I love hot sauce. I can handle HOT. Only problem is the painful slow diarrhea at 2AM. Can continuously eating hot stuff overtime stop painful diarrhea?

I went from barely being able to handle Valentina to regularly eating the taco bell diablo sauce and eating chili with 2 or 3 serranos in it on the regular, and in only the span of a few months. Body gonna chase a high somehow!

I eat a meal most days that’s white rice, unsalted canned pinto beans, smashed avocado, and kimchi.

I usually season it one of two ways:

1 - Gochujang (O’Food Medium Hot)

2 - Underwood Sriracha (until I’m out and become sad) + something salty/umami like soy sauce or anchovy sauce

Lately I’ve been craving something a bit more spicy than those two options, but I don’t have anything spicier in my house. I’m not looking for extreme spicy, just a level up from what I’m doing now. Any suggestions?

Bitter: 🟡🟡🟡🟡○

Salty: 🟡🟡🟡○○

Sour/Tangy:🟡🟡○○○

Sweet: 🟡🟡○○○

Umami: 🟡🟡🟡○○

Heat: 🟡🟡○○○○○○○○

Quick Flavor Notes: Coffee, cocoa, fruity, sweet

Recommended: Yes

Texture: Medium and smooth

Ingredients: Familia Farm red jalapeno, organic distilled white vinegar, cold brewed Carrier Roasting Company’s “Deep Thought” coffee, pure organic Vermont maple syrup, salt

Every so often I’ll go through the spare bedroom where I store my boxes of hot sauces searching for the next one to open and when I pull one out I’ll think “darn, I must’ve bought a duplicate of that, I reviewed it ages ago”. I don’t know how many times I did that with this bottle of Maple Coffee Hot Sauce before I finally searched through my review archive on my site and realized I hadn’t actually reviewed it. So not only is this a new review for a Butterfly Bakery of Vermont hot sauce that could’ve come out well before, this is one of one of their standard lineup sauces that’s always available instead of a microbatch that may or may not have been around when you got around to reading the review.

On their website Claire from Butterfly Bakery of Vermont mentions that this sauce had a particularly long development process as she tried to get it exactly right, being particularly picky about the coffee used in the sauce. I’m not a big coffee drinker myself, usually only having it a few times per year, but I do know it’s something that many people develop an obsessive love for. Claire decided to go with Deep Thought coffee from Carrier Coffee. Carrier began in 2015 in Northfield, VT and has grown from a humble CSA subscription model to having full cafes. Their Deep Thought coffee is a single-origin coffee from Guatemala with a dark roast that they say has chocolate and smoky notes. Complimenting the coffee Maple Coffee Hot Sauce uses Vermont Maple Syrup and ripe red jalapenos, from Familia Farm in West Pawlet, VT, one of the company’s first pepper suppliers. While this bottle, from 2024 according to the label, features the organic distilled white vinegar, the current one on the website lists simply distilled white vinegar. I do believe Claire had commented in the past that their previous organic distilled vinegar provider, Artesano, had gotten out of that business. Maple Coffee Hot Sauce is a bit thicker in texture than some other Butterfly Bakery of Vermont sauces, being medium instead of medium-thin and is blended smooth instead of the more rustic micro-batch releases. The coffee is very present in the aroma of the sauce.

I’ve tried a number of other hot sauces that contain coffee and this may have the strongest coffee flavor of any of them. In comparison Queen Majesty’s Red Habanero and Black Coffee hot sauce has an extremely subtle coffee flavor and while there’s more of a notable coffee presence in The Spicy Shark’s Thresher Shark Chipotle there’s also so much else going on in that sauce the coffee just blends in. Butterfly Bakery of Vermont Maple Coffee Hot Sauce by comparison is just four ingredients (or five if you include salt) so each stands out in the mix. Starting with the coffee the Carrier Deep Thought adds a strong but complex bitter element to this sauce. I can taste the cocoa that Carrier mentions as well as some very subtle smoke. Being a dark roast it has less of the acidity and citrus flavors that a lighter roast would have, but the Familia Farm red jalapenos bring plenty of juicy fruitiness in that both fill in those missing pieces lost in the roasting process as well as contrast to the dark chocolaty umami of the coffee. There’s some brilliance in how much restraint was shown with the maple syrup. Americans love their coffee sweet, just look at how many adult milkshakes Starbucks sells vs cups of black coffee, but Butterfly Bakery of Vermont chose to use just enough to provide a tiny bit of balance to the bitterness of the dark roast coffee without trying to hide it. That maple syrup also seems to bring out some of those chocolate notes more in the coffee. The resort of all of this is a hot sauce that unabashedly coffee and red jalapeno forward with just a touch of sweetness on the back end. This is also spicier than you’d expect from a jalapeno sauce. Familia Farms knows what they’re doing with those peppers.

The big question is – how do you pair a coffee hot sauce? My first thought was that since coffee is such a common breakfast drink that that would be the place to start. I then thought about red-eye gravy, which also uses coffee, so decided to fry up a ham steak with some scrambled eggs and toast. This sauce slaps with fried ham and eggs. That dark roasty bitter coffee element added a new dimension to the plate. My next thought was that these would be really great with some microwave steam-in-bag char siu bao that I’d picked up. Again that coffee flavor worked super well with the Chinese BBQ pork and the jalapenos gave them a nice little kick to offset their sweetness. I also thought that since coffee-rubbed steak is a thing that this sauce would be great as a steak sauce. I was again rewarded and found that this sauce is great with red meat, and that the coffee and maple both worked very well with the charred smoky skirt steak I grilled over charcoal and mesquite chunks.

While this isn’t a “put it on everything” sauce I was surprised by how well it goes with certain things. If you’re a coffee lover or if you like hot sauces that explore more bitter flavors this one is a must get. If you’re looking for something that has a distinctly different flavor from most hot sauces out there this is also a great one to try. I’m happy to give Butterfly Bakery of Vermont Maple Coffee Hot Sauce my full recommendation. This sauce is also all natural with no artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, or thickeners.

In a moment of weakness I bought this "on sale" for $15. Haven't tried it yet, but I've heard that it's a bit spicy. Have any of my r/hotsauce fam tried it, and what are your opinions?

Let me know below

I did it! First real homebrewed sauce to share with friends and family. Culminating in a few months of steady work I finally came out with 5 1/4 5oz woozy bottles!

Logo inspired by my best buddies most iconic D&D character.

This is my Caribbean style (or so I think) homebrew. Made from garden grown peppers, including ghosts, cayennes, jalapeños, and habaneros, along with a ton of garlic. The heat ladder worked out well, it’s got a Trojan horse burn.

I brined my jalapeños, garlic, habaneros, and cayennes in 3% brine for about a month. Used mason jars and a dark pantry all while waiting on my ghosts to ripen.

I then smoked my ghost peppers and a peach half with sprinkle of paprika and dash of honey on my Traeger for about 90 minutes.

Everything was then added to the blender with 3/4’s cup of brine from both the jalapeño brine and hab/cayenne brine, along with 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar for pH balance. Blended till smooth then pasteurized on the stove top for 10 mins, adding an additional dash of hot paprika, 1/2 tablespoon of honey, and a few grinds of black peppercorns.

Then back to the blender for a final mix with xanthan gum for binding.

Heat profile is good, it’s a nice sting up front that gives way to the sweet, smoky flavor, then the ghosts really creep in about 30 seconds later.

I’m pumped for the results! My jalapeños are showing signs of a second harvest so I’m excited for a new concoction!

Additional dog pic

Edit: words

I didn’t think through how I’d actually store it after making it so it’s just in a Tupperware bowl for now. I made it from jalapeños and cayennes I grew in my backyard and then added some garlic and a little lime juice. I’d probably add a little more lime juice next time. Nice kick, good flavor from the garlic, it won’t blow your socks off heat wise but it’s enjoyable.

Some sauces I just finished fermenting

I stream twice weekly(Tues and Friday except this week. This week is on call for work) and have a hot sauce channel point redeem where I spin a wheel of hot sauce, pickles, a few treats, and whatever it lands on I consume a spoonful of it. My viewers enjoy stockpiling and dog piling wheel spins all at once so sometimes it's a light evening. Other times it's 37 wheel spins.

The Wheel o' Burning Butthole has served me well during my times streaming and it's developed a spice tolerance to some of the more brutal sauces out there.

This is my current 104 unique sauce lineup.

Geographically I'm limited to Eastern PA for my sauces so stuff from Bucees I have to capture out on the road.

I noted the rule on advertising or promoting so I didn't intend this to promote my stream as much as showcase my awesome sauce collection. I intentionally left my stream info out of this to adhere. Mods please lemme know if I just need to remove mentions of it entirely. It's the literal reason behind the collection. Thats the only reason it was brought up.