Small business, Small Batches
Horrifying Hot Sauce is a one man band, the absolute smallest of businesses there ever could be! When you support HHS you are literally supporting my family, so thank you!
Fermentation, an artful science
Ryan starts with fresh (and frozen) peppers, vegetables, and fruits, gives them a rough chop, and places them in a brine solution. Then Ryan gives them time to mature, and over the next few weeks the naturally occurring Lactobacillus will break down the mash, giving a depth of flavor you can't get without fermenting. Then Ryan takes the fermented mash in addition to the brine it fermented in, adds additional fresh ingredients and vinegar, blends it up, cooks it, and bottles. Our sauces are pasteurized, so they are shelf and bottle stable, and will stay good (without contamination) for a very long time.
Why are the sauces fermented?
BECAUSE THEY TASTE BETTER.
From Harvard: "In addition to helping food last longer, fermentation also enhances the taste of foods, giving them added complexity. Plus, the fermentation process works other forms of magic on foods, changing them and adding nutrients. For example, by eating fermented vegetables, vegetarians can get vitamin B12, which otherwise isn't present in plant foods, says Dr. Ludwig." (Fermented foods can add depth to your diet).
Hand made
Each batch is hand cut, each pepper individually inspected, and each bottle filled all by hand. Ryan purchases the produce and processes it into your final product all by hand.
Introducing the Manzaño Pepper
Most of HHS' sauces include at least a little bit of South America's Manzaño pepper (and in MoMo's case, exclusively) in the mix. This pepper family is unlike most the peppers you've tried, as they grow in colder climates, with naturally black seeds, and a healthy dose of dihydrocapsaicin. "While other chili varieties are dominated with up to 80 % by capsaicin, C. pubescens (Manzaño's family) has an almost equally high concentration of dihydrocapsaicin." (Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsicum_pubescens) This cousin to capsaicin seems to hit people different than the regular stuff - for some it's mild, for some not so much! And the flavor is unlike any other.
Original artwork, celebrating horror
Ryan grew up with a love of movies, especially horror. So much that he now tries to make his own, like There's Something Inhuman in the Woods (look for INHUMAN sauce at the premiere!) But he also grew up loving to draw, and now puts those two passions together with original art paying tribute to (mostly) horror films, both big and small.
Collaborations
With a background writing reviews for low-budget movies and craft beer, Ryan has built a network of other artists and creators to collaborate with, and has made specialty sauces for films such as The Stink of Flesh (available in the store now!)and Three Tears on Bloodstained Flesh, and in collaboration with breweries like Weathered Souls and Monolith Brewing (available now!).
Experience
Ryan began his adventure in fermenting as a home brewer of beer, after receiving his first kit for Christmas in 2008. He brewed beer for years, and was working to open a brewpub in San Antonio, Texas. Now here in Denver, he is continuing to work on a horror themed brewery to pair with HHS.
He began fermenting hot sauce in 2018, and all of the recipes for sale have gone through extensive iteration and adjustment to fine tune them to become the colors and flavors available today.