X Drops
By Lenny Fejeran
So why do I do these X Drops? To put it simply, I love hot sauce like a sneaker head loves shoes. Some pair well with everything others only go with certain outfits or in my case, meals.
It’s very hard to find hot sauces that don’t take over the flavor of the food. That’s why I make my own. Then I figured, why not share it with people.
These eXperimental Drops are exactly what the name says, they’re my little experiments. It’s a creative outlet for me. As a cook, we find inspiration everywhere. Combining flavors is what us restaurant people do best. At one of my restaurants Kitchen Lingo (pre-closure) we went as far as pairing beer and whiskey with desserts. I just wish I had the chance to pair these sauces with some of those dishes. Back then, we only had the OG Denanche’ Drizzle and that sauce was designed to go good with everything.
My 1st unofficial X Drop was the spicy honey. A local small business collaboration with Håfa Adai Honey. The demand for that has now exceeded the amount of local honey supply.
The official X Drop #1 Denanche’ Calamansi happened because I was having lunch at a restaurant and someone walked in with a bag of beautiful greenish yellow (to’a) local Calamansi. So I bought it, juiced it and made 100 bottles. That was gone in a week.
Drop #2 Ghost & Guåfi was made because some of our customer feedback was that they wanted a hotter sauce. Just happened to get some local ghost pepper too. So we did the HOT HOT (Xtra hot). Another 100. Gone.
Drop #3 Roasted Garlic and Black Pepper must have came to me in a dream. Woke up one morning and said this sounds good. Went to the kitchen and decided it might taste better with vinegar rather than the usual lemon i use in my other recipes. I roasted the garlic for extra depth to match the black pepper. The vinegar balanced it out. Reminds me of vinegar fina’dene sauce we used for fish growing up. This is so far my favorite sauce. I liked it so much I made 200 bottles. It also inspired my next drop.
Drop #4 Coming Soon! This is one of those things that I feel is going to be an instant local classic. I’m not always right about these things, but when I tasted this one I knew it was special. Stay tuned for the neXt drop.
