Jimbo’s hot-sauce line: a matter of good taste

A paling prewinter light was humming down at the Gale Farm Center, its yellowing fade a whisper of the early and deep dark’s encroach, rising like quiet flood water and providing a gentle but still buoyant bounce toward the equinox and season’s change.

The reporter paused, warm, still seated in the car, and took in a silent scene in the storefront of Bender’s Burritos. Well past lunch but still not quite dinner, the eatery’s lighting and wide window framed a uniquely American image, like an updating of Edward Hopper’s 20th-century masterwork “Nighthawks.”

Hopper’s painting of a few later-evening diners sharing a day’s last cup of coffee is as iconic and imitated as the dour farming couple with pitchfork in “American Gothic” and referenced just as widely, and seemed almost superimposed.

In the updated revision, reality’s counterpoint gave the reporter a pause at the bright, hopeful turn, the alienation of the figures in the original replaced with festive activity and the back-and-forth by the personalities inside, that kind of engaging staff that local businesses thrives with.

The pantomime charms, informs. There’s something happening here. I can see it all from the car. Almost. The low-tech stakeout and the idea of covering a developing story entirely from one fixed view has a real appeal, but I’ve never looked good on television and the day is getting dark. Deadlines loom.

A Dandy Dan Rather might have been able to get this story from his makeup chair, but this reporter needs to get out into the field.

The reporter, seeking satiation of both curiosity and stomach, and emboldened by a fleeting sense of superiority, leaves the vehicle and enters Bender’s. In favoring hot and spicy ethnic foods, this reporter-eater has more often than not been disappointed by claims of true Picante that barely measure or, conversely, provide only a tasteless scalding, both coming and going.

“I’ve always loved hot stuff,” Jimbo said, concurring with the writer. Jimbo cooks down at Bender’s and noticed, along with his boss, the high cost of the store-bought sauces they provided at the counter to augment the truly classic Tabasco as well as the love child it had with ketchup, the now-ubiquitous Sriracha.

Jimbo has crafted hot sauces deserving attention, delivering heat and taste in an equal measure without an over-abundance of alchemy. “That’s the easiest to make,” he says of his Hellapeno. “Just jalapenos and garlic.”

“Easy, Jimbo,” his coworker chides with a wry sass, crooked grin and arched eyebrow that probably could not have been seen from the car. A pause. “Oh, yeah — and spices; can’t tell you about the spices,” Jimbo said. Trade secrets now that Jimbo’s popular in-house sauces are making the jump to the retail aisle, all bottled up with barcodes for its entry into the commercial condiment market.

Jimbo is rolling his new labels, his first labels, onto his product’s bottles, standard size for the many other hot sauces you see lining some store shelves, during this casual inauguration. Seconds before, the bottles bore those “Hello, My Name Is …” with a line underneath for your name.

The Jimbo’s sauce names: Hellapeno (“I’m pretty sure people can figure out what that is,” Jimbo said. Chipotle is the mildest. He moved on to the Honey Habanero (“You gotta have that, there,” Jimbo said.)

The reporter thought it was about the buttery burn of the sauce’s pepper tempered by the slight stick of the sweet. It is done so well in Jimbo’s, but the sauce guy was referring to something akin to my craft. “You never know when someone’s gonna come in and be, ‘Are you sure ya spelled that right?’”, Jimbo said, pointing to the proper accent on his newly designed, acquired and applied Habanero label — the accent your humbled correspondent is unable to reproduce for this writing using this common keyboard. It’s possible, for sure, but after decades at this, I really don’t know how. Thank goodness for editors.

Besides, it all fit because since their introduction at Bender’s just a few months ago, Jimbo’s sauces have schooled me every time. They have that balance of vibrant taste and burn for this hot-sauce fan, as well as offering the opportunity for those who do want to take it too far, something true spicy lovers are apt to do.

Jimbo points out my favorite, his Trinidad Scorpion. The name is warning enough. “For a while, I was putting it on everything,” he said. Later conversation clarified he meant not all food eaten, but largely the protein sources on the plate: eggs, beef, fish, fowl and tofu, as well as rice, veggies and such, but this was understood. We reach a deeper understanding when after a pause he says with almost a soldier’s solemn certainty, “You don’t wanna put it on everything.” Johnny Cash had a hit song about it.

Free enterprise costs money. “Labeling and LLC costs, lawyers,” he said, listing the spiced venture’s expenses. “About a grand, easy, and counting.” Bright, small-enough-for-the-bottle-cap holiday bows are placed on the Jimbo’s Hot Sauce display atop the register at the Bender’s place of purchase.

“As far as I know, I’m the only one making hot sauce in Stowe” that’s packaged for commercial distribution, Jimbo said. “But there are a lot of hot sauces.”

His Mom comes in, beaming pride, taking pictures and asking about the product’s launch on a passing trend this reporter is told is called “social media.”

John Wilson is a comedian, singer and former lift attendant at Stowe Mountain Resort. Comment on this article here, or email letters to news@stowereporter.com.