Bill Moore’s Hot & Spicy Reviews – October ’15

Hello my fellow chileheads!  This month I’d like to introduce a company I discovered back in March of this year.  I was extremely impressed with the delicious flavor of their products.  The Angry Goat Pepper Co. is located in Bradford, VT and makes premium, small batch hot sauces and pepper jams.  Jason and Roberta Parker are the exclusive makers of eight different hot sauces and about 14 different flavors of pepper jams.

Jason told me he doesn’t like ordinary, and after reading their product flavor descriptions you will understand why.  Angry Goat uses a variety of different chile peppers in both their sauces and jams; from mild poblano and jalapeno peppers all the way up to the extreme heat of ghost and scorpion peppers.  Jason loves to play with different fruits and spices, and even some non-traditional ingredients such as Pure Vermont Maple Syrup, Prickly Pear Cactus Juice, Tequila, and Gosling’s Black Seal Rum!  Talk about uniquely different, their “Dark Swizzle” Hot Sauce was inspired by the island of Bermuda with their national drinks – the Rum Swizzle and the Dark & Stormy.  The sauce is amazing and combines citrus, rum, ginger, cloves, ghost peppers.

Jason said it was their pepper jams that put them on the map, but I am so pleased that they decided to introduce their lineup of seven different hot sauce flavors at the beginning of the year.  Their hot sauce labels follow an animal cartoon theme, and there is a heat level for everyone.  They have since created a new hot sauce called “Sacrifice” which is an extremely flavorful fire roasted orange habanero hot sauce.  “Sacrifice” is one of my favorites from this company.

Earlier this year Jason’s “Black Bison” Hot Sauce (the hottest in their lineup) took home a 2015 New York City Hot Sauce Expo “Screaming Mi Mi” Award by winning 1^st Place in the Fruit Based Hot Category.

As for their Pepper Jams, well let me just say they are some of the very best you will ever taste.  I love a pepper jam on a bagel with cream cheese, but I also like to get creative and cook with them as well.  I find that pepper jams make an awesome glaze for grilled meats.  Angry Goat Pepper Co. has pepper jam flavor combinations that nobody else has, and a few of their unique flavors are the result of customer requests.

After working in the corporate world, in transportation, food manufacturing, and print industry, Jason said that he had enough of the corporate politics.  They already had a small hobby farm, so they decided to explore the local farmers markets and try to make some extra income from the farm.  Jason said they were raising your typical fair, chickens and eggs, and then decided to expand into goat meat.  The goat meat helped them become better known locally, but Jason knew they were missing some value added products, and nobody at the local markets had anything spicy. 

Ten years ago, Jason and his wife honeymooned in Bermuda and met some street vendors that were selling pepper jellies.  Jason said he had never heard of such a thing, but was instantly hooked.   A few summers after their honeymoon, they had extra peppers from their garden, so they decided to make some pepper jam.  It seemed to be a hit with friends, but it never went further than that, until they started at farmers markets.

Jason and Roberta have since greatly reduced the number of goats they have on their farm, and have gone to a commercial kitchen, renting time in a local restaurant during their off hours.  Sounds like hard work, doing what you love, and following their passion has resulted in a very successful venture for Jason and Roberta.  I sincerely believe we will be hearing a lot more from the Angry Goat Pepper Co. in the months and years to come.

So, if you are looking for some of the most flavorful and uniquely different hot sauces and pepper jams, go ahead and order some of their products.  You will not be disappointed.