the heat in your favorite dishes, but please be careful, it will sneak up on you. Please start off with a pinch …..you can always add more
Sam Barbieri
Keep an eye out for more sauces to come in the future.
Sam Barbieri always loved to cook. As a young boy, when his friends were collecting baseball cards, he would collect menus from his favorite restaurants and hang them on his bedroom wall. He started in the food industry upon graduating high school – his father and him opened a family deli and catering business. He later went to the renowned Culinary Institute of America to hone his skills and after graduation, went on to hold various management positions in both the dining room and kitchen.
In 1989, Sam opened the Waterfront Ale House in Brooklyn as a cutting-edge craft beer bar with elevated pub fare. It quickly became a neighborhood staple and grew to two more locations.
Back in 1995, Tim Stark (today a superstar farmer whose heirloom tomatoes and peppers are famous at Union Square market) asked Sam if he could sell his peppers in front of the bar at the Atlantic Antic – New York’s greatest street fair. Sam was always a “hot head” and loved spicy foods so, he proposed purchasing Tim’s entire pepper portfolio – including chocolate habaneros, Thai chilis, bird peppers, poblanos, and more – to make a hot sauce to serve at the bar and use in customer-favorites such as the legendary spicy chicken wings.