Chile
Pepper Festival 2014 Part-1
Brooklyn Botanic
Garden, Cherry Esplanade
Saturday, September
27, 2014
For the end of September, today felt like summer weather! It
was in the 80s, sunny, low humidity and perfect weather to be at the Brooklyn
Botanic Garden for the annual Chile
Pepper Festival. This festival is a wonderful time amid the lavish surroundings
of the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden. We spent the entire day here and sampled
lots of hot sauces, both mild and hot, spicy chocolates, spicy caramel sauces,
horseradish, pickled beets, pickles, spicy ketchup, and more… It was great seeing hot
sauce artisan friends like Jon Bratton from NYC Hot Sauce Company, Johnny
McLaughlin from Heartbreaking Dawns, Kenya Chasten from Guyank Sweet-Hot Pepper
Sauce, and Vid Lynch from Torchbearer Sauces. We met new companies this year as
well: Homesweet Homegrown Hot Sauces, Queen Majesty Hot Sauce, and Apinya Thai
Food Co. We tasted as much as we could handle and photographed many of the events
vendors.
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| Various Peppers |
As you enter the Chile Pepper Festival, you arrive at the
Chile Pepper Farm Stand featuring the following farms: Eagle Street Rooftop
Farm (Brooklyn), East New York Farms! (Brooklyn),
Hepworth Farms (Milton, NY),
Homesweet Homegrown Pepper Field (Kutztown, PA) and North Brooklyn
Farms.
Chocolate Debauchery
14 chocolate companies featured their fine goods and samples
of spicy chocolates. I sampled about 10 different chocolates and some had a
serious kick of spice, and I enjoyed every bite.
 |
| Chocolate Debauchery |
I ended up buying 3 chocolate
bars (see photo): Caramel with Salted Peanuts Milk Chocolate from JoMart
Chocolates, Dark Chocolate & Soft Caramel 53% Cacao from Nunu Chocolates
and Peanut Butter Pit Bull Rescue Chocolate.
 |
| Yummy chocolate |
Heartbreaking Dawns
It is always great to see my good friend Johnny from
Heartbreaking Dawns Hot Sauce. Johnny is one of the first local hot sauces we used when we began experimenting with hot sauces on
our blog. HBD’s Sauces are a great asset
to our blog pantry for all our cooking and condiment needs. Johnny’s recipes are hot, yet he keeps flavor at the top of his list. We discussed briefly how Fervor, his Reaper Pepper sauce was doing as this is a flavorful yet high heat hot
sauce. A lot of folks make reaper pepper sauce but cannot get the flavors right. Heartbreaking Dawns hit the nail on the head with Fervor. Johnny was very busy and his booth
was active with many tasters and customers. Johnny informed me they are making
the hot chili pepper cookies this season and to check his website for more
information. Heartbreaking Dawns is one of our blog favorites for wings and to add zing to our recipes.
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| Chef Johnny of Heartbreaking Dawns and Allen - Two Frys |
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| Heartbreaking Dawns Super Hots |
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| Heartbreaking Dawns Originals |
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| Heartbreaking Dawns Box Sets |
NYC Hot Sauce Company
My friend Jon Bratton makes NYC Hot Sauce. It is
the only sauce that is actually 100% made in NYC. The full spectrum of
production, pepper raising, and bottling are done in NYC. NYC Hot Sauce does
not use a co-packer for their excellent Habanero Table Hot Sauce, and Jon and I
spoke briefly about this. He had a long line and a ton of tasters for his
product line. Jon sold out of his great Habanero Grilling Salt at the festival. The
grilling salt is made from a dried or dehydrated Habanero mash from the hot
sauce ingredients. It was nice to see him working alongside his family, as
NYC Hot Sauce is a family owned company. They had on display many fresh
Habaneros they grew on a Brooklyn rooftop garden.
These were some of the largest and hearty Habaneros we saw today. They are great
people producing fine quality sauce and grilling salt and highly recommended by Two Frys.
It is always fun to run into my friend Kenya Chasten of
Guyank Brand. I have known Kenya and his family for a few years now, and use their
Guyank Sweet-Hot Pepper Sauce regularly on my food. I have also purchased and
sent a few bottles as prizes for the blog over the past 2 years. In doing this
a few times, I got some great feedback from different states like California
and Oklahoma. Kenya
and family also make some other tasty products like a rub and a BBQ Style
sauce. Guyank is a local Brooklyn based family run company. Kenya
treated me to a taster of his Sweet Hot 10 month old aged hot sauce. It was
like tasting the fine wine of local pepper sauces.
 |
| Kenya Chasten of Guyank Brand |
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| Guyank Brand, one of my local favorites |
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| Kenya of Guyank bagging up the customers sauces |
Torchbearer Sauces
I stopped by the Torchbearer table and it was swamped and
spoke briefly to Vid Lynch. Torchbearer is the maker of the extremely hot Zombie Apocalypse Hot
Sauce, along with their other extreme Rapture Hot Sauce. I got a
good deal on sauces from them today. Torchbearer were selling 3 bottles for $20.00 on the regular sauces, and I purchased
some sauces for review on the blog. I did not have the newer Horseradish
product, Smokey Horseradish Sauce so I choose one of those. I am a big
Horseradish fan and also picked up a Torchbearer Spicy Horseradish Mustard. The
other item I bought is one I regularly buy when I see them at an event called, Oh My Garlic as this is one of my favorite sauces. Torchbearer is a PA based company that we really like and they make some sauces that are not too extreme for my heat intolerant friends. The selection of sauces range from smoky, sweet,
medium heat and extreme hot and BBQ sauces.
 |
| Torchbearers Famous Zombie Apocalypse and Rapture Extreme Sauces |
 |
| Some of Torchbearers many BBQ and dipping style sauces |
Caramel is one of my most favorite things in the world. I tried
Spoonable’s Butterscotch Sauce and loved it. We bought 2, 1.25 oz Caramels – Salty
Caramel and Spicy Chili Caramel. We plan on concocting a recipe using the Spicy
Chili Caramel on pork.
 |
| Spoonable - Pepper Infused Caramel |
Holy Schmitt's Homemade Horseradish
I got a serious kick from the horseradish sample I was
given. Wow, (holy sh**) Schmitt’s was heavenly and hot. We cannot wait to use
it as a spread for sandwiches and burgers, yum! I was surprised at the size of
the sample of Horseradish Sophia boldly ate at the Holy Schmitt’s Booth. I was
impressed how she handled the heat so well. They sell several flavors, but we bought the
original.
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| Holy Schmitt's Homemade Horseradish |
I am a ketchup fanatic and fell in love with the
yumminess and spicy kick from Sir Kensington’s Spiced Ketchup. The spice comes
from jalapeños and I am so glad I bought one because ketchup makes me happy. We
plan on ordering the Mayo in the future from them.
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| Sir Kensington’s |
With the beaming sun, we each reveled in eating a Sour Puss
Pickle. To our delight, it was so juicy, sour and crisp. Allen says this is the
freshest tasting pickle he has ever had. Aw, so satisfying!
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| Sour Puss Pickles |
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| Sour Puss Pickled goods |
It was great to meet a new hot sauce company at this festival. The sample of Queen Majesty Jalapeño Tequila & Lime Hot Sauce was
perfection, and I cannot wait to make some fish tacos and some hot wings.
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| Queen Majesty Hot Sauce Booth |
Homesweet Homegrown Hot Sauces
I think the hot weather was getting to me since I called The
Aramingo Pineapple Mango Homegrown Hot Sauce, Flamingo when I asked try a
sample. It was a good laugh. This sweet/low heat sauce is so good and fresh tasting from the lemondrop chilis, habanero peppers, carrots, pineapple and mango and the other ingredients. It was very nice to meet Robyn
Jasko from Homesweet Homegrown. Homesweet have several varieties of hot sauces and Robyn has written
a cookbook that looks great and informative. We plan on eventually purchasing
the cookbook for review on the blog.
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| Homesweet Homegrown |
Apinya was a company we never heard of before so it was great to meet them. Apinya offer an impressive
line of hot sauces with a Thai twist. We did a few tastings and purchased Apinya's Thai Chile Sauce to use as a condiment on rice dishes and Asian cuisine.
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| Apinya Thai Food Co. sauces |
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