Hi! I’m Kieran – I make up half of the San Diego Pepper Company.
For me, hot sauce goes on everything. Growing up, it would get added to just about anything that was for dinner. Fries and ketchup? Hot sauce goes in the ketchup. Pizza night? No chance, that’s a hot sauce night with pizza served underneath. A salad after a long football practice? Hot sauce gets mixed in the ranch. If mornings were a bit too hectic, my brother and I would throw tortilla chips in a ziploc bag with sauce to shake up and snack on for a quick breakfast… in third grade * You name it, I’ve probably added hot sauce to it – it’s a part of how I was raised.
Fast forward some years and I am in the Caribbean for a week. My incredible wife Jacklyn, who I fell in love with during our college years, and I, are enjoying a sun-soaked honeymoon. For Jacklyn growing up, spicy food was something to avoid, not enjoy. While staying in Saint Thomas, USVI, we ate some of the most amazing food – almost all of which was served with pepper sauce. This was the spark that made Jacklyn begin enjoying spice in the things she ate.
When we returned home – we ran out of the sauce we brought back from our honeymoon quickly – so we took things into our own hands. That’s where San Diego Pepper Company was born – to add a little bit of spice to our love for San Diego.
Creating the Sauce
At this time, we didn’t think much of what we were doing – we just were having fun experimenting with new recipes. After plenty of time chopping peppers, blending, cooking, and adjusting spices, we had some great sauces we used consistently. We gave away some samples and decided we wanted to share with everyone!
After nearly a year figuring out the hoops we needed to jump through, we figured out how to do things on our own and take it to market. For us, San Diego Pepper Company is about being local. We make each batch ourselves. We label the bottles by hand. We decided early to support local nonprofits. Once we were able to book our kitchen for the first time, we were to take our vision for a quality, local, and honest hot sauce company and make it real.
From the bottom of our hearts, we appreciate the support we have from every single person – local or not. If you took the time to read about our story, thank you. We will continue to put in honest effort in everything we do as San Diego Pepper Company.
