Brooklyn’s steamy summer is kicking into high gear, and while the heat turns up outside, we have an inexplicable craving for spicy foods—science says it may be a natural response to the sweltering weather. And what better way to take your bland foods up a notch than with Bushwick-based hot sauces. Here are three must-try Bushwick hot sauce vendors that we are loving this summer.
1: Blue Eyed Hot Sauce
by Dolor sit Amet
Blue Eyed Hot Sauce recently made their debut at the Bushwick Farmer’s Market. BEHS is headed by Aliza Rupert and Jon Isidoridy; both of them grew up sampling hot sauces from all over the country.
“Jon was born and raised in New Jersey and first found his love for hot sauce at Long Beach Island’s Spice It Up hot sauce shop in LBI. Every year when his family rented a house on the island for the summer, he loved trying all the different sauces and interacting with the wonderful people who ran the shop,” said Rupert. “By the time he met [me], he had collected enough sauces to fill his entire refrigerator door.
“As a young adult, [I] first discovered the joys of hot sauce in [my] university years and would barely eat without it. After graduating, I attained a job as a chef in a raw vegan kitchen in San Francisco and got to experience and learn first hand about juicing habaneros to make spicy sauces.”
The pair was drawn to Bushwick because of its history, art, and diversity. They make their sauces without chemicals or preservatives, which is an awesome way to bring both health and heat onto your palate. Pick up one of Blue Eyed Hot Sauce’s many flavors at the Bushwick Farmers Market this summer! We like the habanero pineapple sauce!
2: Bushwick Kitchen
by Dolor sit Amet
Bushwick Kitchen has been a neighborhood staple for quite some time. Before he operated an uber-successful online hot sauce store, BK’s owner and CEO Casey Elsass had been making and bottling hot sauces on his own for years.
“A friend proposed a challenge to see if we could start a business from scratch in 30 days. Hot sauce seemed so boring, so we thought why not bend the rules and do something more original? 30 days later, we had Bees Knees Spicy Honey! Now, three and a half years later, we have nine products, including a line of maple syrup and a gochujang sriracha, that are distributed nationally,” Elsass said.
Now, Elsass runs a bottling facility right here in Bushwick. His hot sauces come in many flavors (think Trees Knees Spicy Maple, and Weak Knees Gochujang Sriracha) all with different heat indexes. They can be bought online at Bushwick Kitchen’s awesome online shop.
