Alchemy Peppers – Guava + Ghost Pepper Hopp Sauce
Bitter: 🟡🟡🟡○○
Salty: 🟡○○○○
Sour/Tangy:🟡🟡○○○
Sweet: 🟡🟡🟡○○
Umami: 🟡🟡○○○
Heat: 🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡○○○○○
Quick Flavor Notes: Funky, Dank, Sweet, Earthy, Smoky, Bitter
Recommended: Yes
Texture: Medium-thick and smooth
Ingredients: Guava Puree, Red Bell Pepper, Agave, Ghost Pepper, Passion Fruit Puree, Pineapple Juice Concentrate, Citric Acid, Garlic, Salt, Apple Pectin, Hops.
Alchemy Peppers is the brainchild of George Altshuler and John Lamppa both from Boston, MA. The genesis for the sauce came from when Altshuler began to experiment with chile peppers while working in a restaurant focusing on molecular gastronomy and became enraptured with the idea of the different things you could do with chile peppers. Lamppa, an avid craft beer advocate, brought up the idea of making a hot sauce that followed the same ethos of craft beer – to be creative, adventurous, but also delicious. The idea developed into using hops in the actual hot sauces as they share many flavor elements with chile peppers and Alchemy Peppers Hopp Sauces were born. I’ve previously reviewed one of their sauces, their Jalapeno Peppers + Citra Hops Hopp Sauce and felt that it missed the mark, so I was hoping this one would be a redemption.
Guava + Ghost starts off, as the name suggests, with Guava. Native to Southern Mexico through Central America and Northern South America guava are a tropical fruit known for having a strong aroma that can be quite musky. One of the compounds in guava, caryophyllene, is also present in cannabis, black pepper, and clove. Guavas are also very high in aromatic esters and terpenes which give some people the impression of dirty socks or a zoo animals. In addition to the guava this sauce also contains passion fruit. Native to South America passion fruit is another highly aromatic fruit that combines many volatile esters as well as sulfur compounds that give it both an incredibly sweet aroma as well as hints of gasoline and body odor. Pineapple rounds out the fruit, another fruit known for having a complex flavor profile. What puts the Hop in Hopp Sauce are the use of Galaxy Hops. Hops are the flowers of a perennial climbing vine in the hemp family and have been used in beer production for centuries. Galaxy Hops are an Australian variant invented in 2009 that have pronounced tropical fruit and citrus flavors and are most commonly used in hazy IPAs. The heat in this sauce comes from ghost peppers, as the name suggests, with some red bells offering bulk. Garlic adds some savory balance to all of the tropical fruit, citric acid some tartness, and apple pectin as a natural stabilizer and thickening agent. Alchemy Peppers Guava + Ghost has a medium-thick consistency and a smooth texture. The aroma of this sauce blends the tropical fruits with the unmistakable scent of super hot chiles.
After opening the bottle and tasting my first spoonful I immediately knew this sauce was something special. I’m not always a fan of super fruit forward sauces, especially if the sweetness overpowers everything else. In this case the use of particularly funky fruits and smoky earthy and slightly bitter ghost peppers creates a magical combination. The funk hits hard up front along with plenty of that tropical flavor. Since so much of taste is related to smell the musky fruit aromas add a lot of complexity and a certain cannabis-like dankness. They’re balanced out perfectly by the ghost peppers so that this sauce never becomes cloying. The Galaxy Hops bring freshness and brightness to the mix which lightens the sauce up. The garlic is way in the background and just exists to give this sauce more of a savory anchor without it ever tasting garlicky. The result is a hot sauce that simultaneously dank, rich, sweet, earthy, slightly smoky, and with just the right amount of bitter to balance the sweet. Interestingly Guava + Ghost doesn’t contain any vinegar. Instead the acidity comes from the fruit juices and some citric acid. Despite the lack of vinegar this sauce never tastes as if its lacking acid. It’s not super tangy but the acidity is balanced so that it doesn’t taste dull either. This sauce is also very low sodium but never tastes as if its lacking salt. As with most ghost pepper sauces there’s very little heat up front but it builds and lingers over time. You enjoy the complex and funky flavor right off of the bat and then the heat creeps up more and more until suddenly your entire mouth is burning. The bottle indicates a Scoville rating of 80,000-120,000 SHU. While this sauce packs a punch it’s nowhere near that high, and I’d estimated it at less than half of the lower figure. This would sit one step below Tabasco Scorpion in total heat, for a solid chile-head medium heat level.
I first tried this sauce out with some chicken tenders and like virtually all hot sauces it works very well. Using it to coat some chicken you can really appreciate the complex flavors of the sauce and it feels slightly less unhinged that just eating it by the spoonful. Next I tried this with some chicken tikka masala. I just had a hunch that the dankness of this sauce, which reminds me in some ways of Indian achar mango pickles, would work well and I was rewarded. I think a lot of it is this sauce not being vinegar based which made it work well with the creamy tomato-based curry, with the fruity flavors and ghost pepper earthiness and heat pairing just right. I thought the dank tropical flavors would also go well with fish so tried this on some homemade fish tacos with fresh tomatoes, cilantro, onion, and grilled cod and loved that combination as well, though for the second taco I removed the cilantro as it created a bit of a negative-reaction with this sauce.
Alchemy Peppers Guava + Ghost gets my high recommendation. It’s one of the most unique sauces that I’ve tried this year as well as one of my favorites. After having a negative opinion of the first sauce I tried from the company I couldn’t be happier that they’ve totally redeemed themselves with this one. If you like fruity hot sauces but want to try something with a very different spin or if you don’t normally like fruity hot sauces because you find them cloying or imbalanced towards being too sweet this one is a must try.
