Year-round the Whitehouse Station Sauce Company makes habanero and jalapeño hot sauces, as well as a high heat Carolina Reaper, mild Zavory and White Peach Habanero in the spring and summer.
WHITEHOUSE STATION -- How did a woodworking father end up making hot sauce with his chef son? It started with high cholesterol.
While out to lunch with a visiting cousin three years ago, John Kasper of Whitehouse Station said his relative pulled a bottle of homemade hot sauce out of his pocket - prompting confusion. His cousin was trying to tame his acid reflux and lower bad cholesterol, and Kasper decided to give it a try.
"I started making it and eating it every day, and it worked," Kasper said.
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But the recipe needed some work, and Kasper's son Jonathan, a culinary graduate of Johnson and Wales University who cooks at Fiddler's Elbow Country Club in Bedminster, offered to tweak it.
"What we had was really flavorful," Jonathan said."The goal was to capture the peak flavor of that vegetable in the bottle."
That was the start of the Whitehouse Station Sauce Company, which was first sold at Bishop's Market on Route 22 and later locally expanded to Schaefer Farms, Basil Bandwagon, Spice It Up in Beach Haven and Suzie's Hot Shoppe in New Hope, Pa.
Their sauce is even paired with oysters at the Ryland Inn, a point of pride for Kasper, and thanks to word of mouth and social media, their success has grown, but they continue to focus on the quality of their product instead of venturing into wholesale.
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"We knew we had something," Kasper said of the hot sauce made in small batches then bottled by hand in his kitchen.
With no artificial fillers, each hot sauce flavor focuses on the pepper, and it's listed as the first ingredient instead of vinegar.
"We're giving you this jalapeno sauce and you can add cilantro or anything you want, but we're really about the flavor of the pepper," Kasper said.
Year-round they make habanero and jalapeno hot sauces, as well as a high heat Carolina Reaper, mild Zavory and White Peach Habanero with peaches from Melick's Farm in the spring and summer with peppers they grow at home or locally pick.
"Just growing up in Hunterdon county I've been geared toward the farming aspect of food," Jonathan, 23, said of his hot sauce vision. "What we're doing now really expresses how I am as a chef."
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Although the father and son are an "odd couple," and can sometimes get into heated discussions, Jonathan said they both enjoy creating and promoting their sauce.
The pair spent last weekend at the New Jersey Hot Sauce Expo and are now gearing up for the fourth annual NYC Hot Sauce Expo in April and the Quick Chek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning in July.
Also this spring, Kasper and his son will be buying cayenne peppers to experiment for a new flavor, as well as playing around with a fermented pepper sriracha-style sauce.
"It's kind of fun, the trial and error," Kasper said.
Emily Cummins may be reached at ecummins@njadvancemedia.com Follow her on Twitter @EmilyACummins and Facebook.