If You Can Handle the Heat, This Chili Pepper Subscription Is For You

Hot sauce has been the belle of the culinary ball for a few years now, creating high-demand for record-breaking heat that promises to “singe your soul.” So it makes sense there’s a growing interest in the source material: chili peppers.

For those who don’t know their scorpion from their shishito, or who simply don’t have access to uncommon varieties, there’s Homesweet Homegrown’s chili pepper subscription box.

Now available on Kickstarter, the boxes come in either a three-month subscription (delivered this September, October and November during harvest season) or a one-time sampler. The campaign is part of Kickstarter’s Make 100 initiative, challenging creators to offer limited-edition products, so there are only 100 boxes available of each type.

Once a person pledges for a pack of piquant peppers — what do they get?

Every shipment includes six different peppers “covering all levels of the Scoville Scale,” all organically grown in Kutztown, PA, and available in half-pint, full-pint and quart sizes. Not sure what to do with them? Helpful tips — on things like pairing, tasting notes, storage, pickling and saving seeds to grow your own — are included.

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Pennsylvania may not be the first place you think of when you hear “rare chili peppers,” but here are just a few examples of past varieties: Mad Hatter, Carolina Reaper, lemon drop (ají limo), red and yellow bird’s beak (pimenta biquinho), maya habanero and ghost peppers.

The brainchild of Robyn Jasko, Homesweet Homegrown has been behind a variety of successful Kickstarter projects, including the most-backed hot sauce in the crowdfunding site’s history and earlier versions of the pepper subscription.

So that saves us from having to roll out the normal “backer beware” spiel for Kickstarters. But should you order a bevy of unknown peppers, we offer these words of warning: what goes in hot, comes out hot.

Photos via Homesweet Homegrown on Instagram