Brown Label - Ridiculously Tasty Mustard Chipotle Hot Sauce 5 OZ

Lucky Dog Hot Sauce's Brown Label is ridiculously tasty!

A unique style of medium heat chipotle sauce, with the rich notes of Meco chipotle and a dynamic balance between mustard, chipotle and cumin. Bartlett pear juice and figs add very subtle sweetness, while the creeping heat of the scotch bonnet chile builds in heat in a slow & sneaky way.   

While this sauce is especially compatible with steak, chicken or pork, it is subtle enough to enjoy on tuna sashimi or with sourdough bread & goat cheese, yet bold enough to use as a taco sauce or on ham & eggs, or pizza or burgers or just about any Mexican food.   

  

 The Story Behind The Sauce

I once swore that I would "never, ever make a chipotle sauce". Not because I don't like chipotle - more because I didn't think there was anything interesting or unique that I could bring to the table. Chipotle is such a dominant flavor, and the profile of the ubiquitous Morita Chipotle is not my favorite.  

Fast forward to 2015, when my friend & customer John at Oaktown Spice Shop on Grand Ave, Oakland asked, "so when are you going to make a chipotle sauce? My customers keep asking for a Lucky Dog Chipotle!"  My response was something like, "probably never?" - John pressed, asking if I'd tried the Meco Chipotle - I hadn't. He gave me a small bag of golden brown, very dry and richly aromatic chipotle peppers. I immediately fell in love with that aroma - it was deeper and smokier than the Moritas I'd previously played with. When I tasted a little, it struck me as a deeper flavor as well. Not as characteristically sweet as the Morita, and a more luxurious smoky flavor, likely from being smoked twice as long. 

Inspired, I started looking around the spice shop for other ingredients - a great place to be when inspiration strikes! I thought mustard might be a nice balance, and cumin seemed like a slam dunk if I wanted to make a more classic Latin-profile sauce and avoid the "one-note" chipotle experience. I'd been contemplating a Scotch Bonnet pepper sauce, and this seemed like an uniquely interesting vehicle for one. 

So I brought home my bounty and started prototyping that day. The final recipe is about 7 batches removed from the 1st, but unlike other sauces, I probably could have sold the 1st batch - it was rich, flavorful and it made a heck of a taco sauce! The rest of the prototyping was more about making subtle tweaks to hone in the profile and balance the sauce. The roasted garlic, and the subtle sweetness from pear & fig help to temper the acidity of the mustard flour, allowing the Scotch Bonnet peppers to shine, while the toasted onion & coriander lend subtle notes to the overall profile.  My favorite quality to this sauce is how sublimely versatile it is - it excels as a taco sauce, but on a brat or pastrami sandwich the mustard notes open up. When used on pizza or eggs, it almost has a Louisiana-style quality as the brightness emerges.

When prototyping the final batch, I poured a little into a ramekin to cool. When I tasted it, I exclaimed to no one in particular, "that is ridiculously tasty!"  - it stuck, and that is now the description of this hot sauce. 

I'm very glad I backed off from my stance of never making a chipotle sauce - I believe I've created something quite unique, and customers & reviewers alike have had high praise for Brown Label.

~Scott Z.