Hot Peppers (Chocolate Habanero, Red Habanero, Chocolate Hand Grenade, Brown Berbere, Pasilla Bajio, Jalapeño, Fresno, Aleppo), Tomatoes, Butternut Squash, Pumpkins, Spring Water, Red Onions, Smoked Dehli Carrots, Garlic, Cider Vinegar, Fish Sauce*, Salt, Fig Vinegar**, Date Syrup, Dried Peppers (Mulato, Pasilla Negro, Kashmiri, Arbol), Ginger, Black Ghost Peppers, Fenugreek, Tamarind, Coriander, Turmeric, Sumac, Cinnamon, Cumin, Fennel Seeds, Potassium Sorbate, Ascorbic Acid, Nigella Seeds, Black Cardamom, Black Pepper, Xanthan Gum, Mace, Calcium Disodium EDTA

*Anchovies, Salt

**Merlot Vinegar, Figs, Fig Leaves

Nearly all of the peppers were grown on “Hot Sauce Farms,” our home base on Tim’s back porch in northern Maryland.

Penn Farm/ Norma's Produce in Colonial Beach, Virginia grew the butternut squash that went into this sauce, while Moon Valley Farm in Frederick County, Maryland provided both of the pumpkins we used.

We added four types of tomatoes to this sauce. The first two, Black Prince and Black Krim, came from Reid’s Orchard in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A handful of San Marzanos came from Gorman Farms in Howard County, Maryland. We also included a few Kumato tomatoes, a rare variety patented by Syngenta that we have never seen in the United States. But somehow in late August there was a stack of them sitting in the produce section at our local Wegman’s.

Most of the dried peppers we used in this sauce came from That Chile Guy in Bernalillo, New Mexico

Both vinegars we used in this sauce - Apple Cider and Fig & Leaf - came from our favorite vinegar maker, Keepwell Vinegars in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The fish sauce was made by Red Boat. Finally, the date syrup - which was made both from American and Israeli dates - came to us via datelady.

Hands down, The Professor is the most difficult sauce we make, but we truly think each step is worth it.

The making of this sauce begins, like virtually all of our sauces do, with harvesting and processing peppers, in this case ten different varieties. We also processed and soaked four varieties of dried peppers. We smoked carrots, roasted butternut squash, pumpkins and garlic, charred red onions, chopped aromatics like ginger and fresh turmeric and toasted a bevy spices. All were combined, vacuum sealed and left to ferment at 56°F for about fifty five days.

Once the fermentation was complete, we aged the sauce briefly at refrigerator temps and then blended it, added both vinegars, date syrup, a touch more fish sauce, salt and a splash of spring water. We then low temperature pasteurized the sauce for about fifty minutes at 150°F prior to bottling in late December.

• Brix: 18

• pH: 3.22