Getting to Know Milwaukee's Craft Hot Sauce Scene

Whether you like to put sauce on eggs in the morning, eat it on frozen pizza or use it to amplify a pot of chili, Milwaukee boasts a terrific league of creative saucemakers whose products can be found at vendor markets, in local stores or online.

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Eat/Drink

The culinary arts of Milwaukee is a vast and layered cultural sphere, whether it concerns beer, coffee, frozen custard or fine dining—you name it. One niche pocket of the food scene worthy of recognition are the purveyors of craft hot sauces. Whether one likes to put sauce on their eggs in the morning, eat it on frozen pizza or use it to amplify a pot of chili or soup, Milwaukee boasts a terrific league of creative saucemakers whose products can be found at vendor markets, in local stores or online.

Craft hot sauce is by no means a monolith. Some focus on robust flavors while others emphasize heat intensity. Similarly, while many makers incorporate fermentation into their process, not all do. “Chilis have found their way all around the world,” saucier Alexander Hagler points out. “There’s so much more you can learn about chilies, and we all have our own, different way of doing it.”

We talked to a few Milwaukee craft sauce makers to learn what they are about.

Garden Fire Spice Company (formerly A&M Local Provisions)

Born out of his passions for gardening and experimenting with flavors, Alexander Hagler has created dozens of inventive sauces over the years. Formerly co-run with business partner Matt Rudman as A&M Local Provisions, Hagler’s sauce line was recently rebranded as Garden Fire Spice Company.

Hagler grows peppers using Blue Ribbon Organics soil. Sometimes he sources peppers from fellow growers like Baby Mama Botanicals, PepperRich Farm or Crops on Top. “The key is always to get local, fresh peps,” he affirms. “Peppers are very acidic, and if they’re waited too long, they can oxidize and just don’t have the same flavor.”

The first three sauces Hagler ever made were the raspberry and pineapple-infused Venusian Sunset, the garden harvest-forward Farmer’s Tan, and the espresso/cilantro-flavored Cafe Diablo (now called Black Ribbon). The Unholy Trinity, by far his hottest sauce, combines the ghost, scorpion and Carolina Reaper peppers—all three of which at one point were the hottest pepper in the world—and blends them with red bell peppers, mango nectar, orange juice and lemon all for a tropical profile.

Interestingly enough, Hagler did not care for hot sauce growing up. “I was the complete opposite,” he says. Having been the farm manager for Concordia Gardens (now Victory Garden Initiative), Hagler had been asked by his friend Byron Johnson to grow chilis, which ultimately turned things around for Hagler. “There’s something romantic about it, seeing it go all the way from a seed to a flush of beautiful, fresh peps.”

Johnson had a hot sauce company called Man’s Best Friend. Unfortunately, Johnson passed away unexpectedly. “His sauces were named after different dog breeds,” Hagler explains. “He was a great guy. I didn’t know what to do because I was really only growing chilies for him. I kept the chili growing going and started selling them to different restaurants and makers.”

Hagler ultimately decided to try making his own sauces and experiment with what he thought tasted good. The first time he vended at a market in 2019 at Sherman Phoenix, Hagler sold out of his blueberry-forward Michigan Blue sauce. “It kind of grew from there,” he recalls.

Garden Fire Spice Company sauces are available for purchase at Kuumba Juice + Coffee Bar (274 E. Keefe Ave.) in Harambee, which Hagler owns. He also vends at the Milwaukee Winter Farmers Market at The Table (5305 W. Capitol Drive) on Saturdays as well as at the Riverwest Winter Farmers Market at Amorphic Beer (3700 N. Fratney St.) every other Sunday.

Johnny’s Hot Sauce

The fermented sauces of John and Heather Witteman are a common sight at pop-ups and vendor markets around Milwaukee. Johnny’s Hot Sauce features 10 varieties of core and seasonal flavors. “We’ve had requests for making sauces that are pretty hot, but we want it to taste good with that heat,” John affirms. “Most of our sauces are in the medium hot range.” 

Goblin, a green sauce and best-seller, blends a trio of jalapeno, serrano and poblano peppers with notes of citrus, cilantro and cumin. Snapdragon blends jalapeno, serrano and Thai chili, perfect on a rice bowl or stir fry. Spicy Freak brings a kick of serrano, Thai chili and habanero with a tomato-curry-ginger profile. The hottest Johnny’s sauce, Ghost in the Graveyard, blends ghost pepper and habanero, bringing a pineapple-papaya punch that gets cooled down with turmeric. There is also the Ramp It Up sauce, made with wild ramps, as well as a sauce made for local drag queen Ester Flonaze called Hot as Balls.

Having been fond of pickling and making salsas, the Wittemans ventured into making hot sauce from needing something to do with leftover peppers. “I started fermenting at home with peppers from our garden,” John explains. “The first batch was crude and unrefined but it tasted really good, so I went down the rabbit hole of making it better and selling it commercially.”

In addition to pop-ups, Johnny’s Hot Sauce is available for sale at Midwest Sad (601 S. Sixth St.) as well as Milwaukee Makers Marketplace in Hide House (2625 S. Greeley St.). Sweet Smoke Barbecue, a food truck usually parked outside Hawthorne Coffee Roasters (4177 S. Howell Ave.), also offers Johnny’s to try with any of its menu options.

The King of Hot

For those craving a kick, look no further than the aptly-named The King of Hot by Craig Pape, owner of Veggas Pub (2479 N. Fratney St.) in Riverwest. Pape has about 20 varieties available with some alternated seasonally. Thai Strawberry, his oldest recipe, is his bestseller—although lately Pape has received many requests for his Mango Mash. 

A few of Pape’s latest creations are Strawberry Savina, Mild Mash, Blood Orange Bonnet and Leviathan. The Four Horseman is The King of Hot’s hottest, made with a honey capsaicin tincture. Pape notes, “I don’t sell that one. You have to know about that sauce and ask for it.”

Pape initially got into making hot sauce after he was frustrated about the lack of heat at the grocery store. “If I really wanted to make good sauce, I had to grow my own peppers,” he explains. Pape’s experience with home-brewing beer aided him in learning the ropes of pepper fermentation. “I do some old-school pen pal seed trading, and I’ve got maybe 60 different kinds of pepper genetics now.”

Now in year seven of production, Pape grows about 80 pepper plants a year, some of which are at the Bremen Community Garden. While Pape can be found vending at neighborhood events like The Great Riverwest Rummage Sale, the easiest place to find The Kind of Hot is at Veggas. Just ask the bartender.

PepperRich Farm

Growing South Americans peppers as perennials here in Milwaukee, Michael Arms is behind PepperRich Farm. Arms’ sauces focus more on flavor than heat, with many of them derived from baccatum or chinense peppers and are variably fruity, floral or garlic-forward. In total, PepperRich Farm offers about 15 varieties plus a few pepper jellies.

“I tend to gravitate towards yellow and orange peppers for some reason,” Arms mentions. Most of his sauces contain just one type of pepper although he recently unveiled several sriracha flavors made with blends of several. “Things that I’m not growing a ton of I can still blend together and get a similar flavor profile.”

Arms lived in São Paulo, Brazil for a decade. He became interested in hot sauce while working at a Peruvian restaurant he grew peppers for. Starting out in community gardens, Arms now grows peppers in hoop houses on Milwaukee’s south side. Although he once grew nearly 40 types of peppers simultaneously, Arms has pared his operation over the years down to his favorites.

Community events like Punk Rock Rummage Sale and Hover Craft are ideal places to find Arms vending PepperRich Farm.

Spicy Vic’s

Victor Buell IV, known in the music scene for his work in Astral Hand and Vinz Clortho, periodically makes hot sauce under the name Spicy Vic’s. Although he started with several varieties, Buell has dialed in on perfecting his original medium-heat recipe using fermented fresno, red habanero and Trinidad scorpion peppers. He describes its flavor as "garlicky, a little smoky and tangy.”

“Different peppers have different heat levels, but the way they affect the olfactory experiences are also very different,” Buell notes. “A habanero slaps you in the face, whereas when you bite into a Trinidad scorpion it doesn’t seem as bad at first but then it builds. You want a little bit of something you feel upfront, but also a little bit of building heat that goes with the meal.”

For Buell, Noodles & Company offering sriracha was the game changer that got him interested in the hot sauce world. “It expanded my notion of what hot sauce could be,” he remembers with a laugh. One day after trying a homemade hot sauce at a farmers market and speaking to the vendor, Buell decided to try his hands at it at home, growing peppers in pots. “I started experimenting with fermenting peppers, blending them up and adding vinegar and all the other flavors,” he explains. “Then Covid hit and I had a lot more free time, and hot sauce was a perfect way to fill the void.”

Buell says he is gearing up to make another batch soon. Contact Spicy Vic’s on Instagram if interested.