Hoff & Pepper: Smoken Ghost Ketchup & Smoken Ghost Hot Sauce

A double-barreled blast of delicious heat from Chattanooga's hot sauce masters!

Some like it hot... and that includes us. We’re connoisseurs of heat, mavens of spice, aficionados of the tongue-tingling, eye-watering kick that comes from a truly great spicy condiment. And we found what we were looking for in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Hoff & Pepper have been creating dazzling hot sauces and spicy seasonings since 2015. Led by Aaron “Hoff” and Michelle “Pepper” Hoffman, they know there’s more to a hot sauce than just heat, and they know how to balance a spicy kick with an expansive range of flavors. 

We’re proud to wow your taste buds with two of Hoff & Pepper’s most blazing hot creations, their Smoken Ghost Ketchup and their Smoken Ghost Hot Sauce, both of which are produced “stem to sauce” using local peppers, and both of which you’ll find inside the Vices Fireside Edition. 

The Smoken Ghost Hot Sauce layers the heat with four different peppers — red jalapeño, habanero, chipotle, and of course the fabled ghost pepper which gives Smoken Ghost its name. The result is four different dimensions of heat, a pronounced smokiness, and a depth of flavor you just don’t get from other hot sauces. It adds a kick to everything from marinades to basting sauces to mayo (it makes an amazing spicy coleslaw), and pairs with burgers and hot dogs, smoked meats, chilis and stews, even oysters. Add it straight from the bottle, or incorporate it into your own sauces and marinades for a flavorful kick of heat.

Smoken Ghost Ketchup, one of the latest additions to Hoff & Pepper’s spicy arsenal, was born in a moment of inspiration. Hoff always added Smoken Ghost to his ketchup, so the logical next step was to make a ketchup with Smoken Ghost. The combination of the sweet and tangy ketchup with the smoky heat of the chipotles and the righteous kick of the ghost peppers makes this one of the most versatile condiments we’ve ever tried. Put it on anything ketchup-friendly — burgers, hot dogs, meatloaf, French fries, chicken nuggets — and you may never go back to “regular” ketchup again. Especially since Smoken Ghost Ketchup contains 25% less sugar, 25% fewer calories, and 28% less sodium than Heinz’s flagship ketchup. And it doesn’t contain high-fructose corn syrup, either, just all-natural cane sugar.

Hoff & Pepper are hot sauce masters, creating blends ranging from mild-ish to smoke-coming-out-of-your-ears blazing. Check out their variety of sauces and seasonings at hoffandpepper.com.