Sorghum Hot Sauce

Chef Ian Boden of The Shack in Staunton, VA makes this delicious hot sauce. Sorghum is a naturally sweet, and flavorful, syrup made from the sorghum plant.

Sweet sorghum was introduced to the American South in the 1850s, where it quickly grew in popularity among farmers looking for local alternatives to the more expensive sugarcane and beet sugar available at the time. Its mellow and unique sweetness as well as its hearty growth in hot and dry climates made it a longtime staple for subsistence farming communities. Large-scale commercial sweetener production hurried the decline of sorghum as a food crop, but a resurgence is underway for this distinctive, traditional bit of the American South.

The Hot Sauce has a real kick but is balanced nicely by the sweetness.

Try it next time you make hamburgers!  You won’t want to make them again without it!