BLACK LIGHTNING

When I heard Peppahead was making a hot sauce from Nepales Khumbu chiles, I got excited. These peppers were grown from seed found from a scraggly wild plant found growing at the foot of the Khumbu glacier (around 16,000 ft elevation) in the Himalayas. These peppers are grown in San Rafael California by Larry the owner and proprietor of Peppahead’s. Peppaheads sell sauces, spices, calendars and hot sauces at the Marin Farmer’s market.

Black Lightning hot sauce is a blend of 60 percent khumbu chiles and 40 percent Thai chiles. Larry adds shallots, onion , garlic, water, vinegar, salt and xanthan gum. For those of you who do not know what zanthan gum is, it is a polysaccharide. I looked that up in my Funk and Wagnall’s and rolled it up in my bippy and smoked it.

When you open this bottle of Black Lightning you will get a pleasant whiff of vinegar with hints of Asian spice. The smell only teased you for the next steps.

When the sauce was shaken out on to a plate with ‘Black Jack Tacos’, it had a medium thick consistency. This sauce would spread over any food item with a thin blanket of love. The sauce had a reddish brown color that screamed taste me.

Why did I pick ‘Black Jack Tacos’? I have no idea except this sauce is called Black Lightning and Black Tacos? Chilebrown’s Genius is suspect at times. The taste, the most important factor shall be examined. Shallots and garlic is the first hit on your tongue. Right away you will receive a jolt of heat. It is not a fiery blast. It will make you sit up and notice. The flavor is unique in a good way.

The heat level is 3.5 out of 5 on the burn scale. Extreme heat seekers will think this is a medium hot sauce. For novice peppers consumers this will be very hot. I like to think this sauce achieves a happy medium. It will keep you on your toes.

The label is nice but small. You need to have some good eyes to see the detail. There is a picture of a pepper in the Himalayas with lightning bolts hitting the peppers. If you take the time to look at the label it is very good. It would not grab my attention at a store because of small detail


Peppahead is a small company that does quality pepper products. This is another hot sauce that he has created that is wonderful. I would stand in a long line on a rainy day to get another bottle of Black Lightning. It is unique because of the Khumbu peppers. The taste is great even on a Black Taco. By the way ‘Black Jack Taco’s’ are just wrong!