Butterfly Bakery Duchess Mystery Pepper Hot Sauce Review

Butterfly Bakery Duchess Mystery Pepper

Here, we have a sort of “flying under the radar” type sauce, cloaked in a very nondescript and unassuming label, yet within that bottle is a sauce of pure wonder. As legend has it, there was a mystery patch growing within a field of Ghosties at the fabled Duchess Farms. It was not exactly a Ghostie, exhibiting what the label calls “juicy sweetness.” For me, once I learned of it, I was immediately interested and once I opened it and tried it, it immediately, out of the gate, scratched a number of itches all at once, appealing to my sense as a foodie, chilehead, and former homebrewer all at once. 

This was fairly unusual. Generally sauces will appeal more strongly to one aspect over the other and it is usually to my foodie side and absolutely, this is as intentional as I can make it on my part, but I’m always interested in new varietals and different pods. Not only is the sauce here delicious, with one of the more pleasing mouth feels I can remember, smooth and silky, with a fantastic body, it also really embraces and examines the pod itself, supported by one two other ingredients, that of the vinegar and salt. 

I mentioned homebrewer earlier and here’s why. Different yeasts will naturally yield differing grace notes during the fermentation process to the end result. Anchor Steam Beer, for instance, is derived from using a lager yeast, which generally wants stable chilled temperatures, and putting that at a higher “room” temperature, which yields the fruity notes that beer is known for. That aspect was immediately familiar to me with this sauce. The tones are delicate and lilting, dancing around the sort of Ghostie flavor, and complimenting the superhot bitter notes. 

I don’t think this would really qualify as a superhot, and I found the sauce here to be fairly tame. I can’t really say to try this if you’re interested in a superhot flavor without the accompanying heat, as this is really representative of itself and is very much its own thing, it’s beautiful gorgeous self. If you’re interested in the chiles from a pod perspective, you will get a lot of mileage out of this, as well as if you just want a really great sauce. Functionally, it fits more into the category, for me, where a Louisiana-style might normally dwell, but here, I have a bit of a dilemma. I definitely want to enjoy those grace notes and savor them, which cuts out most of the foods I would normally use with a Louisiana-style Cayenne...but that is me personally. The value for that aspect below is reflective of how well it would work there. 

Bottom line: This is one of the more fascinating sauces I’ve had in a while and one of the very few that I’m enormously grateful to have been able to try, perhaps the ultimate reward for being a food explorer and having an open mind, and yes, another itch scratch by this absolute gem.

Breakdown:

            Heat level: 1
            Flavor: 10
            Flexibility: 7
            Enjoyment to dollar factor: 10

Overall: 7