The Sauce That Started the Revolution.

The Base That Makes It Work

Red bell pepper and carrot create the foundation. Bell pepper brings color, mild sweetness, and body. Carrot adds natural sweetness and depth without announcing itself as carrot. Together they build the savory-sweet base everything else layers on.

This isn't a pepper sauce with vegetables added for filler. This is vegetables creating the structure, then peppers adding heat and complexity on top of that foundation. The base does serious work—it creates body, carries flavor, and gives the heat something substantial to build on.

That vegetable-forward approach is what lets Original be seriously hot without being aggressive. When you start with real substance, heat becomes part of the experience instead of the whole show.

Fresh Cilantro and Olive Oil

Original is the only one of the three that uses fresh cilantro and olive oil. Cilantro brings bright, herbal notes that cut through the richness. Olive oil adds mouthfeel and helps carry flavor across your palate. Both of them do their jobs without dominating.

Fresh cilantro isn't just a garnish mention—it's cooked into the sauce, integrated into the flavor profile. You get the brightness without the raw herb punch. It rounds out the smoke and heat with something green and alive.

Olive oil creates a slightly richer texture than water-based sauces alone would deliver. It's subtle—you're not tasting oil—but it's adding smoothness and helping everything integrate.

Body from Vegetables, Not Vinegar

Original gets its body the same way Whiskey and Tropical do: from vegetables cooking down. Bell pepper, carrot, tomato, celery, onion—they reduce to create natural thickness. This is body from ingredients, not thickeners.

No xanthan gum. No additives. Just vegetables creating the kind of substance that coats your food instead of running off it. The body comes from what's actually in the bottle—real vegetables reduced down until they create the texture you want.

That body matters when you're building layers of flavor. Thin sauces let everything separate—heat on one side, flavor on the other. Body lets smoke, sweet, savory, and heat integrate. You get complexity that unfolds together, not flavors taking turns announcing themselves.

Thick enough to cling to eggs. Smooth enough for soup.

Hickory Smoked Sea Salt

The smoke in Original comes from hickory smoked sea salt. Not liquid smoke—actual sea salt that's been smoked over hickory wood. It's a subtle background note that adds depth without making the sauce taste like barbecue.

Smoke reinforces the savory character. It plays with the carrot sweetness, rounds out the pepper heat, and adds a layer that makes Original feel grounded and substantial. You're not thinking "this tastes smoky"—you're just getting depth that wouldn't be there without it.

It's the kind of detail that matters when you're trying to build complexity. Real smoke from real wood, integrated into salt that's doing double duty as seasoning and flavor builder.

Very Low Sodium—35mg

Original is 35mg sodium per serving. That's Very Low Sodium by FDA classification (Whiskey is 25mg, also Very Low Sodium; Tropical is 50mg Low Sodium). Still dramatically lower than the 150-200mg you'll find in most hot sauces.

When you start with red bell pepper, carrot, fresh cilantro, and real vegetables, you've already built serious flavor. Salt enhances what's there—gives the savory notes more presence, makes the smoke more apparent, lets the heat register more clearly. At 35mg, the salt does its job without overwhelming the vegetable-forward foundation.

Most sauces use salt to compensate for thin flavor. Original uses salt to amplify flavor that's already built. That's the difference between 35mg and 200mg.

Heat That Builds Complexity

Jalapeño sparks the fire. Habanero takes it deeper. The heat in Original greets you immediately—you know it's there from the first bite—but it doesn't hit you like a wall. It builds. Unfolds. Gets more complex as it lingers.

It's medium heat, same level as Whiskey and Tropical, but the character is different. Whiskey unfolds slowly with bourbon patience. Tropical hits bright with fruit immediacy. Original builds through smoke and savory depth—heat that gets more interesting the longer it stays with you.

If you want heat that announces itself but doesn't shout, Original delivers that. It's seriously hot, but it's also seriously balanced. Fire that respects what you're eating instead of obliterating it.

What to Put It On

Original works on damn near everything. It's the versatile one—savory enough for dinner, bright enough for breakfast, complex enough to stand up to rich food.

• Eggs of any kind: Scrambled, fried, omelets, frittatas. The smoke and savory heat work with eggs without overwhelming them.
• Roasted vegetables and grain bowls: Quinoa bowls, roasted Brussels sprouts, sweet potato. The vegetable-forward base complements vegetables on your plate.
• Grilled chicken and pork: Anything grilled where you want smoke meeting smoke, char meeting heat.
• Pizza: Especially if there's meat involved. The smoke and herb notes work with cheese, crust, and toppings.
• Stews, chowders, bisques: A few shakes in a pot of soup and everything gets deeper. The savory base integrates instead of sitting on top.
• Burgers and sandwiches: Adds complexity without making the sandwich about the sauce. You taste everything better, not just heat.
• Bloody Marys and Marias: The savory-smoky profile was made for tomato-based cocktails.

Brooklyn-Based. Hudson Valley-Made.

Original has been made the same way for almost two decades. Same co-packer in New York's Hudson Valley. Same process—cook down fresh vegetables, add fresh peppers and herbs, integrate smoke and heat. Same 8oz bottle because a sauce this bold demands a bigger bottle.

This is the sauce that started everything. The recipe that proved vegetables-first could create real body, that fresh cilantro could work in hot sauce, that 35mg sodium was enough if you built the flavor right. The one that didn't need to change because it worked from day one.

Brooklyn-based. Hudson Valley-made. Low sodium—just 35mg per serving. Large 8oz bottle. Because when flavor's built right, you don't need to hide behind anything. Same process, same commitment, almost two decades running.