Hot Sauce Tasting Room Launching In Greenpoint
There’s an olive oil tasting room and a dedicated artisanal mayonnaise shop in Brooklyn, so why not a storefront dedicated to another, less uppity condiment? We’re not talking about ketchup, though that might not be far behind: Greenpoint hot sauce aficionado Noah Chaimberg is raising funds to open a Heatonist Hot Sauce Tasting Room in Brooklyn, complete with a hot sauce sommelier.
Heatonist already has a mail-order service for hot sauce lovers, and has thrown several tasting events before. “Hot sauce was a problem that I wanted to solve,” Chaimberg told Greenpointers. “I loved hot sauce but I wanted somewhere I could taste it before I bought it.”
Eventually, the hot sauce storefront will stock from 75 to 150 different varieties, focusing on flavor rather than sheer amount of heat. “We don’t stock products with xanthan gum (a thickener) and we also avoid capsaicin extracts (which are sometimes used to make things extra hot) because we’re all about flavor and only like our sauces as hot as nature allows,” Chaimberg said. Eventually, the store will stock locally made foodstuffs to put that hot sauce on, as well. The grand opening is currently set for April 18.