Z’s Hot Sauce is heating up the Nine Rails Creative District
Find Z's Hot Sauce products weekly at the Gourmet Market and Ogden Bizarre Market, held at The Monarch.
Find Z's Hot Sauce products weekly at the Gourmet Market and Ogden Bizarre Market, held at The Monarch.
Julie Lindsey, of Z's Hot Sauce, poses next to her wares at the Gourmet Market on Saturday, Feb. 13, 2021.
Julie Lindsey and James McBeth, who create and sell their handcrafted gourmet hot sauces and bloody mary mix from Logan to Salt Lake City, now have a new home at The Monarch’s weekend markets.
It all started more than 20 years ago over celebratory burgers on the Strip in Vegas where the couple had just gotten married. After devouring almost an entire bottle of hot sauce they’d dumped on their burgers, they read the ingredients. “It was loaded with too much sugar, MSG, dyes, gross fillers, etc.,” said Lindsey. “It was literally at that point we decided that we could create a better, healthy sauce.” So they went home and got to work.
Now, the duo sells nine different hot sauces, salsa, seasoning mix, bloody mary mix (wildly popular), ghost pepper corn nuts and something new — handmade Viking’s Blood beef jerky, based on one of their best-selling hot sauces. All of their products are 100% gourmet, brewed in small batches for highest quality and using only the best all-natural ingredients.
There are two weekend markets at The Monarch where the public can chat with Lindsey and McBeth about Z’s Hot Sauce and try a steaming cup of their spicy homemade chili, flavored with one of their hot sauces and topped with ghost pepper corn nuts.
The chili is very popular but they’re about to change things up. “We want to do a spicy gumbo with andouille sausage and add a vegan spicy Thai soup,” Lindsey said. The delicious chili, while not a money-maker they say, successfully attracts people to the market and adds more buzz. “We will keep doing it as long as we have funds to keep doing it,” they said.
Facebook reviewers rave about the mustard hot sauce on burgers, Viking’s Blood for breakfast dishes, lemon ghost pepper on avocado toast, sweet Shield Maiden for Asian dishes, and the original Z’s Hot Sauce on everything from pizza and tacos to eggs and potatoes. The Berzerker’s Rage Black Berry Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce is allegedly delicious on ice cream. All of the sauces are versatile, with uses that are as limitless as the imagination.
A customer once told them she’d used their hot salsa in her margarita! This is not generally recommended, but the most interesting thing they’ve heard.
The hottest sauce is the Seasonal Reaper Pepper Mash. This one is seasonal because they can only make it during mid-summer to early winter when the Carolina Reaper peppers are available. Another one that packs a fiery punch is the Shield Maiden, a four-pepper honey blend that is hot while maintaining flavor.
“Creating is the funnest part,” they say. A lot of time is spent in their kitchen at home trying out interesting flavors and cooking up small batches until they’ve “nailed it.” Then, all the cooking for their products is done in a commercial kitchen.
Beef jerky is also a passion. Like hot sauce, Lindsey and McBeth wanted to create a tasty jerky without all the MSG, sugar and other unpronounceable chemicals. After spending five years going through processors to get the beef jerky done, going through half a dozen processors and a lot of wasted money and meat, “I just threw my hands in the air and said, ‘I’ll just do it myself'” McBeth said.
Now, they purchase the top eye of round cuts and hand cut all the fat off. Next they marinate it for 12 hours, dry for three hours, recoat with sauce and then dry for another seven hours. “Another thing we do that most other jerky guys don’t do is vacuum seal the jerky for longevity,” they said. Z’s Hot Sauce has two flavors, Carolina Reaper (sold out now because they need Reaper peppers) and Viking Blood Jerky, which is made with the popular Viking Blood Hot Sauce.
Here’s where you can find Z’s Hot Sauce in Ogden’s Nine Rails:
Gourmet Market at The Monarch, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays.
Ogden Bizarre Market at The Monarch, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays.
“It’s incredibly important for folks to keep coming out to these local events,” Lindsey and McBeth said.
Follow Z’s Hot Sauce on Instagram @zshotsauceandmarinade.
(Z’s Bloody Mary Mix is always being sold out. People love the fiery flavor. Z’s recommends trying it with Moon Shine.)
Fill an 8-ounce glass with ice
Fill it up ¾ with Bloody Mary Mix
Fill the rest of the glass with vodka (or they use Outlaw Distillery’s Moon Shine)
Stir well, add garnishes and enjoy