Red Holland Chile Peppers, Monastic White Wine Vinegar, Maine Sea Salt & Filtered NYC Tap Water are simply all that go into the complex and spicy, fruit-forward, effervescent flavor that comes out. In August of 2008, I decided to take a hiatus from being a chef (having worked for Tom Colicchio for just under 5 years as well as other talented chefs in NYC) to stay home and take care of my then one
year old son. I decided to get back to roots, shopping religiously at the farmer’s market and using those ingredients to develop better, fresher tasting Indian food (my wife is ethnically Indian), a ton of Korean food with non-Korean ingredients, and pickles in all their forms. Being Korean, I have an affinity for pickles (in particular, the over 100 different varieties of kimchi and the process of lactic fermentation that makes them). Being a Texan, I also have an affinity for heat and spice. That’s when I happened upon some cherry peppers at the market and made my first batch of probiotic hot sauce. It was surprisingly good, but I never thought of producing it on a larger scale. It was something I did for myself and friends. The one difficult aspect about making my own hot sauce was finding enough peppers to quell the addiction to make more (yes, it's that good). There is only a small window of availability at the farmer’s markets in Brooklyn, if they have them at all. At the end of the summer of 2011, I found these smallish peppers that were shaped like chicken hearts and bought maybe a bit more than the stroller holding my then one year old daughter could carry. (Because who knew when they would be getting more?) These peppers had just the right amount of heat and fruitiness even if lacking a little in sweetness. After a month of lactic fermentation, I was onto something great. I bottled it up in small swing-top bottles, and the response from my friends was overwhelming. The first thing that they noticed was that when they opened the bottles and smelled it, their salivary glands would kick into overdrive. That’s the beauty of lactic fermentation, it’s probiotic so your body knows it’s good for you. Upon further research, I learned that the Rote Hinkelhatz (that’s Red Chicken Heart for you non-German speakers) Hot Pepper was indigenous to the local agricultural area (I live in Brooklyn) having been cultivated in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country for well over 150 years. However, these rare heirloom peppers had been placed on Slow Food’s US Ark of Taste “catalog of over 200 delicious foods in danger of extinction.” Now, don’t get me wrong! I’m not a crusader by any means, just a simple chef who wanted to make delicious hot sauce for his friends. But serendipity is not to be scoffed at and neither is my wife. In the April 23, 2012 issue of New York Magazine, there was a cover article on the wealth of artisanal food coming out of Brooklyn in recent years entitled, “Is Artisanal Brooklyn A Step Forward For Food Or A Sign Of The Apocalypse? And Does It Matter When The Stuff Tastes So Good?” In the middle of the article was a two-page photo spread of many of the people producing these products. The conversation with my wife went something like this:
Wife: You know some of these people, right? Wife: Out of all the products made by them, what don’t you see? Wife: YOUR HOT SAUCE! If you don’t get on this right now, someone else is going to do it, and you’re going to feel like an idiot! Who could argue with such persuasive reasoning? So, we decided to start this little company called Sunny Bang Private Label using only the best local ingredients we can get our hands on to bring this bottle of pure hot pepper pleasure to your table. I enlisted a farmer, a grand-old lady cut from the old cloth named Bernadine Barnum (“Please, just call me Bernie.”), to grow a plot of these Red Chicken Heart peppers for me. She has a small farm (Selah Farms) in Lincoln University, PA, where they raise the sweetest corn and the tastiest beef this side of the Appalachian Mountains. However, just before an already late harvest, Hurricane Sandy and the Nor’easter that immediately followed her devastated the crop. But the ball was already rolling on the company so I wasn’t about to be defeated by Mother Nature. I fell back on my Korean heritage and decided to use a pepper prevalent in Korean cuisine, the Red Holland chile pepper. It was perfect! The heat and the fruitiness were still there as was the sweetness I had been missing. SBPL had found its pepper! The sea salt I use to help form the environment conducive to the growth of lactic bacteria is from the Maine Sea Salt Company, which is “the first salt works in Maine in over 200 years”. They make their “sea salt naturally, through the evaporation and reduction of seawater in solar greenhouses and shallow pools.” The hint of white wine vinegar to enrich the flavor of the sauce is produced by Brother Victor at Our Lady of the Resurrection Monastery in upstate NY. His artisanal vinegars are based on a monastic recipe from the Middle Ages which utilizes “a slow boiling process with a mixture of fruits, herbs, and a variety of spices” left to stand for 24 hours then fermented with a mother for “8 to 12 months minimum so that each vinegar may develop its own flavor.” These ingredients and filtered New York tap water (some of the best tasting water in the USA) are all that go into this: a probiotic hot sauce that helps replenish the gut flora of beneficial bacteria in your stomach to aid digestion and stimulate better health. Raw, additive and preservative-free, gluten-free and vegan with a fruit-forward complex flavor, heat and health benefits...what more could you want from your hot sauce? Besides, how cool is it that the vinegar in the hot sauce is made by a Benedictine monk?!?
