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Ghost peppers in Philly: Bhut jolokia hot sauces at WMD
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Ghost peppers in Philly: Bhut jolokia hot sauces at WMD
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| Photos | Drew Lazor |
Can't recall a vegetable more hyped by the global media than the bhut jolokia, the spiciest pepper on the planet. You've probably heard about the Indian military's plans to weaponize them as non-lethal dispersion grenades — the bhut will be so used due to their insanely high Scoville count, which is the scientific unit used to measure a pepper's capsaicin levels. (The spiciest jalapenos have 8,000ish Scoville units. Bhuts have A MILLION.)
While bhut jolokia are often informally referred to as the "ghost pepper" due to their rarity, they've been showing up in the States with increased frequency in recent months. One connoisseur who's gotten his hands on a connect is Bobby Bolders (above), who owns and operates WMD Hot Sauce at 1212 South Street. Bolders had Meal Ticket in on Friday to sample a handful of ghost pepper sauces he's making by hand.
Bolders, who gets his bhut in dried from a source he declines to name (you're not going to find fresh ones Stateside unless you are a badass smuggler), thinks the pepper has captured the attention of so many people due to its extreme nature — people want to try the scariest, spiciest stuff and pin their survival to their vests as a merit badge of sorts. This mode of thought, however, detracts from the fact that, spice notwithstanding, they're pretty flavorful little buggers. Bhut jolokia have a smoky, woodsy quality that's similar, but not identical, to what you find in chipotle peppers. They've also got a round but aggressive heat that creeps into your cheeks and jaw, kicks its fiery feet up and stays for a spell.
At WMD, Bolders cuts the eye-dropper-full-of-lava punch of bhut with vegetable and fruit bases. Currently, the only housemade bhut sauce he's selling retail boasts a sneakily sweet carrot canvas. He does it on four increasingly scary spice levels — one and two will succeed in coaxing pleased giggles out of spicy fans, while 3 and 4 are pretty damn serious. (Last night we shook some 3-level onto a breakfast sandwich that already had sriracha on it and spent the better part of an hour going "Oooooooh CHILD!" and fanning ourselves with an old US Weekly.) Soon enough, WMD will begin offering bhut sauces with pineapple, tomato, mango and mango/Indian curry bases. Bottles range in price from $6.99 to $8.99.
Social comments and analytics for this post... This post was mentioned on Twitter by phillyinsider: RT @mealticket: Where to get handmade bhut jolokia (ghost pepper) hot sauces in Philly: http://bit.ly/aSZTha...
Bobby Bolders is a great guy! I was at his store a few days ago & he let me try a bunch of his hot sauces. I'm not even a big fan of hot sauce but his are very unique & tasty!
Thank you very much to all! BB
I love hot sauce, I can't wait to try!
Great review - spot on, looking forward to trying the sauce :-)
I ordered some from the following site: http://www.myspicesage.com/bhut-jolokia-peppers-worlds-hottest-chile-p-402.html They're (mostly) dried, but the site also has powder available. I was kinda nervous as I'd never bought anything from the site before, but I was not disappointed. All it took was a flake the size of a thumb tack and I was hooked. (and on fire). Habaneros just won't do it for me anymore. :D
Don't know what he's talking about in regards to smuggling. I bought seeds online, started them here in Texas in March and now have five ghost pepper plants growing at an awesome rate. The yield looks very promising.
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