Some like it hot – others not so much.

It was a random Saturday at our favorite English pub when a friend showed up with a bottle of his new fermented hot sauce. I threw a few drops on my English breakfast and was immediately hooked — the flavor was wild, layered, alive. In classic fashion, my curiosity kicked in and I had to understand why it tasted so damn good. 

Like most people, I spend my days working — mine just happens to involve marketing, web design, and an unhealthy amount of food content from legends like Brad Leone, Matty Matheson, Sandor Katz, Sean Evans, and René Redzepi. Toss in re-runs of Chef, Burnt, and Julia Child, and you get the picture: I’m obsessed with cooking. 

So I started tinkering. Different ferments, different peppers, and a few brave friends — Joe and Joe (two different parents) — who volunteered their taste buds with zero liability waivers. I started taking samples around the pub and get-togethers, and before long, Petite Mort Hot Sauce was born. The first two recipes came from my buddy Luke, and they lit the fuse. 

Today, there are six fermented sauces — from admirably bold to, as Joe once put it, “fucked shit.” But the goal isn’t to make a novelty sauce that lives next to Da Bomb or The Last Dab. Petite Mort is here to be your everyday staple — the one you reach for without thinking. 2025 is the year of growth. Once the summer harvest hits, we’ll have full stock of all six sauces so you and yours can taste them, ruin your palates, laugh, cry, and do it all over again. 

After all, it’s in the fire where we find out who we really are. 

 XOXO, Gossip Josh

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