Louisville’s ‘Chef Loco’ Hopes to Get Craft Hot Sauces to Market
Kahlil Kennedy has a hobby: hot sauce. It might even become more than a hobby, if he has his way.
Kennedy recently fired up a Kickstarter campaign to help get his sauces produced and bottled. His hope? To get his products, Craft Hot Sauces by Chef Loco, into local stores and restaurants for public consumption.
His first entries include a trio of hot sauces with quite different characteristics. There’s Naughty Green Hottie, a verde sauce that features flavors of tomatillo and green onion, balanced by a little kick of jalapeño. All it took was one taste for me to know it’s fresh-tasting and easy on the taste buds, heat-wise. Perfect for chicken or pork dishes.
Spicy Content is made primarily from arbol chiles, and Kennedy describes it as the perfect upgrade to traditional cayenne hot sauces like those sold at your local grocery store. Think a craft version of Frank’s with a bit more heat. It’s also a sauce that could be used on eggs, wings, barbecue or pretty much anything, really.
Masochist Mango marries mango and habenero for a refreshing burst of flavor and a surprising kick on the back of the tongue. This is one that would be perfect for anything from al pastor tacos to seafood, like oysters.
The mystery sauce Kennedy handed me, as you’ll see if you watch the video above, won’t be in regular production, but Kennedy said it could end up being a limited, small-batch release if and when Chef Loco products become a reality. He said only that it is “mostly Carolina Reaper,” and the flavor — and heat — bear him out. I drank close to a shot of the stuff in the video and it took me down.
But Chef Loco needs his Kickstarter to help him out. Any donation to help get local products into production is welcome, of course, but with a pledge of $60 or more, you get a set of all three sauces once they’re bottled and ready to go. If you pledge $100 or more, you’ll get the sauces with a personal touch: a hand-written thank you letter from one of Chef Loco’s kids.
