Smokin’ Ed’s – Pepper X Mustard Dill Hot Sauce

Smokin’ Ed Currie is both a giant and a rather polarizing figure in the hot pepper world. Whether you love him or hate him, he does know his marketing well, and holds claim to the two most recent ‘hottest pepper in the world’ records with the Carolina Reaper followed by the current champion Pepper X. While the Carolina Reaper was made available as seeds for anyone who’d like to grow them and use them, Ed Currie has been playing Pepper X closer to his chest, with his sauce companies and collaborations with Heatonist being the only sauces that can use this pepper.

Speaking of sauce companies, from what I can tell Ed Currie has two, though I can’t tell exactly where the line is drawn between them. Some are branded as Smokin’ Ed’s sauces, some are branded as Puckerbutt sauces. This particular sauce is an example of the former, however they’re both owned, operated, and produced by the same man with the same peppers from the same farm.

I recently made a large order from the Puckerbutt website with their special Ed’s birthday discount promotion, but I realized when they’d arrived that I had a box of sauces from the company that had come in back in April that I hadn’t gotten around to yet. Since I love mustard sauces I decided to pop this one open for my first experience with Pepper X.

This is a very mustard forward sauce, and at times it straddles the line between a mustard based hot sauce and just a very spicy mustard. Something that I found interesting is that the character of the mustard flavor changes based on how much of the sauce you eat at a time. With just a small dab the mustard flavor is similar to a spicy brown mustard such as Gulden’s. If you eat a larger portion on your bite the mustard flavor is more similar to a Chinese or English mustard such as Colman’s – much more of the sinus clearing mustard elements.

Aside from the mustard flavor the Pepper X pepper makes itself known, and this sauce absolutely has a big kick, though it’s a few steps away from being a super-hot sauce. The flavor of Pepper X is hard to distinguish between the mustard and dill elements of the sauce, but I did detect a robust earthy note, it seemed to come across to me as closer to a Ghost Pepper in flavor rather than something more bright and astringent like a Carolina Reaper. This was very welcome to me, as while Carolina Reapers are known for amazing heat, few would put them at the top of the list for amazing flavor. Ed Currie seems to not have only developed a pepper hotter than the Carolina Reaper with Pepper X, but he’s made one that tastes better as well.

The final sauce element, the dill, is absolutely present, but thankfully isn’t overpowering, and since it plays nice with mustard flavors in general there’s a lot of harmony here.

I found this sauce is great on grilled meats and seafood. The mustard-dill combo is especially nice with salmon and pork, but I thought this sauce was great on ground beef tacos and a chicken and rice burrito as well.

One small complaint I do have isn’t related to the sauce itself, but in the labeling. With the generic ‘chili pepper’ listed there’s no clear indication of whether or not only Pepper X is used in this sauce or if it’s a blend of Pepper X and other types of peppers. I’m a big proponent of detailed and accurate labels.

If you love mustard hot sauces this is a must-get in my opinion. Not only do you get to taste a unique pepper, it’s a delicious sauce with a big mustard flavor and very nice heat.

Ingredients: Vinegar, Chili Pepper, Mustard Flour, Light Brown Sugar, Garlic, Xanthan Gum, Dill Weed

Heat Level: 6/10. This is above average heat, even for those with some tolerance, and with the mustard heat combined with the chile heat it packs a punch.