Spice Up your Dishes with this Craft Mead Hot Sauce Recipe
During August of 2021, Georgia Wine Producers put on Georgia Wine Highway and offered a wine passport for visitors to come and sample up to four varieties of wine or mead from 41 GA wineries, of which Waldmet Cellars was one of the participants. This is what brought John Hollner, the Hot Sauce Sensei twitter instagram, up to Jasper from his home in west Cobb, outside Marietta, where he liked what he tasted and bought so much that two weeks later he drove an hour to try more of our meads!
Georgia Wine Highway is moving to the month of March this year so come purchase your passport now and stop back in our tasting room during the event.
John spent seven years in the restaurant and catering world in the past and has been working on multiple hot sauce cookbook concepts and classes on teaching hot sauce for the last 2 years. There are several recipes on his website already. As we chatted, he explained that one of the things he likes to teach people about hot sauce is that, when you make your own, you can really build layers of flavor by using flavorful liquids like wine and beer, in addition to the vinegar that everyone expects in hot sauce that is difficult to do in larger production hot sauce.
After tasting the Pfirsichkuchen “Peach Pie” mead that includes mesquite honey from New Mexico, peaches, dark maple syrup, vanilla, and star anise, he was inspired to use it in 3 Georgia peach hot sauce recipes featuring another great ingredient from New Mexico, the Hatch chile. Below is one of those recipes.
If you have never traveled to New Mexico, you may not have heard anyone ask you “Green, Red, or Christmas?” when you order food. The question refers to what type of chile sauce you want on your dish, where “Christmas” is, you guessed it, both green and red chile sauce. The great thing about most Hatch chiles is that they are between 1/3 to equal to the heat of a green jalapeno, so they are very approachable. Roasting the green ones produces sweet and smoky notes as complex sugars break down into simple ones, resulting in almost buttery notes when pureed. You can read more about this pepper and get one of the other Pfirsichkuchen “Peach Pie” mead hot sauce recipes on his blog.
Mead is a great ingredient to add to sauces of all kinds, so I was excited to see what John would come up with. This sauce results in a low heat offering that you could use on any grilled meat, chicken wings, sweet potato fries or even ice cream! If you have never served some hot sauce on a charcuterie or cheese board, you should give that consideration, and this would be a great one for that as well, along with some Waldmet Cellars mead, of course! I hope you enjoy this recipe.
Hatch Peach Pie Hot Sauce Recipe
- 75g New Mexico pepper (fire roasted, cooled and peeled, fresh Hatch chile)
- 45g (~1/2 a piece of fruit) fresh or canned peach, pit removed
- 15g (~1 tbsp, minced) sweet onion, smoked or fresh
- 5g (~1 tsp minced) fresh celery
- 5g (thin slice) fresh lemon
- 1/8 tsp each ground cumin and whole coriander seeds
- 1/16 tsp ground cinnamon
- Pinch (less than 1/16 tsp) star anise or 1/8 in. length / width piece
- 2.5 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1/3 cup each apple cider vinegar and rice wine vinegar
- 1/3 cup Waldmet Cellars Pfirsichkuchen “Peach Pie” mead†
- Add all ingredients, except the mead, to a non-reactive pot and bring to a boil for 1-2 minutes to allow the salt to dissolve. Let cool completely to room temperature and add mead. Puree in a blender or food processor until smooth, about 30-45 seconds.
- As this is a fresh hot sauce, keep it refrigerated to maintain the flavors longer and increase its life. Ideally, try to use this in 2-6 weeks for optimum quality and store it in a glass bottle with a plastic lid, (like an old hot sauce bottle)!
†We have sold out of Pfirsichkuchen "Peach Pie" but our Apfel-Honigwein "Apple Honey Wine" would be a great substitute.